ALJ Chpt 77

frameless|right|300px|link=A Long Journey
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==Chapter 77 - A Long Journey==
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28 June 2787
Mackolla (Federated Suns)
Mackolla Special Metals had been in operation for a year now, Gerald Mitchell had purchased all the needed machinery to manufacture just about anything made out of metal ore and even to refine the raw ore into metal blanks from the start. They had both a small 200 person group that worked on the small Endo Steel factory but a much larger 4,500 person group that worked the surface factory. Here regular steel, iron, bronze and other common metals were manufactured for the civilian market here on Mackolla, but also several armor types were starting to reach their stride after starts and stops as they figured out how to fine tune their production methods. This had been helped as the personnel from the various other companies had started arriving and assisted them in that task.
Mackolla Special Metals
-Endo Steel - One Line - 10 tons per month
-Standard Armor Plate - 1,500 tons per month, 500 tons set aside
-Ferro Fibrous Armor - 800 tons per month, 200 tons set aside
-Ferro Aluminum Armor - 500 tons per month, 100 tons set aside
-Improved Ferro Aluminum - 300 tons per month, 100 tons set aside
-Ferro Carbide Armor - 50 tons per month
Gerald Mitchell felt they were now to the point of being able to supply outside organizations, starting with the AFFS and he wasted no time in sending the message out offering them replacement armor. He already had several months of production stockpiled and with the war that had been looming in the near distance now raging across the Inner Sphere, it was a sellers market now and he wanted to cash in while he could. Plus, he could always use the cash to purchase more manufacturing equipment to increase his production even further since Trimble Precision Machinery would be tied up with orders for several years at least and he needed them focused on their current task. He was not going to sell his entire stockpile nor pledge his entire production runs to any AFFS contract. But he also knew that for 200 Million he could purchase the equipment needed to double his production numbers and he planned to sell just enough to get there.
Current Stockpile
-Endo Steel - 130 tons
-Standard Armor Plate - 6,500 tons - sell 5,000 tons
-Ferro Fibrous Armor - 3,200 tons - sell 2,500 tons
-Ferro Aluminum Armor - 2,000 tons - sell 1,000 tons
-Improved Ferro Aluminum - 1,500 tons - sell 1,000 tons
-Ferro Carbide Armor - 300 tons
Colonel Irma Gonzalez had made a visit after he had announced his plans and dropped a big load of crap all over his plans to double all his production ability across the board. Pointing out that he was not looking closely at what the AFFS was fielding, Standard Armor and Ferro Fibrous, yes, but very few of their units used Ferro Aluminum Armor, Improved Ferro Aluminum or even Ferro Carbide. She had informed him that he should triple or even quadruple his output of Standard Armor Plate and double or triple his Ferro Fibrous Armor production. Those are the types he should be selling to the AFFS. She had then told him that getting the ammunition factory running and even putting the extra money into expanding its production capability is where the money would come from.
"You served in the SLDF, I am told in the Infantry. But even then, you should know that heavy fighting eats thru ammunition lightning fast. The AFFS is possibly burning thru thousands of tons of ammunition a day across the front. That is where the real money will come from. I am told currently you have no idea what the ammunition production rate will even be. That needs to change quickly sir, that should be the highest priority. During the Amaris War, the SLDF was ordering ammunition by the MILLION tons per month and we still had serious shortages. Take a Battalion of Archer Battlemechs, the entire Battalion goes into battle with 144 tons of ammunition for their LRM-20, in a heavy fight, that is exhausted in roughly four minutes of fighting. A ton of LRM ammunition is roughly 30,000....rough math that four minutes saw over 4 million go down range. A ton of SRMs cost almost as much. 
My training is purely logistics based outside of basic training. I am getting a crash course on not having the Star League paying for everything under the sun. Our combat forces could consume a thousand tons of ammunition in a single days fighting. Quite likely even more than that and the AFFS is much larger than we are. Think about that, take a hard look at what the AFFS primary weapons are and feed that with ammunition. That is your real money maker right there. Replacement armor, sure it will sell and it is much safer to make, but current standard armor production is only worth about 180 million for an entire year.....you take and get your LRM production up to 500 tons a day, now your talking about 180,000 tons per year for roughly a little over 5 BILLION and the AFFS will buy that and not even think about it, they cannot afford not too. You want you Metal factory to make some bucks, have them make Gauss ammo, its a simple metal ball, but it goes for roughly 20,000 per ton, you would have to get with some engineers but I bet they could churn out a thousand tons a day pretty easily, that is roughly 7 BILLION right there and it is safe to make. Ammunition is where you need to be looking sir, everything else is nice and will sell, but ammunition will sell like there is no tomorrow for some serious money, especially when a war is on." Colonel Gonzalez had said
He had never given it a thought, but she had laid it our so easily that he felt like an idiot for not even thinking in that direction, but he was now and he had a new assignment for his staff of researchers.
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