SIC 3795 Tanks and Tank Components
SIC 3795
This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing complete tanks, specialized components for tanks, and self-propelled weapons. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing military vehicles, except tanks and self propelled weapons, are classified in SIC 3710: Motor Vehicles and Motor Vehicle Equipment, and those manufacturing tank engines are classified in SIC 3510: International Combustion Engines, Not Elsewhere Classified.
336992
Military Armored Vehicle, Tank, and Tank Component Manufacturing
With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, U.S. production of heavyweight tanks was reduced to almost nothing. However, in the mid-2000s the U.S. military carried a surplus of tanks and armored vehicles, which remained from the rapid production rates of approximately 900 new tanks that were rolled out annually during the late 1980s. Also affecting the tank industry was a military policy shift toward lighter, faster wheeled armored vehicles. Nonetheless, main tanks played an important role in the U.S. military action in Iraq during the first half of the 2000s, namely the M1A2 Abrams tank and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, causing military experts to rethink the future role of the heavyweight duty tank in modern warfare. Although few new tanks were being built, contractors were engaged in building wheeled armored vehicles and upgrading existing main tanks and armored vehicles.
The tank manufacturing and component industry has relied mostly on government procurement trends to fund both the development and production of military armor. With few exceptions, defense manufacturers are privately held. Most of the contracts issued by the U.S. Department of Defense are fixed-price contracts that cover both the research/development and production of armored vehicles. These contracts have been problematic for manufacturers because they require considerable investment during the development stage. Traditionally, even though many of these contracts are multi-year and provide compensation if cancelled, such payments usually do not cover the price of new machinery and plants. As a result, there has been a consolidation of players in the defense industry, with many manufacturers having to shed facilities and workers to remain competitive in an uncertain defense-spending environment.
Plants that manufacture tanks and tank components vary between those that are contractor owned and others that are government owned and contractor operated. In the latter case, a plant may close but the facilities remain for possible future mobilization. It is extremely expensive, however, to mothball such facilities and then reopen them.
The only tank production plant still active in the United States during the mid-2000s was the General Dynamics facility in Lima, Ohio, operated by the company's Land Systems Division. General Dynamics closed its other tank facility in Sterling Heights, Michigan, in December 1996. By the time the Detroit facility closed, manufacturing employment there had shrunk to fewer than 100 workers, from a high of about 2,500 a decade earlier. The Lima plant was capable of assembling completed tanks, as well as producing tank components. While the Lima plant was responsible for the assembly of the M1A1 and M1A2 tanks, it relied on countless subcontractors across the United States to supply it with key components in the tank assembly process. The U.S. Army also contracts with numerous companies to provide upgrades to existing land systems.
The tank, a British invention from World War I, had the mission of advancing on the static German defense lines in northern France. It was developed to flatten thick coils of barbed wire, fend off machine-gun fire, and to rumble over previously inviolable trenches. In short, the tank was to do what great waves of infantrymen had failed to do—break the stalemate of trench warfare.
The tank performed as required during World War I, but was viewed by most strategists as merely a precursor to infantry attack. That sentiment was ultimately put to rest by the German blitzkrieg into Poland in September of 1939, when a Polish brigade of cavalry vainly attacked an onrushing wedge of German tanks.
In June of 1920, the U.S. National Defense Act was passed into law. This act disbanded the army's tank corps, a unit created three years previously, and placed all tanks under the command of the infantry branch. Further, the act stipulated that no new branch of the army, such as a revived tank corps, could be created without congressional approval. This decision was based on the army's conclusion that the tank corps had failed to provide either a doctrine or a justification for itself as an independent arm of the American war effort.
The early perception was that the tank-based armies of the twentieth century were slower then the foot soldier's marching rate of a century before. This speculation concerning tank warfare inhibited its role as a support weapon for the infantry for years.
Following World War I, the most plausible threat to U.S. security was a naval war in the Pacific against Japan. In the following decade, Congress reduced the military budget. Senior officers cut costs by halting production and maintenance of equipment. Inevitably, tanks suffered from this policy, and the U.S. Army had no large tank formations during this inter-war period.
The beginning of the mechanization of the U.S. Army began in 1928 after Secretary of War Dwight D. Davies observed the British Army's Experimental Mechanical Armed Force. In response, the United States developed the Christie, complete with a modern suspension system and capable of speeds approaching 40 miles per hour. It was during this period that the war department recognized that the development of future armies depended on the proliferation of a mechanized force. The tank was, for the first time, perceived as an offensive power in its own right.
In the spring of 1939, America's main battle tanks were still the M1917 and the Mark VIII of World War I vintage. In the previous several years the army had produced several hundred tanks, the majority being experimental models of light tanks armored with only machine guns. Although some effort had been made to keep the United States abreast of mechanized warfare, until the outbreak of World War II the American experience of armor hardly existed.
Following the collapse of France in June of 1940, Congress passed a munitions program to provide material for an army of 1.2 million. Supplemental defense appropriations acts authorized...
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