Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

construction-physics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 328 posts

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

#291

Post by impossiblefork »

ca_tech wrote: post #287
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 a case of economic security. US National Security Advisor Daleep Singh spoke about this on the Odd Lots podcast a month ago. The goal is an integrated supply chain across all three countries, and an end result of marketing the ice breaker capacity to other allies. https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/odd-lots/how-the-white-... Transcript Notes at 00:17:51

Yes, he says 'What do they get. Well, in exchange, we agree to integrate our ice breaking supply chains so that they are interoperable at every stage of production', but that doesn't actually benefit Finland

Furthermore, suppose that it actually was something substantial, some kind of deal that NATO icebreakers are to be made by the US, Canada or Finland, then you screw the Aker group in Norway, who also make icebreakers.

The way I see it they expect that since the Canadians have been able to nab the shipyard after the disorder caused by the sanctions they can transfer all the knowledge from the Finns and make the icebreakers themselves, seizing appealing high-tech shipbuilding niche from the Finns, and they offer nothing in return but bullshit.

An integrated supply chain, sure, maybe that can save money, but once you've transferred your knowledge you no longer have your niche.

I think this is very obvious in the talk because of the vagueness in what is offered to the Finns; and my interpretation is that nothing meaningful is offered to the Finns and the the US is just expecting to seize this niche.

I don't think the 'there'll be enough for all of us' talk is plausible either. Surely, there might be an expansion demand, but there's really only the Baltic and the polar area that matters, and maybe US and Canada together do need 40 or so icebreakers to keep the North-West Passage safe and open in case it is to become a major trade route, but they'll last basically for ever, and my understanding is that the US is talking about only nine or so.

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

#292

Post by leshow »

daveguy wrote: post #214
leshow wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The decline in quality of out Boeing has coincided with a collapse of the regulatory framework that kept profit extraction limited since the 70's and 80's. Now you've got the worst of both worlds, where the industry is protected and subsidized, production gets off-shored and outsourced anyway while massive profits flow into shareholders pockets in the form of stock buybacks. It's funny that you look at this and blame…

When did the regulatory framework collapse? 90s? Was there a specific bill?

Take a person with a full head of hair and remove one hair, are they bald? Remove another one, bald? Clearly not, but if you keep removing hairs at some point you have a head we consider bald. Deregulation has been working like that. It's hard to point to one discrete event.

In any case, the process really got going under Jimmy Carter. If we're talking about airlines, I guess you could point to the Airline Deregulation Act. The airline industry had been built in the first place by what people in this thread would call "protectionist" policies.

Stock buybacks are a big part of the story as well. These were illegal market manipulation I think from the Great Depression until the 80's under Reagan.

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

#293

Post by dgroshev »

skinkestek wrote: post #286
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

drone is an incredibly broad category and military ones have really good reasons for sometimes costing a ton more. the biggest reason is the need to deal with adversarial input. dealing with GPS spoofing, properly encrypted and jamming resistant spoofing, not leaking the location of the operator, etc all are really complicated requirements that need expensive mitigation (and worse, prevent you from using commercial c…

> drone is an incredibly broad category and military ones have really good reasons for sometimes costing a ton more. After following the development of drones in Ukraine since 2022 and also listening to people familiar with the US army, I also think there are some not so good ones, one particular nasty one being scope creep. Recently heard about a US effort to create home built expendable drones for use at the squad…

Note that FPV drones in Ukraine are not squad-level, there are separate drone units (at the very least 2 operators, at least 1 explosives guy because arming drones with makeshift explosives is not trivial and super risky, plus cover). Plus they are supplied literally on the back of a minivan in cardboard boxes because they only need to survive one way trip over a couple hundred km, the US needs to supply their units half a globe away.

US army drones are squad-level, have proper safing/arming, transportable, and shelf-stable. It's not scope creep, it's a very different doctrine and circumstances.

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

#294

Post by hintymad »

bluGill wrote: post #266
hintymad wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We use mostly guided munitions dropped from planes and rockets fired from the ground, whereas Russian doctrine has always focused on artillery. Thanks for the specifics. I don't know about guided munitions, but I'd imagine a million dollar a rocket will be quite expensive for a prolonged war. Also, the US debuted a killer zone, Rogue 1, a few months ago, and it cost about $94K. $94K! I'm sure the drone is more adva…

A million dollar rocket is expensive, but it hits exactly where you want it and so you need far less of them. Artillery is a lot cheaper but also much harder to get exactly where you want it and so you end up using far more of it. Note that Russia and the US have both guided misstles and artillery. Both have value in different situations. They both have their reasons for their preference, but that is more about how t…

Ah, I was actually thinking about how iron dome vs Hamas rockets. Iron dome was super effective, yet a million a pop to shoot down a rocket that costs a few thousand dollars at most may quickly bankrupt a country. That said, maybe it's just one aspect of the war while in grand scheme of things highly effective guided missiles will win the war.

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

#295

Post by klooney »

bluGill wrote: post #267
hintymad wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because maintaining a military at adequate readiness doesn't seem to be at the top of the list. I think Yamamoto Isoroku gave the answer to this challenge: just keep a booming manufacturing industry. When he was trying to convince the Japanese government not to have a war with the US, he said that he saw so many chimneys when flying over Philadelphia. All those factories would turn into a giant war machine if a war…

> Setting up a shop from scratch with little expertise and no supply chain to back it up? Well, such replacement would then cost a few thousand dollars and we would be screwed. You were correct up to here. However the US has a lot of manufacturing and so is not setting things up from scratch. Most of our manufacturing is automated these days and so it doesn't appear in many of the reports people care about, but the t…

We have a high dollar value of manufactured products, but volume is way down, and the supply chain is ragged or totally broken. If your factories are warehouses where you assemble Chinese feedstock with German tools, how much local expertise do you have, or is it just LEGO kit stuff for tariff evasion?

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

#296

Post by hintymad »

bluGill wrote: post #267
hintymad wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because maintaining a military at adequate readiness doesn't seem to be at the top of the list. I think Yamamoto Isoroku gave the answer to this challenge: just keep a booming manufacturing industry. When he was trying to convince the Japanese government not to have a war with the US, he said that he saw so many chimneys when flying over Philadelphia. All those factories would turn into a giant war machine if a war…

> Setting up a shop from scratch with little expertise and no supply chain to back it up? Well, such replacement would then cost a few thousand dollars and we would be screwed. You were correct up to here. However the US has a lot of manufacturing and so is not setting things up from scratch. Most of our manufacturing is automated these days and so it doesn't appear in many of the reports people care about, but the t…

> You were correct up to here. However the US has a lot of manufacturing and so is not setting things up from scratch

This is music to my ears. I read somewhere that the average age of the technicians in the US shipyards are well over 55 years old, hence I worry that we are losing key talents. There was also a NYT article more than 10 years ago that analyzes why the US can't make Kindle even if we want. Also, when people were outraged that the air force spent more than $20K per toilet more than 10 years ago, I read somewhere that it was because our law mandated that certain percentage of the components have to come from domestic manufacturing. Unfortunately the air force had a hard time finding such components, so they chose toilet. In order to do this, they had to find a factory in the US, which caused really high unit price. And then a recent article explained why it was so expensive to replace components on weapons: usually these components are custom-made. It would be cheap if we had a vast supply chain domestically, as it would be inexpensive to set up a custom mold or tooling chain for a few such component as the cost can be amortized over millions of other regular components. Without such supply chain, we wouldn't have such luxury. Hence came my worry.

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

#297

Post by hintymad »

roenxi wrote: post #207
Sakos wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US shipyards and military production are extremely low on any number of metrics. It's unclear even now whether the US has enough stockpiles and enough production of modern munitions to maintain an active war against a peer adversary like China with such massive production capacity and such a massive population. At some point, you do need constant production of enough munitions, doesn't matter how smart or precise tho…

> It's unclear even now whether the US has enough stockpiles and enough production of modern munitions to maintain an active war against a peer adversary like China Is it? What is the theory that the US could keep up with China? That would be the US vs the globe's industrial superpower with an arguably larger real economy. It doesn't seem plausible that the US can fight a long sustained war. The plan as far as I can…

> That would be the US vs the globe's industrial superpower with an arguably larger real economy

Wouldn't it be sad if this were true? Since when US was no longer a "industrial superpower"? Just 25 years ago, Chinese government officials were astound by how wealthy and advanced the US was when they visited the US. They wrote articles after articles to reflect why China was so behind, yet now China is the "globe's industrial superpower". In Oliver Stone's movie Heaven & Earth, Joan Chen's character went to the US and was totally mesmerized by the abundance in a supermarket. That was how Chinese people was amazed by the US too. And now? It's definitely great for China, but isn't it sad for the US to be behind?

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

#298

Post by mmooss »

carlosjobim wrote: post #278
dudefeliciano wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have a point, IMHO, but it doesn't leave room for another group: Humanitarians who believe in human rights as fundamental. That is counter to nationalism (which says the 'nation' is fundemental - the nation being the nationalist powerbrokers); it assumes all have inalienable equal rights, regardless of where political borders are drawn.

Sometimes you need to get together and fight for human rights. But even as WWII was going on, Churchill, for example, was IIRC a harsh critic of nationalism.

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

#299

Post by mmooss »

stevekemp wrote: post #188
mmooss wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland is a NATO ally; but sure Canada makes sense too. And Norway and Sweden and whoever else might have the skills and experience.

For clarity Finland is a full member of NATO, as of 4 April 2023. Perhaps that's what you meant, but Ally makes it sound like they're friendly with NATO rather than an actual member.

It's amazing how hard communication can be! My simple sentence, "Finland is a NATO ally; but sure Canada makes sense too." has three interpretations - all reasonable IMHO:

1. cgh's: 'Finland is ok because they are in NATO; Canada, who in contrast are not in NATO, also makes sense.'

2. yours: 'Finland is an ally of NATO, not a member.'

3. mine: 'Canada may have 'close economic and cultural ties' (from the parent comment), but Finland is a member of the NATO alliance. Canada still makes sense (no comment on their NATO membership, which is a fact).'

I think some is context: In what I read, 'NATO ally' is a somewhat common term for members of NATO (an alliance, of course), and I instinctively used it. It's hard to remember that other people read their own materials.

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

#300

Post by bluGill »

hintymad wrote: post #294
bluGill wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million dollar rocket is expensive, but it hits exactly where you want it and so you need far less of them. Artillery is a lot cheaper but also much harder to get exactly where you want it and so you end up using far more of it. Note that Russia and the US have both guided misstles and artillery. Both have value in different situations. They both have their reasons for their preference, but that is more about how t…

Ah, I was actually thinking about how iron dome vs Hamas rockets. Iron dome was super effective, yet a million a pop to shoot down a rocket that costs a few thousand dollars at most may quickly bankrupt a country. That said, maybe it's just one aspect of the war while in grand scheme of things highly effective guided missiles will win the war.

Not shooting them down would be more costly though.
Post reply on HN