Production tech / bonuses

[nimrod]

Two fold idea for longer production runs of CL, DD, KE and subs.

Historically in the 1920s-1940s their were large advancements made in ship production that decreased the build time and cost of ships. The most noticeable was that of production line assembly using per-fabricated sections in WWII - used by the Germans in U-boat production, US Liberty Ship and DE / KE along with LST, LCM and Duck landing ship production among others. Other areas of improved riveting and or welding along with simplified designs and dockyard improvements allowed quicker production rates of some ships.

In fact "The attempt to mass-produce ships using a standardized design had been pioneered during World War I at the Emergency Fleet Corporation's Hog Island Shipyard in Philadelphia, PA." www.thoughtco.com/the-liberty-ship-program-2361030

Even with accelerated production in game, I'm not seeing that the following is achievable for 1500-2000 ton DDs. Yes I know a lot of the super short construction times are publicity stunts, but the average construction times did come down noticeably. "Construction time for destroyers dropped from two years to as little as seven months, while destroyer escort construction dropped to slightly more than three months. LST construction time dropped from twelve to seven weeks, with one constructed in only fifty days." www.nps.gov/articles/the-boston-navy-yard-during-world-war-ii.htm

My suggestions are as follows.

1. Add in some techs allowing for reduced cost and production times for common small ships (DD, KE, Sub and maybe 6000 ton and smaller CLs). For game play reasons, I would probably make them effective in the late 1920s to late 1930s with a 25-40% chance of a country researching them. 

2. Modders might be able to repeatedly force the event - shipyard offers xx ship in xx months and 10% less cost - until the offer is refused by the player and it only fires repeatedly when the initial production run is for 12 ships. For example when I want to build 20, 900 ton ASW KEs I order up twelve and accept the event 8 times. This would simulate the efficiencies of longer production runs on standardized designs and possibly getting some sort of assembly line production going.

Thank you.

 

[williammiller]

Interesting idea, thanks.

[nimrod]

Thank you for the acknowledgement.

As a heavy user of non-capital ships, the rather constant build time of the small fry is pretty noticeable. The book Freedom Forge (its on WWII production) has a number of references to WWI-1930's ship production techniques that were developed and significantly cut production time - notably going from rivets to welds and the use of pre-fabricated sections.

Just as an example, in 1918-1919 Ford built 60 of the 600 ton Eagle class. The Eagles were one of the first modern mass-produced ship classes and pioneered a number of production techniques centered around cutting time and costs. Some efforts were successful and some weren't - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle-class_patrol_craft and www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101745/

Thank you again.