Production Costs for WWII Equipment

[Furious]

There are such things.

[NJMAW]

Thanks MrPluto and others for the info.  I think it would be interesting to make a one stop webpage on the production cost of World War II equipment.


I know that the German's slave laborers sabotaged some of the v2 rockets.  The History Channel had a show a few weeks back on that.

Tonight the History Channel is doing a show on America's WWII soldiers firearms and the following show is about the Japanese horrible soldiers firearms.

I am not sure the Germans used slave labor before Poland was invaded so 109's etc had to cost something to build.  I am sure the people who built them had families to support.

Interesting Spit cost 5000 pounds!  Compared to the mustangs and Thunderbolts or even the p40 thats dirt cheap!




http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/gustin_military/strength.html

[NJMAW]

Originally posted by TimRas
http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t82.htm

WOW TimRas that is great!

Now I need other countries!  But this is great though!

[wklink]

That's part of the reason the P-47 and P-38 were phased out of service rather quickly after WW2.  It was simply cheaper to build/maintain P-51's over the more expensive P-47s and P-38s.

I came back to bite them in the butt in the Korean War.  The US had to field P-51's in a ground attack role, a role it was never really designed for.  I am sure may good pilots lost their lives due to a radiator shot from rifle fire.  P-38s and P-47s would have survived this kind of fire more often.

Curiously the F4U was kept in service by the Navy (barely stayed alive) and it became one of the premier ground attack aircraft of the Korean War.  Similar to the P-47 in a lot of respects, radial engine, could hold a lot of weapons and very durable.  I am sure a lot of Navy pilots were glad the F4U wasn't phased out of service as quickly as the P-47 was.

[Raptor]

German tanks were of very high quality compared to most others (if not all).

Those tanks were of such high quality that some broke down after driving 100 yards off production line;)  Yes they had ALOT better armor and artilary, but not nessisarily more reliable.

[wetrat]

Originally posted by MRPLUTO
Curval,

Actually the Nazis did a very accurate job of calculating the cost of slave labor.  They figured out just how much it would take to keep people barely alive.  They even calculated the value of the corpse:  gold teeth, for example.  Pretty sick.

MRPLUTO

You can't say they weren't efficient.

[Montezuma]

Originally posted by wetrat
You can't say they weren't efficient.

Or uniquely sick.

[NJMAW]

might explain why the japanese had some crappy firearms.  Slave morale!   j/k

[teevin]

Originally posted by NJMAW
I have been wondering how mich did planes tanks and weapons in general cost to produce per copy?

I know that a P38J ran about 90k+ and a P51D was over 50K.  

Anyone have a webpage or any idea how much these things cost?

They cost enough and turned enough profit to justify a continued War;)

[Shiva]

Originally posted by scJazz
Not really possible since the interrogation system for IFF (Identify Friend Foe) is located in the launch vehicle not the weapon system itself.   ...    As for putting an interrogation system inside the weapon itself wouldn't work. It would be obvious to Freshman Electrical Engineer student what this bit of stuff is and he would yank it out.

For passive-homing and semi-active homing missiles, you're right; the circuitry for an active interrogation system would be readily identifiable. However, if properly designed, it would be difficult to remove the circuitry without disabling the seeker head.

With active-homing missiles, however, that problem doesn't exist; an IFF interrogation could be built into the circuitry of the seeker head, and it would be undetectable except in actual use, and impossible to remove.

[MRPLUTO]

Angus reports that a Spitfire cost 5,000 pounds in 1940-41.  Anyone know the exchange rate for the pound/dollar then?  My guess is somewhere between $3 and $5 to one pound.

MRPLUTO

Found the answer more easily than I thought:

In 1934 the pound hit a high against the dollar at over $5 a pound.  During the 40's it remained constant at about $4/pound.


Click here for the source of this info.

[NJMAW]

Originally posted by teevin
They cost enough and turned enough profit to justify a continued War;)

LOL I guess the Germans turned a profit before operation Barbarossa too. lol:lol