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Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

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Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#271

Post by bluGill »

ywvcbk wrote: post #259
zmgsabst wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artillery and particularly guided artillery like Excaliber rounds are highly effective at resisting landings. In the most recent US wargame, China succeeded in occupying parts of Taiwan which would make artillery even more important — as attacks from the mountain regions towards Chinese occupation would keep them from establishing a secure foothold.

War games can be very deceptive though. Back in 2019/20, 2 separate studies ( Polish and US) expected that it would only take Russia 4-5 days to get to Warsaw with Polish units sent to the border suffering 60-80% casualties. To be fair NATO wasn’t taking really taking defense that seriously back and maybe they had a point, although considering what happened in Ukraine that seem like a very unlikely outcome (unless Br…

The purpose of wargames is to find holes in your defense and the shore them up. If your war game doesn't find holes you are probably doing it wrong. In the real world your enemy doesn't have spies everywhere, but in a war game you should give them spies everywhere just because you won't know where those spies are and so everything could be compromised.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#272

Post by bluGill »

Spooky23 wrote: post #180
hintymad wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious why the US does not think this is a big problem. I mean, look at the US 80 years ago. The US easily out produced the Axis. We could produce faster and cheaper. There's really no excuse that the cost of making canon shells is 10x higher than Russia. Isn't being able to manufacturing cheaply the signature of a highly developed society? Besides, expertise is not just volumes of blueprints, right? We can only kee…

You adapt. Ukraine is emptying the US armories to kill Russians at scale. You get smarter/more accurate with the constrained supply of shells, adopt drones etc. In the 80s, expensive Maverick missiles were the primary airborne tank killer. Now the Ukrainians are dropping mortars into tank hatches from cheap drones.

> Ukraine is emptying the US armories to kill Russians at scale.

Not really. Most of what Ukraine is getting is things that were on the list to destroy because they are end of life anyway.

Of course the important lesson to take here is that the US doesn't have enough missile defense systems in storage.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#273

Post by allturtles »

joshuacc wrote: post #116
allturtles wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find this explanation satisfying. If the Jones Act of 1920 is at fault, how do we explain the timeline? The U.S. was a ship-building powerhouse at least through the 50s, if not through the 70s. Why was there a multi-generation lag between the Jones Act and its effects?

This article covers a lot of the history. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-cant-the-us-build-ships Basically the US wasn’t great at shipbuilding post civil war due to high costs. WWII was an existential threat so cost was no object, and we coasted on that capacity for a long time.

Thanks for the link. That article doesn't really support the GP's contention that the Jones Act is the root cause of the U.S.' shipbuilding failures.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#274

Post by bluGill »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #198
hintymad wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have prioritized high wages for workers in the US I'm not sure if this is the dominating factor. Russia fired around 10,000 shells a day, and each costs about $1000. So for a year, Russia would have fired 3.65M shells that cost $3.6B. Let's say we need 100 workers to produce these shells. Then, he wage of the workers would cost merely $10M a year, if each one earns $100K a year. $10M over 3.65M shells, and that'…

Are you kidding? Everything is outsourced because wages are high in the US. I can't believe I have to spell out such basic and obvious economic facts to presumably intelligent people. >What the US lost was not advantage of labor cost, but the economy of scale. We've lost a lot of things but the reason things are expensive here is NOT that we didn't have economies of scale. That issue came much later. You get to have…

If you check the real numbers, not everything is outsourced. There is still very significant manufacturing in the US - and the number is increasing. China is perhaps increasing faster, but that doesn't mean the US isn't doing well.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#275

Post by bluGill »

fsckboy wrote: post #210
jahewson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it that the US ship builders aren't competent Yes, they are woefully uncompetitive. They produce single-digit numbers of commercial oceangoing ships annually, at 2-4x the cost of elsewhere. It’s an industry on life support.

> woefully uncompetitive. They produce single-digit numbers of commercial oceangoing ships annually, at 2-4x the cost of elsewhere unions and pro union legislation makes US shipbuilding uncompetitive. it also ruins US merchant marine. We could encourage it, but the world market is fairly competitive so we don't really need to, except for defense.

Other countries have unions too. I don't know the situation in Finland, but they are surrounded by countries that have even stronger union and union laws that the US. (and some of those countries also have ship building)

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#276

Post by impossiblefork »

bluGill wrote: post #264
impossiblefork wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really make sense for Finnish shipyards to share knowledge of icebreaking when there the released text above discusses things such as the US and Canada selling icebreakers to third parties? It seems more like a way taking over the industry from the Finns. Obviously there may be specifics of the deal that makes it acceptable, but the vague text I see seems just terrible for the Finns. I suppose it might be acc…

It is in US/Canada's interest to have a shipyard in North America building ice breakers. Even though Finland is a NATO member, if something happens to Finland NATO may need some ship yards elsewhere to build more ice breakers (running 24x7 shifts!) while liberating Finland. Remember NATO (and military in general) needs to plan for all worst cases not likely cases. The above does not mean the shipyards need to be US/C…

Yes, but the yard is Canadian owned. I suppose it was Russian-owned before.

But the combination of foreign ownership together with exporting know-how, this combination is kind of how one loses an industry to some other country; and then upon that there's that you can't even sell to the country that owns the company because of protectionism on their part.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#277

Post by zmgsabst »

ywvcbk wrote: post #259
zmgsabst wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artillery and particularly guided artillery like Excaliber rounds are highly effective at resisting landings. In the most recent US wargame, China succeeded in occupying parts of Taiwan which would make artillery even more important — as attacks from the mountain regions towards Chinese occupation would keep them from establishing a secure foothold.

War games can be very deceptive though. Back in 2019/20, 2 separate studies ( Polish and US) expected that it would only take Russia 4-5 days to get to Warsaw with Polish units sent to the border suffering 60-80% casualties. To be fair NATO wasn’t taking really taking defense that seriously back and maybe they had a point, although considering what happened in Ukraine that seem like a very unlikely outcome (unless Br…

Russia didn’t overrun Ukraine quickly because they voluntarily withdrew for peace talks.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#278

Post by carlosjobim »

dudefeliciano wrote: post #246
EasyMark wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always heard people say nationalism is a good thing and globalism is the solution, yet they never have an answer to what do you do when China controls every supply chain and then decides to bulldoze Taiwan and we then go to war with them? All the market advantages and globalism in the world goes out the window and you can't do much more than capitulate to a bully.

Who ever said that nationalism is a good thing, apart from nationalists? “Nationalism is an infantile disease, it’s the measles of mankind.” -Albert Einstein

The globalists, when it's time to go to war again. The same people who said you are a racist and fascist if you wave the flag have already done about face and now say it's the duty of young men and women to die for their country.

"Everybody for themselves, we're individuals" when there's peace and "We're all in this together, you've got to die for your country" when their wealth is threatened.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#279

Post by FredPret »

aylmao wrote: post #243
FredPret wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China in 1990 was a poverty-stricken, hungry backwater, following a philosophy that just bankrupted their richer big brother. Ideological change was needed. By contrast, the US system of capitalism + democracy is not only blowing the rest of the world out of the water, it has shown itself to be remarkably resilient and responsive to change. China has thus far prospered by being great at manufacturing. Can they innova…

I'm not saying the USA should stop being a democracy, or even being capitalist, like China didn't change its system of government in 1990. What I'm saying is its fundamental beliefs, goals derived from those beliefs, and systems designed around those goals —even within the same political and economic system that currently exists— could use an update. Let me put it this way. Everyone has heard of Maoism [1] of course.…

These are interesting points. It’s worth noting that in the 90’s, the US won the cold war, and also the same generation has been in charge since then. Why change things?

The next crop of leaders will likely be much younger, and you’ll see new ideas.

Re: Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships

#280

Post by stackskipton »

45HCPW wrote: post #258
stackskipton wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there could be some discussion of modify the Jones Act to allow non US made ships to be use in Merchant Fleet. However, key provision of Jones Act around only US flagged ships may transport two US ports. If you eliminate that, forget it, US Merchant Marine fleet will go poof . Since it's a global industry, workers from other countries are obviously much cheaper than any US salaries.

The US merchant fleet has already gone poof. According to Wikipedia "As of 31 December 2016, the United States merchant fleet had 175 privately owned, oceangoing, self-propelled vessels of 1,000 gross register tons and above that carry cargo from port to port. " The list is likely even shorter today.

Jones Act is what is keeping that tiny fleet alive on life support. It would likely approach ZERO outside the Great Lakes without the act.

Jones Act is not what killed the US Merchant Marine Fleet. Globalization is what killed it.

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