big ships

David wrote:
I don't know much about the Canadian navy, 
but if they were working on a class of ship 
they're used to working on, and they weren't 
trying to do anything they hadn't done 
before, then I don't think size would have 
that much to do with their overruns.

[Tomb] You'd think that. But as I said, ship 
construction is a continuing affair. You 
make it sound like you issue a design and it 
gets built. Each one (or each small run if 
you're building small ships) tends to vary 
from the last and incoroporate design 
changes, engineering improvements, bug 
fixes, and sometimes some new bugs. Often 
that means that you never really get full 
cookie-cutter production underway. If you 
end up with a major Shipalt, (Shipboard 
Alternation), then you can have a significant 
production delay and cost increase. 

Additionally, your point above about cost 
overruns not always being technical in 
nature doesn't exactly remove the point. If 
you construct a large vessel, you involve 
more hands. Each one looks at the larger 
project and says "Hmmm, I can bury more 
profit in this one because its so big". Plus 
you get the inefficiencies of scale (and 
there are a lot of those). This pork barrelling, 
profit taking, and sometimes just recouping 
of costs lost low-balling on other contracts is 
one factor that helps drive up the cost of 
larger projects. Plus empire building goes on 
in larger project teams. 

Allan made good hard-data points about 
modern ship construction costs. If you don't 
think that things will be the same in 200 
years, do what you want to do. Just realize 
your universe will favour the construction of 
supervessels. Costs being the same per 
mass (or cheaper), the combat efficacy of 
large vessels will make them the choice. You 
can do this, it's your game :) 

Sometimes a hammer costs $150 because it 
has been tested 13 ways from sideways, it 
floats, it won't ever break, it resists 
corrosion, it meets MilStd-1111A and 
1111B, it can be used as an emergency 
close combat weapon and also as a splint. 
Sometimes it is because the military 
procurement bureaucracy runs on its own 
set of rules and these methods increase the 
cost of a good without increasing its 
capacities. 

The toilet seat on the Admiral's private can 
aboard the CVN is probably no more 
functional than that in the Other Ranks 
communal can aboard a DD, but I'd bet it 
ends up costing more. No "technical" reason 
for it, but plenty of political, business, and 
organizational reasons.