How to Recover from OB was-RMN Pows Held by RoH Op Thund..

Sheriff Yoda wrote:I'm thinking this is going to really improve Manticore's orbital industry due the fact they can design it from the ground up as it were.

Yup. I'm kind of interested in what they do for facilities. I can see several different paths that could be gone down.

Fortunately for Manticore; all of the top scientists, top engineers and top machinists / fabricator operators
are stationed on Weyland. They were all dirtside on an evacuation drill when OB hit. This means that they don't have the guys to build many ships or fabricate many ship parts. However; they have the guys who developed all of the proprietary processes and procedures to train and supervise a new batch of ship yard workers.

bafoote wrote:Well, all the the slips that just shipped out the python lump had the next generation of ships in them according to MOH. So, whoever did that are gone. ALl the folks making the parts to put in said next gen ships are gone. Yes, I think quite a few of the workers actually making said ships are on leave or vacation, but I don't see this as being the limiting factor for Manticore. Their base inddustry just got their nosed wiped very very clean. Won't matter how many ship workers there are if they have no parts to install and nobody around who knows how to create said parts as the processes to make said parts are usually NEVER documented in industry, rather its passed down via "tribal" knowledge on high tech goods because THIS is the trade secrets, not the patents. In fact all of said processes would never be patented because as soon as you do everyone else now knows exactly how to do it. Its why corporate espionage holds such a heavy penalty. They are spiing out the processes, said "tribal Knowledge".

Absolutely an excellent point. However; I get the impression that the ship yards had made a Herculean effort over a two plus year period to get the ships whose construction Janacek had suspended completed then the python lump finished. Given the fact that the RMN is having difficulty finding people to man the ships even before the Battle of Manticore, I'd expect Manticore to throttle back a little bit.

john964 wrote:

namelessfly wrote:My recollection was that it was somewhere between 100 k and 250 k people. THese weren't the people with detailed knowledge of Manticore's most advanced systems, but they were highly experienced ship yard workers.

Yes, I get the obvious point. Just another pool of people who can help rebuild Manticore ship building after Oyster Bay.


Question. why does Weber presume that after working their butts off to get the python lump out of the yards, why didn't any of the workers take a vacation. Under normal, American practice where people get two weeks of vacation, I'd expect that one worker in twenty-five would be off the stations along with their family having some fun. If they were Europeans it would be more like one worker in ten would be bye bye. Given all of the deferred vacations while they worked on the python lump, I'd expect that perhaps one in five ship yard workers would be taking an overdue vacation when OB hit.

Now about those retirees or people who've moved on to other professions as you would expect in a prolong society?

Not nessaceraly during WWII all US shipyards worked 24/7 with employees differing or selling back there vacation time to buy war bonds. One of my uncles worked for NNSB&DD during WWII and he said he did not take a vacation from Sept 1941 untill July 1944 he said he worked an average of 50-60hr per week and would take anywhere from 1-3 days off every 3-4 weeks.

As to yard workers sitting around because there jobs are finished or not required. Wouldn't they rotate the workers to the various building slips as they were needed.
eg they just finished installing the fusion plants on PCU Treecat now the are sent to install the fusion plants on PCU Peakbear then when they finish that job thier sent to PCU Hexapuma II to install that ships fusion plants.

There is the rather huge difference between hand crafting a prototype missile vs optimizing the design for rational production and then building the equipment to make a missile every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

True.

However; I get the impression that it is the people on Weyland who not only hand crafted the prototype missiles, ships and what not, they are the people who optimized the design for rational production then built the equipment to manufacutre a missile every 10 seconds, 24/7. The people on Hephetasis and Vulcan were the line workers who operated the machines created by the people on Weyland. Obviously I could be wrong, but this is my impression.

kzt wrote:There is the rather huge difference between hand crafting a prototype missile vs optimizing the design for rational production and then building the equipment to make a missile every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

namelessfly wrote:True.

However; I get the impression that it is the people on Weyland who not only hand crafted the prototype missiles, ships and what not, they are the people who optimized the design for rational production then built the equipment to manufacutre a missile every 10 seconds, 24/7. The people on Hephetasis and Vulcan were the line workers who operated the machines created by the people on Weyland. Obviously I could be wrong, but this is my impression.

Could be.

namelessfly wrote:True.

However; I get the impression that it is the people on Weyland who not only hand crafted the prototype missiles, ships and what not, they are the people who optimized the design for rational production then built the equipment to manufacutre a missile every 10 seconds, 24/7. The people on Hephetasis and Vulcan were the line workers who operated the machines created by the people on Weyland. Obviously I could be wrong, but this is my impression.

kzt wrote:There is the rather huge difference between hand crafting a prototype missile vs optimizing the design for rational production and then building the equipment to make a missile every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

No the people responsible for figuring out the mass production would be private contractors, such as the Haupteman Cartel.

based on my real life experience with a global manufacturing company.

The design weenies build prototypes and very small assembly lines (10-100 units/day)

Then that gets passed over to the most sophisticated of our factories (that would be in Singapore these days, which is a first world city-state in terms of education and capability) and they build the first high volume production lines.

When they get the kinks worked out, the China, Thailand and Malaysia factories come on line, using what the primary factories learned.

In our model mapped to Manticore, the key factories that do the ramp up to really large volumes would be space dust. However the preproduction turnover plans would be intact, as would all the stuff learned. I doubt the records from the "lessons learned" ramping it up would have been lost either, as storage is cheap and backups of stuff that important would be dirtside.

Still, coming back from all of our fabs destroyed, all manufacturers of our production line and test equipment also destroyed, along with our people most skilled at transitioning from small batches to large production runs....that would be challenging. But easier if we were part of a political unit facing an existential threat that needed our product.

solbergb wrote:based on my real life experience with a global manufacturing company.

The design weenies build prototypes and very small assembly lines (10-100 units/day)

Then that gets passed over to the most sophisticated of our factories (that would be in Singapore these days, which is a first world city-state in terms of education and capability) and they build the first high volume production lines.

When they get the kinks worked out, the China, Thailand and Malaysia factories come on line, using what the primary factories learned.

In our model mapped to Manticore, the key factories that do the ramp up to really large volumes would be space dust. However the preproduction turnover plans would be intact, as would all the stuff learned. I doubt the records from the "lessons learned" ramping it up would have been lost either, as storage is cheap and backups of stuff that important would be dirtside.

Still, coming back from all of our fabs destroyed, all manufacturers of our production line and test equipment also destroyed, along with our people most skilled at transitioning from small batches to large production runs....that would be challenging. But easier if we were part of a political unit facing an existential threat that needed our product.

Howdy Solberg B,

Quite true, and thanks for the insight into a modern corporation's a approach. It shows how clumsy Britain's attempt at shadow factories were before WWII, when no one in Whitehall had any real business experience, not that the business leaders were that up to date on modern corporations or practice. Only ICI met that standard.

Of course, America's industrial debacle in WWI resulted in the Industrial College of the Armed Forces to prevent it happening again. Despite all the mistakes didn't bother; it had muddled through to victory, so why bother?

I think everybody has brought up excellent points.

So next to the military alliance to spare the SEM's missile stockpiles, I think returning the Grendlesbane workforce would be the best thing the RoH could do in the short term. R&D collaboration is going to take much longer, though I can see Pritchart offering to build one of the new space stations, and it being christened Haven or Eloise or something.

Given Grendlesbane was a decades long multi-trillion dollar investment, the new capital ships worth over M$3 T alone, working at well below capacity when Thunderbolt trapped the workers brought back to finish 73 SDP's, 19 ClAC's, NTM the service and repair yards etc. Just how big are the work crews needed for 4 shifts a day to add or install around 900,000 tons of equipment and ship hull etc per day, to just the SDP's ? 100,000 ? 250,000 ?

At the very least, being familiar with all aspects of ship construction and assembly, etc; they will make an excellent teaching core. So how soon can they be returned was one of the questions at the bar. Answers ?

But don't forget Beowulf either.
Its tech is right up there with the SKM's, they're less than 6 hours away if you avoid the RZ route, and they have a blood relative attitude towards the SKM, given what I call the '3rd wave of immigration' when the WHJ is discovered (which I suspect was by Beowulf, as they're more likely to be aware of it, etc). I suspect Beowulf 'responders' were there in a very big wag within 6-12 hours, in fact I'd bet Beowulf's support especially tech wise, out masses everybody else's combined.

San Martin was only under the peeps for 30 years (but with almost a 300 year relationship with the SKM), and out for 11-12 years now, so its tech etc ought to be near SKM levels given the effort in integration.

DW's emphasis that the SKM's losses constituted the equivalent of all the WWII American workers at Boeing, Bell, Douglass, Lockheed, North American, Grumman, Consolidated, Curtiss, Ford etc, is to underline the characteristics of who got whacked. But what about off shift workers? They all lived aboard the space station's?

Given Manticore's wealth, 4 5.5 hour etc shift's, and very quick commuting times, I find it very hard to believe so many people would limit themselves so.

I've run the numbers at the bar of how passenger shuttles could reach the space stations even from the other side of the planet in 5.5-8 minutes at 100-200'G's acceleration, once they're out of the atmosphere.

For a scheduled 15 minute commute, they might plan to spend some time waiting to dock, to provide some leeway for any atmospheric delays. I have yet to get a logical explanation for why potential civilian passenger shuttles couldn't have 400'G' acceleration, which navy shuttles, cutters and pinnaces apparently easily surpass.

We don't know why DW insists all workers lived aboard the SS's, but the implication of the SS's obvious vulnerabilities seems to foreshadow their doom in OBS.

Now the MWW isn't going to change his mind, and I really don't see a Dallas shower scene that flushes the last few books, so let's move on to more positive realms.

Will 'distributed' work forces (ie planet side) be required in the future ?

But consider this: not only can newer several smaller space stations be built that will be far better protected than ever before (multiple sidewalls), the design teams now have 3-4 years to update what they will build. Perhaps plenty of time to incorporate streak and spider drives, sensors to detect them, NTM weapons to dispatch them.

I would be surprised if even further 'magical' advances in manufacturing and construction time reduction weren't an emphasis for Weyland's orphans over the next 3-4 years minimum.

But there will be bottlenecks. Grumman after WWII, had to reduce the workforce from 21,000 to 5,000 due to cutbacks. One of the best companies during the war, and noted for its dedication to its workers, only around a dozen didn't want to work for Grumman after the war (talk about loyalty). The team leaders picked the most skilled to keep, but discovered a very big problem. Airframe 'Fasteners' had not been kept, because it was not considered very skilled work, yet they were desperately needed in just a couple of days.
Before the war, many of the local labor force recruited had been truck farmers, clam diggers, etc with little or no mechanical expertise, yet Grumman trained them itself, setting national records.
I thought I'd just mention the F-14 Tomcat was one of my favorite planes. :-)

Back to the H-V; Elisabeth III has issued her call to arms like Winston Churchill; are we to believe the people of the SKM won't respond, pull up their shirtsleeves and dig into the heavy work ahead ?

Interesting times,

Best to all,

L

I don't doubt your math is correct on that based on the assumptions you are using, but we don't know the range from the planet a impeller powered craft can safely use its wedge. There was a passage in Storm where Pavalic was going down to a planet and DW referenced that she didn't even bother to bring up the wedge at all.

Also assuming that all civilian transport is an impeller driven ship is a bit much, impeller's have to be expensive in maintenace, energy, and intial installation. DW has only shown us the upper crust and military in Manticore's socitiy so we don't know if the common dock worker has the resources to do that kind of commute on a daily basis.

Furthermore even if its doable economically doesn't mean that the vast majority of workers wouldn't just choose to stay on the station just to save money. If housing on the station is cheaper than housing and travel expenses on planet most people will choose that, esspecially if living conditions on the station are near what can be achieved on planet.

And to completely beat this dead horse Sphinx and Gryphon have alot more severe weather than Manticore does so the workers on Vulcan and Weyland might decide to live on the station to avoid that, or just to be able to keep their jobs, can you imagine having to call in for 3 weeks in a row cause you can't get off planet?

I really think it makes much more sense for the labor force to live on station. Now vacations, that's different those would probably be spent on planet and most retirees would be on planet.