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The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

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Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#401

Post by jjk166 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #369
jjk166 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false narrative. US shipbuilding did not rest on its laurels because of the jones act. The Jones Act was passed in the 1920s; US shipbuilding rose to a dominant position while it was in place. The US lost that position only after the 1980s cessation of subsidies to domestic shipbuilders. Ironically this was a move to stop foreign nations from subsidizing their shipbuilding industries, but it was never recip…

> US shipbuilding rose to a dominant position while it was in place. You seem to be omitting the fact that the US sank pretty much every non-allied boat in the ocean during WWII and bombed every shipyard outside of England. That created a MASSIVE advantage.

Which would be relevant if the US wasn't dominant before WW2. But it was.

Ironically, the end of WW2 actually hurt US shipbuilding because there was a huge glut of surplus ships on the market and for a brief time a massive drop in trade. British ship builders actually took the title of world's largest shipbuilder back after WW2, producing nearly half of all tonnage in the next decade as Europe rebuilt its merchant fleets.

The countries that had their shipyards destroyed in the war built new shipyards with better technology. They took the lead after that, Japan obviously being the biggest winner in the late 20th century.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#402

Post by digitalscribe »

vaccineai wrote: post #336
FpUser wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Intel fell behind on semiconductors and now Phoenix is turning into an outlying suburb of Taipei while the children of TSMC engineers are making the local school district look like magicians." So after a while Taiwan is no longer needed and China can just take it. I am curious if Taiwan's government cares about this potential course of events? >"All the US has to do is subsidize one of the Korean heavy conglomerate…

>after a while Taiwan is no longer needed and China can just take it lol, as if amphibious assault against a country that has been preparing invasion for 70 years, as well as a country that is at the forefront of electronics, is that easy. yes, China is building tons of ships. but each ship, which cost a few hundred million each, can be sunk by Taiwan's advanced missile systems, for a few million per missile. Each sh…

> as if amphibious assault against a country that has been preparing invasion for 70 years

You might want to update your understanding of the balance of forces in Asia.

For example: "China’s military has the capability to land ground forces on Taiwan within as little as one week after imposing a naval blockade on the island, according to a Japanese government analysis of Chinese military exercises conducted last year." [1]

Only the United States military could challenge the PRC in the western Pacific. But even that is not a certainty: "Indeed, the overall balance of conventional military power along China’s borders has shifted dramatically in China’s favor." [2]

It's not the 1900s anymore. The PLA isnt a peasant army. It's every bit as modern, and in some cases more so than even the US military.

https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/defense-security/20...

https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Articl...

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#403

Post by michaelg7x »

Surely any peacetime military contract in the US (or, perhaps anywhere) is just a signal to get snouts in the trough and start hoovering up the cash? While wartime begets its own kind of profiteer, my sense is that it could only be done when businesses put the national interest first.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#404

Post by pc86 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #373
Teever wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not enough. What happens if a long conflict breaks out between China and the US can't rebuild capacity lost in the initial phase of the war because China takes out that Korean ship building capacity? With a capacity 260x times that of America the Chinese will be able to rebuild an overwhelming naval capacity, especially if the war technology turns to cheap, mass produced (semi)autonomous machines as seems to b…

> What happens if a long conflict breaks out between China and the US can't rebuild capacity lost in the initial phase of the war because China takes out that Korean ship building capacity? We launch ballistic missiles at each other. Probably kill 500-800M Chinese and 100-175M Americans. China hawks love fantasizing about this stuff. Reality is the as Ukraine demonstrates, direct conflict between reasonably advanced…

Even the question assumes that because the answer is "a few billion people die" it's not possible, and because of that (false) assumption, the first thing isn't possible.

If China starts sinking US ships half the people reading this thread will die before ever hearing about it. That doesn't mean China would never sink a US ship.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#405

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

US shipbuilding died because the industry died. Modern shipping is a fundamentally different industry.

It wasn’t killed by foreigners, it was killed, just like the railroads, by the interstate highway system and trucks. We don’t need 150 piers and train freight/ferry terminals in NYC because we can stage trucks from a limitless number of truck terminals. Less capital cost, less labor, less wasted inventory, less chokepoints (key infrastructure, unions, etc). The guys who operate the Staten Island ferry make as much as 5-7 bus drivers.

You need a smaller number of large players with multimodal integration. Containers, tankers and special purpose for oceangoing and tugs/barges for near water.

The Navy is at risk because our defense procurement infrastructure is tied to the nostalgia of old admirals with dreams of fighting WW2, and struggle to identify the next thing. The main viable warships afloat are submarines and the capacity to grow that is in such a sorry state we basically keep the yard running.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#406

Post by jjk166 »

aylmao wrote: post #363
jjk166 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear of invasion creates massive military spending Massive military spending creates peaceful times Peaceful times create low military spending Low military spending creates fear of invasion Also the Canadians are the only ones who ever burned down DC.

It doesn't always work this way, and very much hasn't in the USA. It's been more akin to: Fear of invasion creates massive military spending Massive military spending creates a need for justification, and ability to invade The need for justification, and ability to invade create wars abroad Wars abroad create enemies and fear of invasion

Has there ever been a period in history where the dominant military power said "okay, no one can challenge us, let's roll back our military spending" and the peace remained?

I can think of a lot of previous hegemons who got complacent and lost everything.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#407

Post by digitalscribe »

tehjoker wrote: post #344
FpUser wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Intel fell behind on semiconductors and now Phoenix is turning into an outlying suburb of Taipei while the children of TSMC engineers are making the local school district look like magicians." So after a while Taiwan is no longer needed and China can just take it. I am curious if Taiwan's government cares about this potential course of events? >"All the US has to do is subsidize one of the Korean heavy conglomerate…

why does everyone just assume that Taiwan and China, which both consider themselves to be "one china" would not simply find some kind of peaceful resolution once the US backs off? most likely, without a U.S. backer, they would just more closely integrate their economies and this would eventually result in a political solution

Due to the "p" word.

Probably few people here realize that China settled the majority of its land border disputes (12 of 14) through negotiation.

China, by and large, gave up much more territory than it acquired for each border settlement.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#408

Post by amluto »

throw0101c wrote: post #201
kangaroozach wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are protected from facing competition, then you don’t need to actually compete. Therefore, you don’t develop the competitive advantages. You remain at a competitive disadvantage, but it doesn’t matter since you don’t actually have to face the competition… until someday when the protection is removed and you are left to face the more advantaged competition.

> If you are protected from facing competition, then you don’t need to actually compete. You mean like all the (e.g.) garment and other factories competed against foreign manufacturers… and the companies decided to close up shop and move overseas? The main garments that are still made in the US are those for the military due to domestic production regulations in procurement rules.

Clothing seems different: the amount of labor needed to make a single low-value item is very high. While fabric production is quite automated, assembly into clothing is done by low-paid skilled people using equipment that is not substantially different from what someone might use at home to make clothing. The US, understandably, can’t really compete, and this doesn’t seem to bad for the US. I expect that the US can make fabric just fine, and we produce plenty of cotton.

Steel making and ship building are done with heavy machinery, at least to a sufficient extent that I would expect wages to matter less.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#409

Post by jjk166 »

lupusreal wrote: post #314
jjk166 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean you haven't observed the same issues Boeing has yet.

Why not? Boeing had domestic competition in the airliner industry until the 90s. They still have competition in the military contracting side of their business for most classes of product. Whatever went wrong with Boeing due to protectionism preventing competition must have happened quite fast.

Airbus's other European competition disappeared at around the same time Boeing's US competition did. Further, the time is not how long it took for the problems to manifest but how long they took to be recognized. Boeing was not put under the microscope until long after the rot had taken hold. Airbus has yet to be put under the microscope.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#410

Post by amluto »

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.

Fresh wontons travel poorly, and excellent fresh wantons are available at reasonable prices, locally made, even in high cost of living areas like the Bay Area.
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