Tooling up for 44-54?

Fulcrum of mass production, and therefore of the war effort, is the machine-tool industry which "makes the machines that make the machinery." Just how many lathes, grinders and milling machines have joined the war production lines is a military secret, but last week the National Machine Tool Builders' Association released some impressive figures.

Production increased from a mere three times normal output in 1940 ($450,000,000) to $775,000,000 in 1941. This year the industry will turn out tools worth $1,500,000,000--thus doing the work of ten normal years in one.

Significant fact: most of the weapons being used today were made six months ago, the plants which made them went into operation back in 1941, the machine tools were ordered late in 1940. Which means that machine tools made this year will produce weapons which will not go into action until late 1943 or 1944. If the war should end about that time, that ten-year output of tools, put to work on postwar civilian goods, may leave the machine-toolers with little to do till 1954.

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