Factories and Plant in World War II (HMSO Histories of World War II - Civil) by Hornby William

Author:Hornby, William [Hornby, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HMSO - 232 Celsius
Published: 2014-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

(ii)

Expansion 1936-40

In the production of aircraft, more than in any other sector of war industry, the programme of factory construction closely reflected the plans for the expansion of production. This was true not merely in 1936 but at several later stages of expansion. There were two main reasons for this. The capacity available even in 1936 was a good deal less than was required to meet the demand and this deficiency was generally measured in terms of the factories required for the assembly of the additional number of aircraft. In consequence, a large, and up to 1940, a comparatively homogeneous factory programme, was the essential basis for the expansion of aircraft production. There were some dangers in this tendency to express production programmes in terms of aircraft factories. For, during rearmament and even more so later, the aircraft factories became, to a much larger extent assembly factories and manufactured far less of the complete aircraft than before. During the course of the war, aircraft production made increasing use of thousands of firms of all types and sizes. For most of these firms the existing factory buildings sufficed, for others, additional factory accommodation often on a relatively small scale was provided. To measure the production effort in terms of aircraft factories alone, was to underestimate the great importance of subcontractors and specialised component factories of many kinds.

The second reason is rather complicated. Throughout the rearmament period and indeed throughout the war it was possible and indeed necessary to make plans in terms of the quantity of aircraft required and of the list of aircraft factories from which, in different quantities and types, these aircraft were to be delivered. It did of course become increasingly necessary to plan with great care the large, complex, and widespread capacity supplying these aircraft factories with all manner of products both for new aircraft and for repairs—fabricated metal,components, engines and even major airframe assemblies. As early as 1936, new factories had to be built for the manufacture of engines and by 1938 new factories were under construction for propellers, light alloy materials and components. By the oeak of war production, government expenditure on new factories for engines was no less than for aircraft assembly; expenditure on factories for light alloy material and intermediate products was not much less. In addition, new factories had been provided for almost every major aircraft component and equipment, including propellers, radio and radar, instruments, undercarriages, guns and turrets. The production programme became complex in other ways; the percentage of spares of all kinds that had to be provided was greatly increased, the demands for the repair of aircraft increased rapidly after 1940. Despite these changes and although from the end of 1938 the factory programme had to be accepted as highly complex, the central aim remained the production of an increasing quantity of new aircraft. In consequence, the possibility of achieving further expansion in the output of new aircraft still tended to be equated with changes in the programme of factory

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