Posted on 03/20/2019 10:21:34 AM PDT by RightGeek
President Trump’s visit this week to the Army’s sole surviving tank plant in Lima, Ohio is the first such presidential visit there since George W. Bush stopped by in 2003. President Obama never visited, and the depressed level of military spending during his presidency nearly shut the place down.
Wrongly assuming that Russia had ceased to be a threat to global security, the Obama administration cut the number of Army armored brigades to a record low of nine. Production of upgraded Abrams tanks at the Lima site fell to a single tank per month, and the Army seriously considered mothballing its only facility capable of producing the nation’s premier land warfare weapon.
As if all that were not enough, the Obama administration also killed a badly needed Marine amphibious landing vehicle that would have been built at Lima. The tank plant had been renamed the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in the expectation it would be turning out armored combat systems for both the Army and the Marines, but Obama’s defense team decided the Marines could do without an agile replacement for their slow moving, 40-year-old amphibious vehicles.
President Trump has reversed this litany of non-stop mistakes in managing the nation’s armored vehicle industrial base, increasing funding for upgrades and modifications to the Abrams main battle tank to over $2 billion in the Pentagon’s 2020 budget request. As a result, the number of employees at the Lima plant will grow from a low of about 400 two years ago to over a thousand by the end of next year.
...
Trump saw the Lima plant as a symbol of everything that has gone wrong with U.S. economic policy since the Cold War ended. Hardworking machinists and welders with highly specialized skills were being ignored by Washington policymakers
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
That plant has everything needed to manufacture steel border barriers.
The M1A1 Abrams Tanks are still being built at the Egyptian Tank Plant outside of Cairo, Egypt, 1200 so far.
Guaranteed to be one of the enemy’s top 5 targets
I wouldn’t trust any of them. The tanks being built there and the builders.
Harbor Freight.
Inside track club members only.
Who do they sell them to?
Well,I’m screwed then.We live about 100 miles downwind of Lima.
“The M1A1 Abrams Tanks are still being built at the Egyptian Tank Plant outside of Cairo, Egypt, 1200 so far.”
I still enjoy seeing Lee Ermey talking about the M1A1 tank on Weaponology. “The M1A1 Abrams main battle tank is one of the roughest and ... go out and rip open the enemies’ armor like a can opener with an attitude.=”
what?? I’ve never heard of that. Why are those animals building it there?
Just down the road from the tank plant was a joint called The Beer Barrel, had some of the best pizza in Lima! Early 1980’s...
Since the late 80s.
I worked at the plant that built the transmissions.
Those and the engines were built stateside and shipped.
Not sure how much local content the Egyptians actually manufactured.
I wonder if this plant has any historical connections with the building of Steam Locomotives in Lima?.
It sure does.
The plant was famous for building Shay and “Super Power” locomotives for many years.
Worse. Barky wanted to weaken the US Army and US Marine Corps.
Thank you, I was curious if it was the same plant. Must have been the Lima Locomotive works then. They eventually merged with General Machinery Corporation Locomotive of Hamilton Ohio, and then eventually these merged with the Baldwin Locomotive Works and became the BLH Corporation. Then later BLH started to primarily build construction machinery. There is some interesting history at that plant besides the military history. Bet there are 6 generations of same family iron workers there who have worked in that same plant. :)
After World War One it was thought Weapons builders were the cause of war—So we sank our battleships for peace. After the fall of the USSR we thought the world had changed and there would be no more wars. A guy wrote a book: “The End of History” pointing to One world, a UN controlled would without need for Armies or Navies. Human history was changed. Peace in our time! Too bad Russia and China had not read the book.
I was a good faith effort I guess.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.