ARMAMENT: Cutback

ARMAMENT Cutback The Army last week announced big cutbacks in tanks and trucks under its program to concentrate defense production among primary suppliers as military stockpiles are built up. The total cuts including earlier ones will amount to about $100 million a month.

¶The Patton M48 medium tank, now being built by Chrysler, General Motors and Ford, will be built by only one of the three. Ford is already scheduled to stop production by year's end; Chrysler and G.M. will submit bids by August on the remaining M-48s to be built, with the loser stopping M48 output next March.

¶The M-47 medium tank, as had been scheduled, will go out of production altogether. Chrysler's output will stop in November, American Locomotive's next spring.

¶Output of air-cooled tank engines, now being supplied by Avco, Continental Motors in Muskegon, Mich., and a Chrysler-operated Government plant at New Orleans, will be concentrated entirely in Continental Motors, original designer of the engines.

¶ G.M. and Reo Motors, which both produce 2½-ton trucks, will bid against each other for the job later this month. The loser will stop production by next January. Studebaker is scheduled to be "phased out" of the program by September.

¶ By a similar bidding procedure, the job of building five-ton cargo trucks, now done by Mack, International Harvester and Diamond T, will be given to only one of the three.

In announcing the cuts, the Army showed how it hopes to preserve broad-base mobilization for any new national emergency. The government plant that is closed down will remain intact, with all machine tools left in place. Private plants may be reconverted to civilian production, but the Army will buy or lease land near some of them, and build warehouses to store and maintain the machine tools until needed again.