PRODUCTION: Shortfalls & Slippages

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In current Washington pidgin, a "shortfall" is a defense production program that falls short of its goal; "slippage" is the amount it slips behind. By last week mobilization shortfalls added up to a considerable slippage. Items:

¶ Tank production is about three months behind schedule—so far that the U.S. 2nd Armored Division sailed for Germany last month equipped only with old World War II tanks. At Cadillac's new Cleveland plant, many light T-41 Walker Bulldogs are standing useless because of a shortfall in traversing mechanisms. The Army's Detroit arsenal is still the only other U.S. tank producer in full swing, has just begun to produce an improved version of the postwar General Patton tank (plus modernizing several hundred World War II Pershings, mostly for Korea). Principal trouble: the arsenal is used as a research and development center and as a repair depot, in addition to its production duties. World War II experience was that those three functions do not mix well.

¶ Fighter-plane slippage runs from 10% to 25%; medium and heavy bombers are closer to schedule. The military plane production future is cloudy: shortfalls of machine tools presage an almost certain three-to six-month lag in late fall or winter.

¶ Ammunition slippage is 50%.

¶ Military-truck slippage is 40%.

¶ Although output has doubled since the Korean war began, machine tools are in such short supply that the industry will have to use up much of its own output to set new machine-tool producers up in business. Meanwhile, it hacks away at a $1 billion backlog of urgent orders.