Re: Why superships cost more per mass

On Fri, 29 Jun 2001 22:06:50 -0400, Richard and Emily Bell
<rlbell@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Your bad, this implies that surface area is linearly proportional to
volume, 
> which is FALSE.  

D'oh! You're right!

> The Lincoln has nuclear reactors and steam turbines, compared to the
gas
> turbines of the Lassen. 

That's quite true. How much of the reason behind the reactors is because
the
Lincoln is huge, and has huge power requirements for running the
facilities
for launching aircraft? These would all partly go towards a ship of X
mass
being more expensive than 4 ships of 1/4 X mass. The larger ships have
different requirements. 

In other words, an FT SDN should cost more than 4 destroyers of 1/4 it's
mass,
partly due to the stresses and strains on a huge ship, but also because
you DO
pack things like fighter bays and huge weapon systems into them.

> A closer comparison is the Enterprise and Long Beach.  Your straight
> comparison also assumes that there were no productivity improvements
between
> 1988 and 1999.

True. Couldn't find the information for those ships, though. But, the
DDG 51
is the same clas as the Lassen. It was completed around '93. It's a
closer
comparison than the Lassen, and it was the ship that only cost $143
million.
And, again, I didn't take into account 11 years worth of inflation.

Oh, and some of the systems on the Lassen are much more modern than the
DDG
51, which goes towards explaining it's larger price tag.

> The problem is that the Lassen uses simpler propulsion and was the
> thirty-second vessel of its class. 

DDG-51 was first in the class and about the same tonnage. It was less
than
1/30 the cost of the ship 12 times its mass. I think my comparison still
stands, particularly if you are looking to abstract some campaign ideas
as to
why a big ship should cost more per ton than a small shp.

> Proper comparisons (if you could find them) would be between heavy
cruisers
> and destroyers in WWII, as they were built in similar conditions and
have
> systems of equal technologies (guns, radar, steam).

I think that's a good idea! Actually, I'm smacking my head. I have
Conways
right here from 1860 to 1905. I would argue, though, that going too far
back
you'd miss the impact of construction technology, which will accelerate
in the
future. But it could provide an interesting comparison if the prices and
times
could be found. 

Allan Goodall		       awg@sympatico.ca
Goodall's Grotto:  http://www.vex.net/~agoodall

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan,