We didn't have any of these presses in WWII. We have several of the article's presses still operating today.
Furthermore, all presses mentioned in the article have been surpassed by a 60,000 ton press that opened in Los Angeles, in 2018.
People with agendas will happily feed others narratives about the US not investing in manufacturing anymore, but it isn't true.
US manufacturing output has been steadily increasing since always, with the occasional 1-3 year dip during recessions. However, manufacturing does represent a lower percentage of our GDP with each passing year, despite the absolute value increasing.
>People with agendas will happily feed others narratives about the US not investing in manufacturing anymore, but it isn't true.
It's a matter of perception. Most people don't directly see (or buy) the stuff manufactured in the US these days. Normal people don't buy nuclear power plants, aircraft engines, commercial aircraft, etc., and certainly not military hardware which the US makes a lot of. They do buy clothes and various consumer electronics, and they see "Made in China" (or for some clothes, places like Bangladesh or Vietnam or Cambodia) printed on all those, when 50 years ago all that stuff had "Made in USA" printed on it, or for the nicer consumer electronics 30-40 years ago, "Made in Japan". People still might be getting a CPU for their laptop computer manufactured in the USA, but the chip will probably say "Made in Malaysia" because only the silicon was made in the US, and was then shipped somewhere else for packaging.
>However, manufacturing does represent a lower percentage of our GDP with each passing year, despite the absolute value increasing.
I'd say that's probably a bad sign: what other sectors are increasing? Likely they're things that aren't actually productive, such as healthcare (the value received does not represent the price paid in the US by a long shot, compared to other advanced economies; most of the money goes to insurance companies and waste), legal services, ever-increasing real estate valuations, etc.
> Does the US invest in manufacturing like this anymore?
It might be easy to argue over the exact degree of similiarity, but I'd argue that the US has repeatedly made manufacturing investments since the 1950s. Buried in bills signed into law, you'll find such investments.
Recent examples include the Recovery Act of 2009 or the American CHIPS act of 2022.
However, this might not matter as much now as it did in the past due to nuclear weapons being the primary deterrent in war these days, and the fact that our standing fleet of aircraft, aircraft carriers, nuke subs, tanks, etc... is essentially second to none. Additionally what we do have is highly capable and extremely specialized, in my opinion, leading to not really needing as many (quality over quantity). Take for example, an F35, which doesn't really have an equal in the skies, we have over 630 of them, with the goal of having around 2500. China only has 300 J-20s which are basically a copy of the older F22. Russia only has 22 non-test Su-57s. Would we have a realistic need to build 1000 of them within a year?
Due to many factors, but primarily free trade and globalization, it's unlikely that we ever see that non-automated manufacturing capacity return, though if needed we could probably mobilize the economy via the defense act to force more manufacturing capacity, though it's hard to imagine we would currently need to.
> Does the US invest in manufacturing like this anymore?
No, but that is different from not investing. Today the US invests more in automation and engineering and less in manual labor.
> if there were a war today would the US be able to produce as much as it did in WW2?
It took several years to ramp up to WW2 level production. We would see the same, a couple years of trouble on the fronts while building industry at home, then when the industry is built up massive production.
Historians (amateur so I'm not sure if they are right) tell me Hitler was ready for WW2 first and Italy begged him to not start the war as their industry wasn't ready. However France and Briton saw the war coming and were building their industry and so waiting might have made things worse.
I wonder how history would be different if Hitler had told France and UK to f** off with the WWI reparations stuff, threatening a war if they tried military action to force payment, but then didn't invade anyone and concentrated on developing their economy and becoming a technological and manufacturing power.
Tangentially, if there were a war today would the US be able to produce as much as it did in WW2?