No. Shipbuilding isn't an area for startups and unions are a very very small hurdle compared to getting the necessary materials. Just think of the steel. Anyone can order a few tons of rebar, but ask for 10,000 tons of plate steel suitable for ships and you will be laughed at. That isn't sitting in a warehouse or a back lot waiting for customers. An order out of the blue might take years to fill. The people that make steel work with regular customers and will always put those regular paying customers above a random startup who might not ever pay. If anything, they will want insane down payments.
Then think ship engines, the ones with blocks bigger than most houses. Order one of those out of the blue and, again not joking, it might be 10+ years. Those engines are targeting at future ships still on drawing boards, each is accounted for long before any metal is assembled. Any startup's order would be at the back of a very slow line.
A startup wanting to get into ship construction would have more success launching a new social media system, getting lucky, IPO, then use that money to purchase an existing shipbuilder. But at that point the "startup" is really just another a hedge fund investing in ship construction.
Maybe a startup can focus on making maritime drones, just like the Ukrainians do. I bet there's probably a lot of demand nowadays for that kind of thing. I checked and Anduril appears to be making something they call AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles).
I wonder if instead of disrupting U.S. shipbuilding, it would be more cost effective to figure out containerization of weaponry. Figure out how to land a drone in a shipping container and you might be able to turn any standard civilian container ship into an aircraft carrier with 1000 drones, 10x the air wing of a modern fleet carrier. You also trivialize logistics for this - the armaments, fuel, spare drones, sensors, etc. also go in containers, and resupply could be done at any container port and carried by any other container ship.
There's a long history of this in both world wars, eg. auxiliary cruisers and escort carriers, and they were fairly effective. See eg. the Battle of Samar, where 18 escort carriers and their destroyer escorts took on most of the Japanese battle fleet and won.
Similar ideas have been tried in the past, they always end the same way. The converted civilian ship has zero survivability and is sunk by the first passing warship to the embarrassment of all the planners involved.
Today such vessels are so susceptible to anti-ship missiles and submarines that they're laughed out of any serious military planning meeting where the participants aren't already desperate for tonnage.
There's no such thing as a blue water autonomous torpedo, there will always need to be a human-occupied platform to project power and manage military naval operations from.
This is without getting into the obvious problems of "lol how do you plan to control your USV? Pacific ocean spanning tether?"
As long as there are blue water navies, there will be military shipyards servicing them.
Already a thing (mostly remote controlled drone ships). But you'll always need mitigating controls for unexpected or low frequency events, and it's not always feasible to fly in a crew at which point the crew needs to be on board. This effectively is the same as the crew that's already there right now, so it doesn't actually impact all that much.
The biggest benefit of remote, drone or automated piloting is the way you could make better use of a person's time, and maybe save a tiny amount of wages, but it's mostly the resulting functionality/features/business processes that is the benefit, not the headcount cost.
sandworm101|2 years ago
Then think ship engines, the ones with blocks bigger than most houses. Order one of those out of the blue and, again not joking, it might be 10+ years. Those engines are targeting at future ships still on drawing boards, each is accounted for long before any metal is assembled. Any startup's order would be at the back of a very slow line.
A startup wanting to get into ship construction would have more success launching a new social media system, getting lucky, IPO, then use that money to purchase an existing shipbuilder. But at that point the "startup" is really just another a hedge fund investing in ship construction.
wizerdrobe|2 years ago
Is the payoff worse for ship builders?
credit_guy|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
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dylan604|2 years ago
Sounds like yet another reason supporting concrete ships
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_ship
CHB0403085482|2 years ago
toomuchtodo|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
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nostrademons|2 years ago
There's a long history of this in both world wars, eg. auxiliary cruisers and escort carriers, and they were fairly effective. See eg. the Battle of Samar, where 18 escort carriers and their destroyer escorts took on most of the Japanese battle fleet and won.
nickelpro|2 years ago
Today such vessels are so susceptible to anti-ship missiles and submarines that they're laughed out of any serious military planning meeting where the participants aren't already desperate for tonnage.
2OEH8eoCRo0|2 years ago
renewiltord|2 years ago
nickelpro|2 years ago
This is without getting into the obvious problems of "lol how do you plan to control your USV? Pacific ocean spanning tether?"
As long as there are blue water navies, there will be military shipyards servicing them.
echelon|2 years ago
Autonomous ships will probably also be a big thing.
oneplane|2 years ago
The biggest benefit of remote, drone or automated piloting is the way you could make better use of a person's time, and maybe save a tiny amount of wages, but it's mostly the resulting functionality/features/business processes that is the benefit, not the headcount cost.
Waterluvian|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
throwawaysleep|2 years ago