Monday, December 28, 2015

Benjamin Franklin Mega Cargo Ship....are we building ships wrong?





This mega cargo ship has the business community in a frenzy.  The great hope is that shipping costs between China and the US can be pushed down and everyone will profit.

But I have a different thought.

Are we building ships wrong?  By that I mean we have a ship that dwarfs our Super Carriers yet operates with a crew of only 27 people!  Why haven't we been able to push down the crew size on non-combat and amphibious ships in the US Navy?

I understand the need to handle battle damage but lets be real.  With the proliferation of long range missiles and the sensitive electronics/munitions aboard our ships today, if you get hit then you're doing it wrong and if the ship survives you're going back to port...not fixing it to get back in the fight in a few months.

In other words we have a small Navy in what are realistically speaking disposable boats, with oversize crews.

 Oh and one other thing.  Why couldn't we build a flight deck on one of these ships, use its hold as hangar space and call this our Afloat Forward Staging Base?  If steel is cheap then I think we missed out with the hull that we chose and should have gone bigger....much bigger.

No comments :

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.