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The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

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Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#381

Post by FrustratedMonky »

tolciho wrote: post #372
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but 'competition' by itself doesn't mean those industries would win and stay in the US. Look at all the industries where there was competition and left the US. There are industries the US should support for defense, you don't want to be buying your weapons from your enemies. See the drive to bring Chips back to the US. Allowing wonton outsourcing is finally being seen as maybe not a forgone good.

I would imagine that the Chinese are good at wonton, though wanton outsourcing of wontons may not be in the best interests of local "pork" spending. Maybe if we had more details on how that whole Bronze Age Collapse went down we might have better ideas of what to avoid, but learning from history isn't very popular.

When the Industrial Age collapses, and no computers work anymore, we should be sure to write down the reasons on something more durable,,,, this time around.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#382

Post by [deleted] »

lupusreal wrote: post #208
jabl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

Part of the problem with American companies competing with the rest of the world on supposedly equal footing is American companies have to pay their sailors and abide by workplace regulations that Chinese/etc shipping can ignore. In other words it's not equal footing, it can't be equal footing, and America should stop pretending that competing on equal footing with shipping companies that use slave labor would even b…

[deleted]

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#383

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

wrfrmers wrote: post #187
throw0101c wrote: post #124

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. 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/w…

It's not just the cost of building the house. Utilities and infrastructure (and the taxes to pay for it all) add up. Now, if you were to build smaller, densely, and close enough to amenities that residents could walk or bike to their daily activities, or to public transit that can take you farther away, you save a significant amount on initial AND recurring costs. And what's better, people WANT that! Or, a least, the…

> they get offered at market pricing, not in a way that reflects their lower costs

Well, duh!

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#384

Post by Neonlicht »

timewizard wrote: post #292
Yeul wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In the 1970s the Netherlands tried to save it's shipyards They have several successful ship building companies today. Is your point that it didn't work? That doesn't seem born out by the reality of today. > There's just no point to it your oil tankers end up more expensive so nobody will want to buy them. So the quality is equivalent? And there are no buyers who require high quality in their ships?

The Netherlands still has very successful shipyards but they focus on government contracts (navy, coastguard, ferries) and (super) yachts.

The giant container ships and mammoth tankers are all built in Asia.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#386

Post by openasocket »

greedo wrote: post #366
sudosysgen wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patriot has not reliably intercepted Kizhals, they needed an uneconomic interceptor ratio which in a ship would lead to interceptor depletion and failure; at the same time Kizhals is even slower than something like the DF-21 or DF-ZF. It's a similar story for SM-2/3, in the Red Sea they faced massive interceptor depletion and had to leave, and even then many missiles were not intercepted, we just got lucky that they…

Again, the versions of Patriot handed over to Ukraine are not the latest versions, so their performance might not be illustrative. And we don't know the strategy used by Ukraine; they might feel like bigger salvos are worth bringing down hypersonics. SM6 is the primary USN weapon against hypersonic, not the SM2/SM3. SM3 is primarily designed for ballistic missile defense.

Ugh, this is why the term "hypersonics" is misleading. Ballistic missiles ARE hypersonic systems, they travel faster than Mach 5. And that's not just me being pedantic. The Kinzhal missile is regularly touted as a "hypersonic" including in this thread. But the Kinzhal is just a ballistic missile, it's actually just an air-launched version of the Iskander.

Which interceptor would be used against a target largely comes down to whether the intercept is endo- or exo-atmospheric. The SM3 is an exo-atmospheric intercepter: it's designed to collide with the target in the vacuum of space. The SM6 is an endo-atmospheric interceptor. SM3 can be used against ballistic missiles, including both traditional re-entry vehicles and hypersonic glide vehicles, before they enter the atmosphere. The SM6 can be used against anything in the atmosphere: including ballistic missiles in the terminal descent phase.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#387

Post by bell-cot »

Supermancho wrote: post #364
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…

> Naval vessels are largely outdated technology Depends on the purpose. For patrolling, shipping, and disaster relief, it's a lot cheaper and more flexible (in terms of utility et al) than airplanes.

Add in airplanes being extremely fragile, never all-weather, needing a nearby base to do even a vague approximation of station-keeping, having vastly lower payloads, ...

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#388

Post by einpoklum »

> The Navy needs to recapitalize the shipbuilding industry to produce > the new capabilities and warships required to win the next war.

Ah, one mustn't forget to prepare for the next war one is likely going to start...

Well, I'd say the US needs potable running water, health care for its population, and shelter - all three of which are not enjoyed by many of its residents and citizens. And if we're talking about war, perhaps a "recapitalization" of firefighting and disaster relief would be a thing to invest in before warship construction.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#389

Post by sudosysgen »

greedo wrote: post #366
sudosysgen wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patriot has not reliably intercepted Kizhals, they needed an uneconomic interceptor ratio which in a ship would lead to interceptor depletion and failure; at the same time Kizhals is even slower than something like the DF-21 or DF-ZF. It's a similar story for SM-2/3, in the Red Sea they faced massive interceptor depletion and had to leave, and even then many missiles were not intercepted, we just got lucky that they…

Again, the versions of Patriot handed over to Ukraine are not the latest versions, so their performance might not be illustrative. And we don't know the strategy used by Ukraine; they might feel like bigger salvos are worth bringing down hypersonics. SM6 is the primary USN weapon against hypersonic, not the SM2/SM3. SM3 is primarily designed for ballistic missile defense.

> Again, the versions of Patriot handed over to Ukraine are not the latest versions, so their performance might not be illustrative. And we don't know the strategy used by Ukraine; they might feel like bigger salvos are worth bringing down hypersonics.

So why even bring it up? Kinzhal is just a slightly faster ballistic missile, the fact that it can be intercepted in ideal conditions is not new. What matters is the interception probability and the engagement envelope, so what's the point to bring it up and then immediately discredit whatever useful inference can be made while still jumping to a conclusion?

SM6 is just an upgraded SM2, it's intended for BMD just the same - it's just better at it, but not better enough for the Red Sea situation.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#390

Post by einpoklum »

amanda99 wrote: post #341

A lot of folks are saying big ships are outdated. Keep in mind that war is 80% logistics: and if you are going to engage an enemy far away from your landmass (or project power for that matter), you need huge capacity to move materiel to said location, and that normally means ships. An interesting thing to look at is something called the "Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel": for every gallon that the US delivers to a Forward…

> if you are going to engage an enemy far away from your landmass > (or project power for that matter)

Here's an idea: How about _not_ engaging far away from your landmass and not "projecting power"? The rest of the world has had quite enough of your projections.

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