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The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

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Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#181

Post by ethbr1 »

lupusreal wrote: post #78
foldr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a pretty realistic China/US war scenario. China invades Taiwan and then the US responds militarily. I’m not saying that this is a particularly likely scenario, but it’s far from impossible.

The nature and number of the naval assets that China is building suggests that China invading Taiwan is actually very likely. Westerners who don't understand why China would want to do that get hung up on their lack of understanding, think it an irrational act (bad for trade, etc) and therefore unlikely for China to do. What they're missing is the concrete evidence of China preparing to do it. Those amphibious landin…

Bingo.

The terrifying thing about China's shipbuilding and armament focusing is "Why would they be building these specific things if they weren't planning on invading Taiwan?"

The focus on amphibious capability doesn't have a lot of dual purpose use...

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#182

Post by hnthrow90348765 »

_heimdall wrote: post #108
hnthrow90348765 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's if we had a democratic president. We most certainly won't respond in the next 4 years to anything China or Russia does. The only thing they have to do for that benefit is not attack us directly.

Why do you think the party allegiance will make a difference? I generally consider the republicans to be more likely to reach for military action, though the democrats have seemed pretty war hungry in the last decade or two as well.

>Why do you think the party allegiance will make a difference?

I think I could replace "democratic president" with specifically Biden or Harris and would still believe the chance of military confrontation with them is "unlikely" unless directly attacked, but with Trump it is zero

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#183

Post by ethbr1 »

_heimdall wrote: post #107
jonnybgood wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way the US will not respond militarily is if Taiwan chooses unification. By all accounts, Taiwan will not choose that. The US military has not been strategically shifting to the Indo-Pacific for more than 10 years now for no reason.

I wouldn't be surprised if the response to an invasion of Taiwan looked very similar to the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The world did nothing for about a week and it seemed as though leaders were willing to sit on their hands for a week to see if it ended quickly. When it didn't they moved from vague, hand wavy statements to economic sanctions. If China tries to invade we very well could see a weak, hol…

I don't think the world will accept a blockade of Taiwan in the event of an invasion.

If there's a Chinese fleet or aircraft to the east of the island, there will be a naval battle.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#184

Post by themaninthedark »

Animats wrote: post #19
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…

Huh? The Jones Act was supposed to help American shipbuilding. It's a requirement that vessels which operate between US ports must be made in the US, crewed by the US, and flagged to the US. It didn't help much, but that was the plan. China's shipbuilding industry is so big that their aircraft carriers are being constructed by shipyards that make large cargo ships. Aerial photos show shipyards with drydocks full of c…

There is a group of people who are convinced that the Jones Act is bad, either they have been mislead or another reason.

From that, there is a shortcut to the reasoning that occurs: Intercostal shipping is expensive : Jones Act's fault Can't build ships fast enough : Jones Act's fault Ships are expensive ; Jones Act's fault

The things that the Jones Act mandates are that: Shipping between American ports must be done on American built, owned and crewed.

For example, they will claim that foreign ships can't deliver to Hawaii or Porto Rico and that is why things are expensive there. However: ...although ships can offload cargo and proceed to the contiguous U.S. without picking up any additional cargo intended for delivery to another U.S. location... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920#Ef...

So it is possible for a ship from say China to deliver to Hawaii or Porto Rico, they are just not allowed to pick up cargo to deliver to the US from there.

They will claim with one breath, American labor is too expensive and then turn around and say that we would have a ship building boom if only we didn't mandate that we build ships.

I would agree that American labor is expensive, it is easy to lower costs when you have a LCOL area, don't care about worker protections and don't care about environmental effects.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#185

Post by ethbr1 »

themaninthedark wrote: post #169
grey-area wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is now in charge of the US and admires Xi and his dictatorship. He’ll find an excuse not to intervene or even better will pay peacemaker and trumpet how his intervention saved millions of lives and stopped a war by capitulating to China and refusing Taiwan aid. As he is doing in Ukraine. Since Trump is in I’d expect invasion later this year or next. After invasion the people of Taiwan won’t be choosing anything…

I get that it is easy to say that Trump admires dictators, he is such great friends with them, they have compromising information on him and he will allow them to do whatever they want, however, he was president before and during that time China did not invade Taiwan. Also during that time; Russia did not invade Ukraine.

Russia invaded Crimea the year before Trump took office, and he didn't do anything about it during his first term.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#186

Post by deltarholamda »

bluGill wrote: post #112
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…

close ship on ship battle is dead but large ships are needed for large long range weapons that can hit opposing targets that cannot be seen. a wwi battleship could ignore a small drone of today - a much larger system is needed to sink a ship.

Can a large ship, or any ship, intercept a hypersonic missile? Because that's the reality of today.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#187

Post by wrfrmers »

throw0101c wrote: post #124
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…

> 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, they're willing to eat the downsides in order to benefit from the upsides, including lower costs. But there lies the rub: when these types of places get built, they get offered at market pricing, not in a way that reflects their lower costs. So people say, "Why spend the same for less?" and move to a traditional suburb (or, more likely, put off home-buying altogether).

The problem with housing in America always comes down to the way it was financialized and securitized: too much relies on "line go up, forever". There's no room for new blood/capacity (read:competition), there's no room for "investments" to lose value.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#188

Post by ethbr1 »

lupusreal wrote: post #90
jonnybgood wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way the US will not respond militarily is if Taiwan chooses unification. By all accounts, Taiwan will not choose that. The US military has not been strategically shifting to the Indo-Pacific for more than 10 years now for no reason.

If China acted quickly in disabling American military assets in the region, it is conceivably possible that Taiwanese people could be demoralized and surrender to the PRC before America has a chance to muster more forces to the region. Even if this definitely wouldn't be possible, it's still possible that the PRC thinks otherwise and will try it, as Japan once did.

Any Chinese move on Taiwan starts with plastering Guam. :(

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#190

Post by Retric »

globalnode wrote: post #178

Are ships really going to be a 'thing' in any next war anyway, in an age of missiles and drones (both above and below water)? It really pisses me off my dumbass govt spent hundreds of billions of dollars on what I believe will be irrelevant tech, and we may not even get the tech, hows that lol!!! "Here guys, have some money our taxpayers payed us, you don't even need to give us the goods". You'd think the pollies had…

Yes, most wars aren’t between countries with similar military capabilities.

Even in a hypothetical war between US and China being limited to moving fuel, food, bullets etc by aircraft alone is a major logistical issue. Military conflict is potentially millions of people and within an order of magnitude that many vehicles.

Guarding such slow moving cargo vessels by air alone is again impractical, thus surface ships and subs. Every minute a drone or jet is in the air has an associated cost, an aircraft carrier a few 100’s of miles offshore is still a lot closer than mainland USA.

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