Lima Army Tank Plant (Joint Systems Manufacturing Center)

Early in World War II, the US Army contracted with the Ohio Steel Foundry Company to build a factory to produce steel gun tubes. Construction work began in May 1942; however, advances in manufacturing technology soon mooted the project. The factory was repurposed as a tank depot in September 1942 and turned over to United Motors Service, a GMC subsidiary, two months later (as a government-owned, contractor-operated, or GOCO, plant). During the war, over one hundred thousand vehicles passed through the Lima depot, one of only three in the country. These vehicles were tested, cleaned, finished, modified, updated, loaded with equipment, and packed for shipment. Radios were installed, pioneer tools were added, and sensitive areas were waterproofed. Additionally, the Lima facility built “Duplex Drive” tanks—M4 Shermans converted to amphibious use for the D-Day invasion. (Twenty-nine such tanks were used on June 6th, 1944, but, faced with ocean swells six times higher than expected, only two reached the Normandy beaches.)

After the war, the depot was quickly converted into a storage facility for returning demobilized vehicles known as the Lima Ordnance Depot. The Korean Conflict caused a short return of the old depot to active use upgrading older equipment. However, after 1959, it sat largely unused by the Army; the depot was leased commercially and used by the Ohio National Guard, the Army Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve, and the General Services Administration. In the mid-1970s, the facility, now known as the Lima Army Modification Center (LAMC), was reactivated to process thousands of M880 trucks.

The Army had been developing a plan for a new main battle tank for several years when it selected the Chrysler prototype—later known as the M1 Abrams—in 1976. This tank was the world’s best and an exemplar of the modern, high-tech “supertank.” In August of that year, the LAMC, eventually rechristened the Lima Army Tank Plant, was chosen to build the first Abrams tanks. It was turned over to the Chrysler Corporation as a GOCO facility and received a forty-million-dollar upgrade, including new machinery and equipment, a large addition to the central building, and a test track with inclines and water pits. The first Abrams was completed in Lima in February 1980, and, between that year and 1996, the plant manufactured over ten thousand M1, M1A1, and M1A2 tanks. In 1982, General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) bought Chrysler Defense, Inc. (a Chrysler subsidiary) and took control of the Lima facility; it still operates the plant today.

After 1996, use of the facility shifted completely to upgrading and retrofitting older models—what Congress called “tank recapitalization.” The Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant produced its last tank in 1991 and closed for good in 1996, leaving the Lima facility as the only tank plant in the country. It continued to be used and modernized. Today, the Lima plant has some of the world’s most advanced machining and testing equipment spread across 1.6 million square feet in forty-seven buildings on 370 acres.

In the early and mid-2000s, the Lima plant was considered for the manufacture of the Marine Corps’ new amphibious Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, and the MK-4 naval gun system. It also continued its recapitalization work, built Wolverine Heavy Assault Bridges, and was instrumental in the development of the anti-Improvised Explosive Device “Double-V” hull for the Stryker armored vehicle. In 2004, the tank plant was officially renamed the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center (JSMC) to recognize the planned multi-branch use of the facility. The year prior, President George W. Bush visited the plant and gave a speech to workers there, crediting their superior craftsmanship for success in Operation Iraqi Freedom and discussing his economic stimulus and job creation plans. Within a few years, however, the JSMC was in trouble. By 2012, the EFV and FCS projects had been cancelled and the recapitalization program was in question; faced with defense spending cuts, senior Army officials proposed closing the facility for three years. Lima officials and community leaders and representatives of the plant’s 880 subcontractors banded together with Ohio lawmakers to oppose the move, and, while production dropped to as low as one tank per month and employment to under five hundred, the plant was kept open for several more years. As of 2019, large spending increases under the past several National Defense Authorization Acts put the JSMC on track for upgrading as many as thirty-four tanks per month and employing nearly one thousand workers. On March 20th, 2019, President Donald J. Trump spoke at the plant. He praised its employees and stressed America’s economic might and strong defense, as well as credited his administration for saving the facility.

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President Gives Iraq Update to Workers of Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio, The White House: President George W. Bush. April 24th 2003. Accessed August 5th 2020. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030424-6.html.

Remarks by President Trump at Lima Army Tank Plant, The White House. March 20th 2019. Accessed August 5th 2020. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-lima-army-tank-plant/.

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Wissing, Doug. The Unstoppable Abrams. The American Legion Magazine. August 2013. pp. 20 - 26. Lima Ohio. July 23rd 2013. Accessed August 5th 2020. http://www.cityhall.lima.oh.us/DocumentCenter/View/973/7-23-2013_LimaTankPlant_AmericanLegion?bidId=.