THE SHIPYARDS
 


 
-=[ Shipyards Around The World ]=-
This page has a listing of most or all of the known shipyards, shipbuilders, shipbreakers and repair facilities that operate around the world. Many of these yards and businesses are the ones who build and service the modern vessels of today.

This database is owned & maintained by, and is Copyright

I enjoyed reading this post.  now for some historical perspectives.  One Caveat.  I am not an expert on shipbuilding.  But I have studied this somewhat for WWI.  During the 19 months of US participation in WWI, the US Government laid down 1000 slipways in multiple shipyards.  They were producing approximately 3 million gross deadweight tons of new ships by Nov 1918.  This laid the foundation for American production in the Interwar period and during world war II.  

The time needed to produce a new design for a new ship is usually done while the old design is still in production.  In the US we produce mini upgrades to existing designs through a process called preplanned product improvement.  The DDG-51 class Arleigh Burke Destroyers went through three block upgrades, the last added an entire helicopter deck and hangar to the Destroyer design, adding over twenty feet IIRC to the total ship length.  

when retooling a yard with multiple slipways, you begin retooling one of the slipways at a time while still manufacturing the older class in the remaining ways.  E.G., if you had four slipways, and assuming it took six months per slipway to retool, then over a two year period you would go from 4 DDG, to 3 old class, in the first six months, to 2 old, 1 new, 1 retooling, to 1 old, 2 new, 1 retooling, to 3 new and one retooling at 18 months. to 4 new at 24 months.  You get the picture.  

Thanks for this detail. I have built this concept into the new shipyard rules, which allow you to start getting ready for the next class while you are still building the existing one. This should result in a similar situation to above where some slipways are building the newer class while others are still working on the old one.

Steve

I enjoyed reading this post.  now for some historical perspectives.  One Caveat.  I am not an expert on shipbuilding.  But I have studied this somewhat for WWI.  During the 19 months of US participation in WWI, the US Government laid down 1000 slipways in multiple shipyards.  They were producing approximately 3 million gross deadweight tons of new ships by Nov 1918.  This laid the foundation for American production in the Interwar period and during world war II.  

The time needed to produce a new design for a new ship is usually done while the old design is still in production.  In the US we produce mini upgrades to existing designs through a process called preplanned product improvement.  The DDG-51 class Arleigh Burke Destroyers went through three block upgrades, the last added an entire helicopter deck and hangar to the Destroyer design, adding over twenty feet IIRC to the total ship length.  

when retooling a yard with multiple slipways, you begin retooling one of the slipways at a time while still manufacturing the older class in the remaining ways.  E.G., if you had four slipways, and assuming it took six months per slipway to retool, then over a two year period you would go from 4 DDG, to 3 old class, in the first six months, to 2 old, 1 new, 1 retooling, to 1 old, 2 new, 1 retooling, to 3 new and one retooling at 18 months. to 4 new at 24 months.  You get the picture.  

The older class can be upgraded to the new design or to a new block during a SLEP (service life extension program) dry docking period.  usually taking up to two years for a CVN and much less for a smaller warship.  So the idea of an assembly line producing a standard freighter hull makes sense.  Block upgrades could be done every five or ten years to keep the fleet modernized, etc.  

Steve, you will have a lot of fun coding slipways into 2.3

Hope this helps

Kevin

I like Pete's suggestion too, but I think the capacity modularity needs to be at the SY (not slipways (SW)) level, and should be small granularity (in tonnage) like your recent change to MF (i.e. much more granular than 5000 tons - maybe the 50 ton level (1HS) ?).  Since all SW associated with a SY build the same thing, it both doesn't make any sense and is much harder to track if different SW have different capacity.

Note that this means that SY upgrade/build/retooling costs would vary: increasing capacity would depend on the number of SW, adding a SW would depend on the capacity, and retooling would depend on both.

Yes, I realised that this might get a little complicated. I agree that having all slipways the same size would be a good idea. If a shipyard has three slipways and wants to increase slipway size by 200 tons, it will have to pay for 600 tons so that all three increase equally. If a new shipway is to be added, it will have to be added at the same size as the existing ones. Retooling will depend on the overall capacity of all slipways.

Questions:  If I've got a SY with 10 SW and capacity C will there be a build command to "split" the facility by building a new SY with capacity C and assigning some of the SW to the new yard, i.e. one SY with 6 SW and the other with 4 after the build?  Will there be a command to drop capacity of a SY complex (to make it cheaper to add SW)?

Probably not for a first cut but this is the type of detail I would add later.

Steve

OK, after sleeping on it overnight, here are some ideas.

I think that both the shipyard and the slipway should be granular.  You cannot build higher than the lowest of both of them, and the total hull spaces of units in the shipyard cannot exceed the shipyard's total.

 

Granularity should be around 10HS not 1 HS, 1HS makes it too fiddly.

My only problem with this whole idea the Electric Boat Shipyard.  During the early 1980s, it was building Los Angeles class subs(~6900 Tons), Ohio class subs (~18800 Tons) and refitting Sturgeon class subs (~4800 Tons).  One Shipyard, with 2 slipways, and a pair of drydocks.

Pete

We should split the current shipyard into 3 separate items.

Shipyards are the main area, that is where the "industrial work" gets done.

Slipways are primarily designed to build new ships, but they can overhaul, repair, and refit ships at a penalty (25% maybe).  I added overhaul in the list for forward bases.  I have a shipyard with a slipway, but no maintenance facility (possibly due to combat damage) and this way you could overhaul a ship using the old method.

Drydocks (or spacedocks) are the third item.  They allow overhaul, repair, and refits at normal cost, but building ships is at a penalty (again maybe 25%)

One of the reasons I suggest this is the US Navy during WWII Pacific campaigns had "Destroyer tenders" and "Floating Drydocks" forward deployed to fix battle damage.

The drydocks were modular, like we were talking about.

We then could then add 2 "ship items" called "Tender" and "Drydock"

Tenders allow repairs of battle damage like Damage Control without using up replacement parts.  You could also be alongside and perform a minor refit to replace the replacement parts.

Drydock or "mobile spacedock" would allow quicker repairs of battle damage and quicker minor refits. (replace the replacement parts at double speed maybe).  drydocks are large, and cannot be mounted on a ship with engines.  You MUST tow them.  Which forces you to develop a tug.

Pete

I like Pete's suggestion too, but I think the capacity modularity needs to be at the SY (not slipways (SW)) level, and should be small granularity (in tonnage) like your recent change to MF (i.e. much more granular than 5000 tons - maybe the 50 ton level (1HS) ?).  Since all SW associated with a SY build the same thing, it both doesn't make any sense and is much harder to track if different SW have different capacity.

Note that this means that SY upgrade/build/retooling costs would vary: increasing capacity would depend on the number of SW, adding a SW would depend on the capacity, and retooling would depend on both.

I also like Brian's suggestion about rush jobs.

Questions:  If I've got a SY with 10 SW and capacity C will there be a build command to "split" the facility by building a new SY with capacity C and assigning some of the SW to the new yard, i.e. one SY with 6 SW and the other with 4 after the build?  Will there be a command to drop capacity of a SY complex (to make it cheaper to add SW)?

John

I also like Pete's suggestion.