OO makes an interesting point about the PAU fleet. Also, there may be a
difference between not being able to produce capital ships and not being able
to produce many of them or not being able to produce them cost effectively.
For that matter, you'd think that capship slips would be a fair size (even
orbital) and if you didn't need to use them regularly (let's imagine that ESU
and NAC and maybe FSE and NSL would), they'd be an expense to maintain. OTOH,
some private firms could probably handle fleet maintenance contracts from
several nations (or even construction contracts).
I suspect the PAU fleet has some hand-me downs, some bought-news,
some bought-and-modifieds, and maybe even some smaller home-brew
designs (DDs, FFs, etc). I would guess NAC, ESU, FSE. NAC, because of what OO
mentioned, ESU because we know they have some, and FSE because they were
nominal allies at one point and the French have always tended to encourage
arms sales to a variety of sides (even those fighting the French national
forces....).
> At 1:22 PM -0400 8/20/02, kaladorn@magma.ca wrote:
Being able to produce them correctly is probably the major issue. Russia,
could build an aircraft carrier, they just lacked the knowledge base on how to
put it together in a reliable form and operate it. A ship is a complex
machine. Its not like a car. Its really lots and lots of independent systems
operating together. Getting them all to work correctly is hard.
> For that matter, you'd think that capship slips would be a fair size
Typically, such assets are considered strategic and there are typically strong
controls on who can sell what to whom.
> I suspect the PAU fleet has some hand-me downs, some bought-news,
One thing to look at as an example is the number of EX US and USN ships that
were handed over following WWII. More than a few nations were given or sold
Ships of up to BB and CA size. Most didn't operate terribly long or for
significant amounts. Having BBs doesn't mean you can attack another nation
across the ocean.
> On Tue, 20 Aug 2002 13:22:05 -0400, kaladorn@magma.ca wrote:
> OO makes an interesting point about the PAU fleet. Also, there may be
Or it could be that they needed to make ships quickly and didn't have the
facilities at home. Another option was that they didn't have the expertise and
were busy learning the craft of ship building. This was essentially what
happened with Japan.
At the end of the 19th and into the very early 20th centuries, many of Japan's
warships were built in other countries, primarily Britain. Of the 6
battleships Japan had going into the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905,
three were built by Armstrong Whitworth, two were built by Thames Iron Works,
and one was built by John Brown in Glasgow. These were based on extant British
designs (Royal Sovereign and Majestic), but included a number of improvements
on those designs.
Note that these were not "handmedowns". They were built to order. This was a
common occurance at this time period. Germany built two modern battleships for
China, for instance. Obviously if a nation was in "all out war mode", they
would use their shipyard facilities to build ships for their own fleets.
However, if the shipyard is idle, building ships for a third party (an ally,
of course, as you don't want to end up going against the same ships in battle
[1]) is a good way of keeping people employed, keeping shipyard
facilities at peak performance, and keeping up the skills needed for building
ships. In a more modern, automated time period (i.e. the future) maintaining a
shipyard could mean a continuation of improvements on ship building methods,
and innovation. Oh, yeah, and your nation (or at least your companies, who
then go on to pay taxes) get money from outside sources.
[1] Britain and the US actually _did_ encounter these British built
ships, but that wasn't until the Second World War when the ships were very
much obsolete and used for purposes other than as warships. I suspect that the
longevity of interstellar warships is greater and that FT nations would do
well to be
_really_ sure of an alliance before they built capital ships for other
nations.