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kzt wrote:Modern big ships have 20,000 or more containers. HV big ships have 200,000 much larger containers, which are also probably vacuum tight and packed in very tightly.

The idea of trying to inspect something like this is fairly absurd. You’d need literally a square km of land or deck to unload them all just to start the process.

Which is probably why Harrington asked the Bosen to recommend an "experience" (heavy on the possibly shady side) to be paired up with Scotty on those checks. Horace Harkness had lots of experience and knew things so he was a great way to teach the young officer and get the job done. Scotty learns and everybody is happy....except the people they catch doing things wrong. Like the customs tags that had been fiddled with.
Mostly when your doing stuff like this you are looking for what doesn't look quite right or out of the ordinary. Does that paperwork match what you can look at? Why are they doing something "this way" rather than that. Little stuff. And blatant stuff.

Basilisk had been a long time without effective -if any- actual inspections and the people who were smuggling knew that and perhaps were not as careful as they should have been. There is also a tendency for people to accept what has been cleared by someone (anyone) earlier as ok and once that ship left Basilisk and that particular group of containers was transshipped off at the Junction or somewhere else they may not have gotten the scrutiny that Horace provided.
No, you can't check everything but you can do more than just go through the motions and sign off. If nothing else, having diligent, honest, inspectors will help cut down on the people trying to slip stuff through and as you gain experience you start to get a feel for what might not look quite right. Where did stuff come from? Where is it going? How in hell did someone route what is listed on the manifest though here? Details. And there is one hell of incentive to actually catch a smuggler or a contraband shipment even if the crew doesn't have any knowledge of it and it's just more cargo.

kzt wrote:Modern big ships have 20,000 or more containers. HV big ships have 200,000 much larger containers, which are also probably vacuum tight and packed in very tightly.

The idea of trying to inspect something like this is fairly absurd. You’d need literally a square km of land or deck to unload them all just to start the process.

Not only that. Who is going to repack it if they don't find anything. And who is going to eat the costs of a wasted shipment. Wasted because it is now too late to deliver, or because it was damaged when unpacked by people who are not the people who were expecting the shipment with special knowledge of contents and dos and donts. Staggering lawsuits can arise from broken deliveries. All part of the reason I say spot checks aren't just done willy nilly. Honor had probable cause, and even she didn't act until she took the time to do the math, and she considered all of the facts coming in from lots of sources.

If the MA uses these things, they would certainly have them operating long enough for the galaxy to become accustomed to seeing them, before turning them into Trojan Horses.

kzt wrote:Modern big ships have 20,000 or more containers. HV big ships have 200,000 much larger containers, which are also probably vacuum tight and packed in very tightly.

The idea of trying to inspect something like this is fairly absurd. You’d need literally a square km of land or deck to unload them all just to start the process.

The ship can be made larger with little penalty. The cost penalty of accidentally loading the container you need at the extreme rear is high. I would envision lines of containers, supported in frames, with gaps between them like in an Amazon warehouse, so that an arbitrary container is within a few other containers of the surface.

cthia wrote:Not only that. Who is going to repack it if they don't find anything. And who is going to eat the costs of a wasted shipment. Wasted because it is now too late to deliver, or because it was damaged when unpacked by people who are not the people who were expecting the shipment with special knowledge of contents and dos and donts. Staggering lawsuits can arise from broken deliveries. All part of the reason I say spot checks aren't just done willy nilly. Honor had probable cause, and even she didn't act until she took the time to do the math, and she considered all of the facts coming in from lots of sources.

Whoever unpacks repacks, so if the inspection opened a container, they must know how to close it back again. But most inspections don't actually need to open the containers, they just do cross-checking of paperwork (though I'd expect this to be completely automated by AI in the very near future). When they open containers, they don't also open all of them, there's simply not enough time and space to do that. They'll do sampling, unless they have "information" that directs them to a particular container.

As for delays, that's up to the shipper and their insurance. Inspections and delays are to be expected. They can't sue the government for doing its job, even if nothing was found, except if they can show they were being harassed or deliberately singled out without reason.

If the MA uses these things, they would certainly have them operating long enough for the galaxy to become accustomed to seeing them, before turning them into Trojan Horses.

Technically this is true, but impractically improbable. You're saying that the MAlign needs to be operating a fleet of 100 supermassive freighters for 50 T-years (at least) without much incident. First, they haven't (or David hasn't told us), so unless they invent a time machine, they won't invest another half a century in this. Second, there is probably no market for this many supermassives: like I said up-thread in the example of the Antonov An-225, the Airbus Beluga XL, and the Boeing Dreamlifter, there exist exactly as many as there's market for it and no one floods the market with bigger ships with much higher operating costs. Though... given that Manpower has been operating for centuries with a broken business model, I wouldn't put it past the Alignment to do the same for the Jessyk Combine, but that was a front for a strategic goal they had, not a tactical one.

If they do invent a time machine, the universe has other problems...

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Technically this is true, but impractically improbable. You're saying that the MAlign needs to be operating a fleet of 100 supermassive freighters for 50 T-years (at least) without much incident. First, they haven't (or David hasn't told us), so unless they invent a time machine, they won't invest another half a century in this. Second, there is probably no market for this many supermassives: like I said up-thread in the example of the Antonov An-225, the Airbus Beluga XL, and the Boeing Dreamlifter, there exist exactly as many as there's market for it and no one floods the market with bigger ships with much higher operating costs. Though... given that Manpower has been operating for centuries with a broken business model, I wouldn't put it past the Alignment to do the same for the Jessyk Combine, but that was a front for a strategic goal they had, not a tactical one.

.

A good real life example of this is the Seawise Giant - a massive 1/2 Million ton Supertanker. It turns out that most terminals weren't big enough to accommodate this vessel, and it was more economical to use smaller ships. It was retired and (ironically) turned into a moored offshore terminal to offload other large (but not as large) supertankers.

One could also point out the Historical SS Great Eastern. It was built as a massive passenger liner, but quickly ended it's life laying telegraph cable, because it was the only ship big enough, and only job which could pay enough. It's size would not be eclipsed for 40 years after it's launch. It was a iron hulled ship built before the ACW, and built to carry 4000 passengers. Once again it was too big - this time for the market forces, it's costs required that it run at nearly full levels to make a profit, and the owners had a hard time selling sufficient berths to make any voyage profitable.

Merchant Ship require the proper market conditions for their use. If they are not economical, their life will be relatively short and few built.

Theemile wrote:One could also point out the Historical SS Great Eastern. It was built as a massive passenger liner, but quickly ended it's life laying telegraph cable, because it was the only ship big enough, and only job which could pay enough. It's size would not be eclipsed for 40 years after it's launch. It was a iron hulled ship built before the ACW, and built to carry 4000 passengers. Once again it was too big - this time for the market forces, it's costs required that it run at nearly full levels to make a profit, and the owners had a hard time selling sufficient berths to make any voyage profitable.

And the same is happening again to the 4-engine aeroplanes and, to an extent, to the largest versions of the 777X too. The 747s are retired, the 747-8s only exist in a few cargo routes, the A380s are all grounded and were in the endangered list before the pandemic anyway. The 777s are twin-engine planes, but even then they have high operating costs so they only make a profit when a significant fraction of their capacity is filled.

Market conditions have changed unpredictably during the last year (including a rise in the freight rates, thereby allowing less economical aeroplanes to keep being operated), but history repeats itself, though for different reasons.

Theemile wrote:One could also point out the Historical SS Great Eastern. It was built as a massive passenger liner, but quickly ended it's life laying telegraph cable, because it was the only ship big enough, and only job which could pay enough. It's size would not be eclipsed for 40 years after it's launch. It was a iron hulled ship built before the ACW, and built to carry 4000 passengers. Once again it was too big - this time for the market forces, it's costs required that it run at nearly full levels to make a profit, and the owners had a hard time selling sufficient berths to make any voyage profitable.

Merchant Ship require the proper market conditions for their use. If they are not economical, their life will be relatively short and few built.

Though to be fair the SS Great Eastern was built to serve a market that unexpectedly ended while it was still under construction. It's vast size was to give it vast amounts of fuel needed, with the low efficiency engines of the age, to efficiently make to runs to Australian packed full of 3rd class passengers emigrating there. And when she was designed and laid down there was a significant and growing number of them (thanks to a bounty paid to encourage immigration) - and the existing steam ships struggled with the route, having to mostly hug the African and Indian coasts to permit them to come into port and coal many times on the trip.

The Great Eastern was designed to be able to steam unrefueled from Cape Town South Africa straight across to Australia; cutting a lot of time (and expense) off the trip. But by the time she came into service the bounty had been ended and that largely dried up the Australian route; which rather left her searching for a profitably alternative.

But

Jonathan_S wrote:

Theemile wrote:One could also point out the Historical SS Great Eastern. It was built as a massive passenger liner, but quickly ended it's life laying telegraph cable, because it was the only ship big enough, and only job which could pay enough. It's size would not be eclipsed for 40 years after it's launch. It was a iron hulled ship built before the ACW, and built to carry 4000 passengers. Once again it was too big - this time for the market forces, it's costs required that it run at nearly full levels to make a profit, and the owners had a hard time selling sufficient berths to make any voyage profitable.

Merchant Ship require the proper market conditions for their use. If they are not economical, their life will be relatively short and few built.

Though to be fair the SS Great Eastern was built to serve a market that unexpectedly ended while it was still under construction. It's vast size was to give it vast amounts of fuel needed, with the low efficiency engines of the age, to efficiently make to runs to Australian packed full of 3rd class passengers emigrating there. And when she was designed and laid down there was a significant and growing number of them (thanks to a bounty paid to encourage immigration) - and the existing steam ships struggled with the route, having to mostly hug the African and Indian coasts to permit them to come into port and coal many times on the trip.

The Great Eastern was designed to be able to steam unrefueled from Cape Town South Africa straight across to Australia; cutting a lot of time (and expense) off the trip. But by the time she came into service the bounty had been ended and that largely dried up the Australian route; which rather left her searching for a profitably alternative.

But

In addition, the Suez canal opened in '68, and she was too wide to traverse the canal, forcing her to keep to the around the Horn journey while her competitors could cut a month or more off the journey .

Once again, all these are dependent on market conditions.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Not only that. Who is going to repack it if they don't find anything. And who is going to eat the costs of a wasted shipment. Wasted because it is now too late to deliver, or because it was damaged when unpacked by people who are not the people who were expecting the shipment with special knowledge of contents and dos and donts. Staggering lawsuits can arise from broken deliveries. All part of the reason I say spot checks aren't just done willy nilly. Honor had probable cause, and even she didn't act until she took the time to do the math, and she considered all of the facts coming in from lots of sources.

Whoever unpacks repacks, so if the inspection opened a container, they must know how to close it back again. But most inspections don't actually need to open the containers, they just do cross-checking of paperwork (though I'd expect this to be completely automated by AI in the very near future). When they open containers, they don't also open all of them, there's simply not enough time and space to do that. They'll do sampling, unless they have "information" that directs them to a particular container.

Perhaps, but real world baggage throws up a caution. To start, the workforce who packs these behemoths are experienced. In our application they have the title of stevedores. I suspect some are well paid. Second, especially on real world container ships, packing is an art. Even on big rigs. Packing is an artform everywhere. You encounter it at your local grocer. You can't pack canned goods atop eggs. And don't you just hate it when your bread arrives home smashed? I'm not sure if the same concerns for the same reasons would exist in the Honorverse, but the efficient use of space is a must. Computers may help a lot and probably do in that matter, but I'm sure other dos-and-donts have emerged. So, experienced stevedores are needed to pack. I can't see how they can be forced to unpack unless inspections are lucky to be ordered at the perfect time, which would be upon arrival at the "dock." By that time they would have already served the MAs purpose.

I'm also unsure about passing on damages to the insurance companies. I'd bet that is a "negative, good buddy." (CB speak).

ThinksMarkedly wrote:As for delays, that's up to the shipper and their insurance. Inspections and delays are to be expected. They can't sue the government for doing its job, even if nothing was found, except if they can show they were being harassed or deliberately singled out without reason.

Insurance costs are probably massively high already. You can't force insurers to pay for someone else's mistakes. If so, uncouth governments and outfits could kill any shipping company it targets. And if any system has a policy of making the shipper (or his insurance) eat the costs of their mistakes, surely their ports will soon become "ghost towns." I will wager that the Manticoran government would have eaten the costs for Honor's mistakes. And again, these costs could become catastrophic and stratospheric. Valuable medicines could be destroyed. Costly materials and time sensitive deliveries would instantly be made a bust, which no one will want (which will have to be returned then destroyed) which itself is a bag of mixed nuts and lots of red tape. Nobody is going to want to deliver to a system who forces a shipper to eat the costs of their mistakes. In Manticore's case, they would be shooting their own revenue stream in the foot.

cthia wrote:If the MA uses these things, they would certainly have them operating long enough for the galaxy to become accustomed to seeing them, before turning them into Trojan Horses.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Technically this is true, but impractically improbable. You're saying that the MAlign needs to be operating a fleet of 100 supermassive freighters for 50 T-years (at least) without much incident.

Why 50 years? One arrival and news of these freighters will spread like wildfire. And they will only be used on certain routes anyway, where supply and demand justify it. Six months to a year or even less should be fine. A steady stream of rigs are arriving all the time. A shipper could cut their shipping costs drastically because one freighter can now carry the goods of two. In fact, on certain routes, these things could put smaller companies out of business by offering lower shipping costs because of volume. Enough to piss the hell out of Hauptman.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:First, they haven't (or David hasn't told us), so unless they invent a time machine, they won't invest another half a century in this. Second, there is probably no market for this many supermassives: like I said up-thread in the example of the Antonov An-225, the Airbus Beluga XL, and the Boeing Dreamlifter, there exist exactly as many as there's market for it and no one floods the market with bigger ships with much higher operating costs. Though... given that Manpower has been operating for centuries with a broken business model, I wouldn't put it past the Alignment to do the same for the Jessyk Combine, but that was a front for a strategic goal they had, not a tactical one.

Again, I don't see the problem. No one has said anything about flooding the market. Massive tankers are built as needed. And, I imagine the old adage would ring true... "build it and they will come." Even the local grocer would experience less frequent bouts of anxiety having to watch current rigs being unpacked and the sinking feeling it doesn't contain what they need, which will obviously (hopefully) be on a following delivery on "the next" delivery date. Heck, I know my local grocer's delivery dates and oftentimes I'm annoyed my big order hasn't arrived. It is a bitch watching these huge freighters being emptied, seeing more and more of its cavernous insides and less and less goods remaining to be offloaded but still no joy finding what you really really need.

I also fail to see the same criteria carrying over in the HV as far as being economical. I can't see fuel costs being a nonstarter for wedge powered freighters. And the use of thrusters even on a superfreighter can't be that inordinately higher.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If they do invent a time machine, the universe has other problems...

Which is why the universe has problems. The MA couldn't design and fight wedge against wedge, so they didn't try. They couldn't match the Manties' form of stealth, so they didn't try. They couldn't invent a time machine, but they learned to be frustratingly patient making time work for them. They relocated to an unknown part of the galaxy so they wouldn't ever be under the gun. Thus, all the time in the world to design things centuries ahead of its enemies. Which makes its enemy need the time machine.

Loading, packing and organizing
I have a fair amount of experience in packing things into storage containers (not so much shipping containers) and you have to think in terms of what will fit where/ how it will be stacked (that egg & bread comment) and when it can anticipate it being needed and so where it needs to be for availability.
Two summers working at a large waterpark with restaurant. They had a walk-in cooler (larger than most big living rooms with a walk-in freezer behind that. Planning, use-by dates, first in first out (literally, even frozen there are perishable points in time) and access. Deliveries twice a week on some items, every other week on others and then "as needed" stuff.
Organize incoming to be near existing stock of same kind and shift for eldest closest to front. Move (daily as needed from freezer to cooler to buffer thawing (and effect the temp in the cooler to use less power instead of on a counter in the prep location.

In a differnt connection you should see what has to get done for a package & delivery service like FedEx or UPS. The long hall transport (in trucking) is going to take load between cities but one of the reasons fo those twin 28' trailers is forwarding stuff to a location beyond where the other one is going. In the local delivery routes it more simplified than for some shipping loop for a wet traffic coastal freighter or multistep interstellar route but the truck has to drop off in a lot of places and there will be pickups- and at least the to-be-delivered stuff had best be organized for efficiency in finding and dropping at the intended destination.
Since the more you handle stuff, the more time it takes and it costs, you want to load ships- hopefully with a bunch of the different deliveries sequentially but still accessible-and since you are going to be putting any incoming goods in the holds you might want to sort them to near things going to a system already on your route or create a new holding area for a "new" stop. And, if your heading to a place where you are making deliveries and transshipment drop, you would want the items close together but clearly separated.
Experience helps along with an appreciation of the logistics for the parts of the job.
And don't forget the weights involved (and, of course mass). There is a reason they stencil the WEIGHTS on shipping containers and weigh the things being checked into the "yard" facilities.
That gets noted /confirmed on the manifests and the purser/cargo master has to figure out where to put what. Because you really really really want to balance your load in three dimensions relative to the dimensions and capability of the vessel.
So, yes, it does involve rocket science