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Comment by linksnapzz | Hacker News Reader

The commercial ships are very simple and cookie-cutter[1], unlike military ships that are almost always new designs and involve complex, integrated systems such as communication, defense, hospitals, refueling, etc, etc.

So, subsequent hull numbers for San Antonio class ended up being cheaper than 100% over budget? Likewise, is it customary for STX or Chantiers de l'Atlantique or Fincanterei to have to double-check the status of every single weld in ship they've delivered, or are the owners of cruise lines tolerant of massive cost overruns && late delivery?

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Generally, the first ship of any class suffers the most issues. Similar to the first version of any major OS/software release. I don't remember the per-ship costs off-hand but I'd be surprised if they were higher than the first.

Unfortunately the Navy doesn't have much choice in who builds their ships. They must be built in the US, and there are very few capable shipbuilders still left in this country. It's a terrible business to be in, so there's no incentive for companies to jump into the market because the margins are razor-thin. In fact, Northrop Grumman got out of the market a few years ago (http://investor.northropgrumman.com/news-releases/news-relea...).

(As an aside, cruise ships are still cookie-cutter compared to military ships.)

To borrow a quote from Churchill, "[the current ship procurement process] is the worst form of [procurement], except for all those others that have been tried."

Cruise ships are cookie-cutter designs relative to military ships due to...more ships per class (model)? Lack of armament?

They are still made of steel, are welded/riveted together in modules, and must be watertight. Is the knowledge of how to properly weld a hull-section for a commercial ship utterly nontransferable to military work?

One of them is a war machine made by the world's richest country to defeat the war machines of other very rich countries.

The other is a floating hotel.

At the very least the floating hotel can theoretically be built out of several nearly identical sections, since hotel rooms are largely all the same fore to aft. Cargo ships have the same benefit.

That said, most of the cost savings is probably just economies of scale. Civilian fleets are much larger than military fleets.

Does a machine's purpose change how the welding for that machine is done?

Probably because of different alloys used, different thickness. You don't expect a commercial ship to be shot at with missiles.

Yes.

I learned a couple of afternoon's worth of welding (TIG and MIG, with a dash of spot) and looked at some books regarding it. I realized that I was staring into a piece of craft that would take years to actually master the nuances of, if I were even capable of it.

Very much, yes. Yes because of the probably different steels in a cruise ship versus a battleship, yes because of lifetime expectancies, yes because of stresses expected, yes because of inspection schedules. I probably don't have even a good enough sense of what is required to come up with half of where the differences would lie.

Why is building a house cheaper than building a ship?

How many people try shooting at your house?

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