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The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

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Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#121

Post by bluGill »

pydry wrote: post #91
pas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. They are conditioned to worship at the altar of small businesses and good ol' craftsmanship. (And plot after plot they blindly erect yet another replica of the standard American Dream with the compulsory backyard where they truly can be free, and cond…

>people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. It's a pretty specific type of person who rejects the construction of streamlined social housing - somebody who definitely doesnt pay rent and someone who probably receives it.

No it is people who have no idea how mass produced a conventional house is. They think there is something for a factory to do. Then they go elsewhere and complain how houses all look the same these days.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#122

Post by lotsofpulp »

bluGill wrote: post #118
lotsofpulp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard tract built house erected in 100 days by DR Horton/Lennar/etc is the streamlined, mass manufactured option. Any more streamline than that is apparently more costly or otherwise unappealing to people. It isn’t not small businesses building most homes in the US, they are large, and sometimes publicly traded businesses.

Every once in a while someone will bulid a house in a day. However it is more costly to do this. you either need expensive really fast cure concrete or a low quality wood foundation. You need to carefully plan who is where and when so plumbers and electritions are no standing in the same spot (think sink with an outlet nearby). You need to specify where everything is to a pipe and wire are not in the same place with…

Tract home builders are building hundreds of homes in quick succession. 1 house in 100 days, but also 500 houses within 2 years.

There is no slack, because each team has to be operating in lockstep so work never stops, otherwise margins tank and a profitable project becomes a loss.

The expertise of managing and executing this non trivial task is why those businesses succeed, and why landowners outsource development to them.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#123

Post by bluGill »

Yeul wrote: post #113
timewizard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get good at things by doing them repeatedly and optimising In an environment where information is shared freely and widely. > So of course if we build a couple of naval ships every decade, maybe a giant train line every 30 years or similar, it will be done terribly. That's a reasonable explanation but it's not exclusive. You can still face these challenges and not do a terrible job. There is plenty of evidence this…

In the 1970s the Netherlands tried to save it's shipyards (from Japan and Korea at the time China was nothing). There's just no point to it your oil tankers end up more expensive so nobody will want to buy them.

There is the real problem. World demand doesn't need enough oil tankers to support the level of automation needed to be competetive.

navy is different in that it is worth building your own and having that automation just in case.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#124

Post by throw0101c »

pas wrote: post #15
leoedin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. This is what politicians just don’t seem to realise about industry and engineering. People get good at things by doing them repeatedly and optimising. That’s the only proven way. So of course if we build a couple of naval ships every decade, maybe a giant train line every 30 years or simil…

Not just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. They are conditioned to worship at the altar of small businesses and good ol' craftsmanship. (And plot after plot they blindly erect yet another replica of the standard American Dream with the compulsory backyard where they truly can be free, and cond…

> Not just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option.

You can build a tract of homes in 90 days (or less) using stick frame. They won't be fancy, but they'll be up to code (and with a little extra cost (A crew of 4-5 guys (plus some subs) can build a custon home in 80 days:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYd73YP57Ik&list=PL8XEQ1XKYN...

If you pipeline that and use a standardized, cookie-cutter plan an entire row can be build out in a similar time frame. Production builders do it all the time:

* https://www.newhomesource.com/learn/custom-or-production-bui...

There are of course mass-manufactured elements that can speed things up, like using trusses. There are also now services for pre-cut framing that saves on-site effor of measuring and such:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2FdAdxjSpw&list=PLDYh81z-Rh...

The building of the structure is not the bottleneck, it is the approval process and NIMBY road blocks that can add 2(+) years to a project.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#125

Post by fuzzfactor »

timewizard wrote: post #20
leoedin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. This is what politicians just don’t seem to realise about industry and engineering. People get good at things by doing them repeatedly and optimising. That’s the only proven way. So of course if we build a couple of naval ships every decade, maybe a giant train line every 30 years or simil…

> get good at things by doing them repeatedly and optimising In an environment where information is shared freely and widely. > So of course if we build a couple of naval ships every decade, maybe a giant train line every 30 years or similar, it will be done terribly. That's a reasonable explanation but it's not exclusive. You can still face these challenges and not do a terrible job. There is plenty of evidence this…

>In an environment where information is shared freely and widely.

Umm, no.

Ever heard of loose lips sinking anyhing?

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#126

Post by bluGill »

wffurr wrote: post #119
scandox wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you look at history it is a story of almost continuous war so it would be very optimistic indeed not to consider it.

The returns to warfare changed significantly with the Industrial Revolution. Greater economic growth is now possible in times of peace rather than war. The Paradox game Victoria 2 does a good job simulating this dynamic. Highest score is possible by sitting out ww2. https://acoup.blog/2021/08/20/collections-teaching-paradox-v... Is a nice write up.

But that doesn't stop various dictators from making war.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#127

Post by [deleted] »

jabl wrote: post #101
indymike wrote: post #89

I don't share the confidence in large ships being the future of naval anything. Even in the 90s, surface ships were easy pickings for submarines and antiship missiles. Smaller ships acting as drone carriers combined with arsenal ships can allow local power projection to keep shipping lanes open. Submarines and aircraft remain the safest, and best way to deliver offensive firepower. The aircraft carrier does have a ro…

> The aircraft carrier does have a role, but it is far behind the contact line. That's why they're called 'aircraft carriers'. The entire point of them is that the offensive firepower in the form of aircraft can reach out pretty far. They don't need to sail the carrier right up beside the enemy in order to hit him with their swords, you know. Jokes aside, there might (eventually, maybe not today?) be a point in what…

[deleted]

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#129

Post by jabl »

throw0101c wrote: post #115
peepeepoopoo105 wrote: post #6

This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. War planners should have pushed to repeal the Jones Act decades ago, but now Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than ours because of their success in civilian shipbuilding. The proposed measures in this aricle are too little too late. The only logical course of action at…

> This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. War planners should have pushed to repeal the Jones Act decades ago The US used to subsidize the salaries of US merchant marines on ships (US salaries are higher than Filipino ones) so that there would be a trained population, but that was stopped in the 1980s because subsidies are bad, so…

It seems an unintended side effect of the Jones act was to insulate the US shipbuilding industry from international competition, leading to them resting on their laurels while the rest of the industry worked hard to improve productivity (see Japan, South Korea, and lately China). Which makes it even harder to repeal, since with a repeal of the Jones act the wildly noncompetitive (civilian) US shipbuilding industry would fold in an instant.

So a repeal of the Jones act would need to be coupled to an extended investment program into the shipbuilding sector. Say, something like how the SEA economic miracle worked, by requiring, as a condition for various subsidies, the yards to export a certain % of the production in order to ensure prices are competitive.

Even so, given US wage levels it's a fantasy to believe that US shipyards could compete with, say, China. But there are shipyards in other high-income countries e.g. in Europe that manage to survive through a combination of various subsidies and focusing on high-end specialized vessels such as cruise ships, icebreakers etc.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#130

Post by fancl20 »

jonnybgood wrote: post #85
suraci wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> not a single chinese have a single thought about going war with the US Odd. Then who in China feels the need to outcompete US military technology? Why is China developing missiles like DF-27 that are difficult to counter and take out aircraft carriers? Who is coming up with these ideas and for what purposes?

This misconception is common among US official/think tanks especially related to DOD because the way Chinese government operated is so counter-intuitive from US perspective (probably many other governments). It's actually same as how China makes economics policy: First assess the "inevitable" future, than make a plan to better adapt to that future (e.g. Battery, EV, Solar...actually a lot more examples before those). This means China is constantly making policies considered "ineffective" because in many cases they don't have a clear goal (build the capbility for the sake of the build). On contrast US sets a clear goal first and build the capbility accordingly, which means you build the capbility for a purpose.

For some reason people can't translate the same process when talking about military capbility. The current assessment from China probably is some version of "China will be regard as superpower. to be regarded as a credible superpower, credible superpower level army is required". While most US officials think China builds this military power for a concrete goal (why spend money if you don't plan to use it?).

This misconception at least has been communicated by some US intellectuals many times though I think it's not very effective under current geopolitical climate.

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