Why did it take so long to deal with Silesia?

Duckk wrote:

1000 ships is not an enormous number. How many building slips would this require? We have building times. It is a couple of weeks. Number of slips required would be around 100-200. Hardly a huge number. Even if we halve the number built, we are still talking a very small number of actual building slips required.

Err...what?

boballab wrote:*Sigh*

Some people either never read Shadow of Freedom or they have totally blanked it from their minds or they would know that in it is clear texttev that RAW materials are transported over intersellar space:

Thurso was a very different proposition—a gleaming, gorgeous sapphire of a world. Over ninety percent of its surface was water, and the widely scattered archipelagoes which were nominally dry land had to cope with tidal surges that reminded the captain more of tsunamis than anything most planets would have called tides. Not too surprising, she supposed, when Thurso’s “moon” was three percent more massive than Old Earth herself. Weather was…interesting on Thurso, as well, and it wasn’t too surprising that the planet’s population was tiny compared to Halkirk’s. On the other hand, Thurso’s gargantuan fisheries produced a startling tonnage of gourmet seafood which commanded extraordinary prices from Core World epicures. Probably not extraordinary enough to have attracted Star Enterprise Initiatives Unlimited’s attention to Loomis by itself, but enough to have made the star system a worthwhile trading stop even without Halkirk. The asteroid resource extraction industries and the gas mining operations centered on the star system’s trio of gas giants undoubtedly helped cover SEIU’s operating expenses, too, but the real treasure of the Loomis System lay in Halkirk’s groves of silver oak.

Francine Venelli was a professional spacer, accustomed to compact living quarters aboard ship or orbital habitats. She didn’t think in terms of planetary housing, or the kinds of huge, sprawling domiciles wealthy dirtsiders seemed to think were necessary. For that matter, she didn’t really understand the fascination “natural” materials exercised on some people’s minds. Durability, practicality, and appearance were far more important to her than where the materials in question came from, and wood was a pretty piss-poor construction material where starships were concerned.

Despite that, even she had been struck by the sheer beauty of Halkirk silver oak. The dense-grained, beautifully colored, beautifully patterned wood was like a somatic holo sculpture, deliberately designed to soothe and stroke the edges of a frayed temperament. Something about its texture—about the half-seen, half-imagined highlights that gleamed against its dark cherry wood color, like true silver deep inside the grain—was almost like the visual equivalent of barely heard woodwinds playing softly at the back of one’s mind or a gentle, relaxing massage. Just sitting in a room paneled with it was almost enough to make a woman forget why she was so pissed off with people like the Loomis System government. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that the price it commanded in Core World markets, as a medium for sculptors and furniture designers as well as a building material, was truly astronomical.

Chapter 2 SoF

That wood is a RAW material and they tell you that they haul it from way out in the Verge all the way back into the core of the Solarian League and make huge profits off it.

Some of you probably got hung up on the words raw materials and was thinking about only things like Iron ore which is everywhere but forgot that some raw materials are also very rare materials since they only come from certain places and climates. Also keep mind that in the Honorverse shipping something doesn't really cost that much as was explained later in SoF when Mr Westman ruminated over the fact that the Trifecta Corporation was looking to import Montana beef into the planet Mobius almost 200 light years away.

wastedfly wrote:

Zakharra wrote:
Aah.h. That's very incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipbuilding_countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipyard

Hmm, ok, Seems Europe builds a few cruise ships at a slow pace.

Thanks to the Jones act we still build a couple tankers for intra state transportation of fuel/oil. Guess a couple ore transports on the Great lakes that can't leave the great lakes, and a couple small freighters to go to Hawaii and Guam.

All mass produced ships of any quantity are made by 3 nations, Korea, China, Japan and I believe Indonesia is starting to stick their toes into this arena as well. Though the world downturn quashed their aspirations.

Zakharra wrote:
You really are trying to discount that other First world nations build ships aren't you? Some do it more, others less, but they STILL do it. So they aren't out of the game shipbuilding wise and this shoots your contention that First World nation don't build ships out of the water.

wastedfly wrote:

SWM wrote:Wastedfly, you said that "we have numbers". So, where did you get the numbers saying that it takes two weeks for an Honorverse freighter to be built? That's what Duckk was asking, and you have not answered. Right now, it looks like you are just pulling numbers "out of your nether regions." Comparisons with modern sailing ships are not necessarily useful.

I never said two weeks. Duckk did.

As I originally posted, which you oh so conveniently forgot, or never read: RFC has posted construction times for DD through SD. I can't find it. I have seen it very recently. Someone has it.

As I recall It was:
23weeks SDP
20 BCL
18 CLAC
18 BCP 16?
12 SAG-C
10 DD

Real world says Freighters are built in half the time of DD's when both are built in quantity. The real world is very useful. It stops one from pulling foolish statements out of ones nether regions and presenting such statements as "fact".

munroburton wrote:Some warship building times are buried in this pearl: http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/290/1

boballab wrote:

SWM wrote:While you are technically correct that this is a raw material, it might be classed more as luxury goods than a bulk goods. The discussion is about bulk goods, not merely raw materials. Bulk goods generally have low value density, and that's what the infodump from RFC was talking about--not high-value density goods like this exotic wood.

I think you better go back and re-read that chapter because that interstellar is clear cutting forests for that wood and they have enough groves to do it for at least another 10 years. That much wood is not a luxury item but a bulk good.

wastedfly wrote:

Zakharra wrote:
Aah.h. That's very incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipbuilding_countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipyard

Hmm, ok, Seems Europe builds a few cruise ships at a slow pace.

Thanks to the Jones act we still build a couple tankers for intra state transportation of fuel/oil. Guess a couple ore transports on the Great lakes that can't leave the great lakes, and a couple small freighters to go to Hawaii and Guam.

All mass produced ships of any quantity are made by 3 nations, Korea, China, Japan and I believe Indonesia is starting to stick their toes into this arena as well. Though the world downturn quashed their aspirations.

Hutch wrote:Besides, the MWW has declared that trade is both ongoing and very critical to many planets, and since it's his Universe...