Re: Size Class Escalation -- How high in Mass?

Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
> 
> devans@uneb.edu wrote:
> 
> > ***
> > >	Number one, you get fewer examples to work on.
> >
> > This may NOT be true. Example -- dreadnoughts of
> > World War I. They built a LOT of those.
> > ***
> >
> > 'A lot' in this case is a very relative term. Less than in a single
class
> > of DD, I think, but I'll have to check my Jane's. On top of this,
for any
> > particular class of dreadnought, there were, at most, only four or
five.
> 
> The only ships that were ever mass produced were the liberty ships of
WWII.
> They were also the only ships built on an assembly line.  Every other
vessel
> was more or less hand assembled like a Rolls Royce motor car (but with
cranes
> to do the heavy lifting). 

Not so sure about this statement. I have a photo of seven Spruance class
destroyers being assembled at Litton / Ingalls in the seventies. The
ships were fabricated in several modules and then the bits joined
together to form hulls before being fitted out. The seven ships (or sets
of parts !) are laid out side-by-side and vary in stages of completeness
from left to right. I class this as an 'assembly line'.

Tony

-----------------------------
Tony Francis
Senior Software Engineer