Although the subject of ship booksping maritime marine engineering-design might be dismissed as a pastime for professionals ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news an even smaller nerdish audience, this reflect-, nothing more than ignorance anion marry 'mainstream' naval historians. Yet ever since naives became formal national organisations the quality of ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings has been a major factor in both their successes ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news their tsilures. To those of us who study navies, one of the Fascinating aspects is the complexity of the subject, which encompasses engineering, economics, sociology ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news even psychology.
Lship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newssmen arc mostly unae of the incontrovertiblr fact that a ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineering is the livigest mobile structure on the planet. ship booksping maritime marine engineerings take the story ever) further, because they combine the complex engineering inherent in ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineeringbuilding with the unavoidable fact that they are intended to fight other ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news to take hits from their opponents. Because naval architects are often unwilling to discuss their profession (ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news naval designers are usually required to be very discreet) their key role in the achievement of designing ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news building a ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineering is not common knowledge.The result is a serious lack of understship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newsing on the part of most of the public ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news the media.
An example of this in recent years was the aftermath of the Falklship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newss conflict in 1982. Many commentators declared that the big ship booksping maritime marine engineering (by which they meant the destroyer ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news the frigate) was no longer worth building- In the United Kingdom a lobby appeared from nowhere, deriding Royal Navy designs ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news promoting -,I 'novel' hullfonn, on the grounds that Navy designers were wedded to a'lons;, thin' hull as some sort of obsolete tradition. Tile ensuing rumpus was seized oil by the British media, which portrayed the argument as some sort of David ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news Goliath contest. The allegedly hidebound Royal Corps of Naval Constructors (R(:NC) was using its bureaucratic edge to muzzle a devoted bship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news of heroes who would transform the Royal Navy if given money to build a prototype But any attempt to inject a note of realism into the argument was always dismissed by those who knew better, claiming that the critics were 'in the pocket' of the Ministry of Defence- It was a brilliant example of targeted lobbying, creatilig it climate in which totally unqualified laymen attacked anyone not in favour of the 'breakthrough'. Ultimately it failed because it became clear to the Ministry of Defence ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news the Naval Staff that the design could never meet naval requirements, but as the Duke of Wellington said ofWaterloo,'it was a damned near-run thing'.
It was all too reminiscent of the tragic title of HMS Captain, a subject dealt with later in the book, but there are many examples of the public's total inability to compare like with like. A famous ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineering ofher day was the Chilean protected cruiser EsrnerofAa, which was in theory capable of delivering more firepower than a contemporary battleship books ship booksping maritime marine engineering! The F_staernkla was a very fine cruiser, but the statistics quoted were misleading. In this case it was very enthusiastic marketing by the British builder, which had nothing to gain by contradicting the publicity. Much closer to home was the mismatch between claims made in tile West during the Cold Wtr ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news the facts which emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union.This time it was not the fault of the Soviets, who divulged virtually nothing about their ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings, but misunderstship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newsings among NATOnaval officers ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news the naval intelligence community. A 2000-ton US Navy frigate would be compared unfavourably with a 9000-ton Soviet cruiser, for example, which should not have come as a surprise to professional seamen.Throughout the Cold the US Navy was attacked for its alleged inability to build ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings capable of matching their Soviet counterparts. As the distinguished technical historian Norman Friedman has pointed out, naval intelligence is all too frequently run by officers with no background in ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineering-design.The result was that all Soviet ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings were credited with very high speeds ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news perfectly functioning weapon systems. When more knowledgeable commentators questioned the assumption that the Soviets had perfected technology not known to the West, they were told that the technical superiority stemmed rom the communist system. I made myself unpopular at a seminar by suggesting that the implication of that explanation was that the West should adopt communism to allow fair competition. But any serious debate was made impossible by the knee-jerk response from the intelligence cornmunity, `We have evidence but we can't say what it is.'
There are six basic factors which influence ship booksping maritime marine engineering-design:
Major ship booksping maritime marine engineerings are expensive capital investments, so cost will always be crucial. Many critics of Western navies during the Cold assumed that the rising cost of ship booksping maritime marine engineerings was the result of `gold plating'. The corollary was the assumption that the Soviet Navy had no financial constraints. In fact both assumptions were wrong. The rising level of danger from anti-ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineering missiles, new torpedo technology ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news other threats created a requirement for ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings capable of surviving in a hostile environment.The Soviets did not publish defence estimates, nor did they indulge in public debate, but the expship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newsing navy created by the drive of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov did consume vast resources. Somewhere within the Soviet military-industrial complex someone had to make difficult choices about priorities. Some external discipline must be applied, for the simple reason that any group of designers would wish to spend unlimited amounts on their pet projectc.The customer, in this case the parent navy, also creates a problem: a demship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news for superiority to any equivalent, even those belonging to allies. `Keeping up with the Jones's' is not confined to the consumer society; `the Best is often the enemy of the Good'.
Closely linked to the problems of costs is the perception of the threat. This is as old as the hills, ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news in Nelson's time many naval officers were convinced that French men o' were better than anything built for their own navy. It is still widely believed that the only positive influence was the superiority of French ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings taken as prizes ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news taken into British service.Yet, objective analysis by modern historians has revealed that the Navy Board, which had responsibility for materiel, found that French ship books ship booksping maritime marine engineerings could not stow sufficient stores for long periods at sea, the stship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newsard of construction was poor, ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news of all, they could not carry the weight of armament demship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newsed by the Royal Navy.The poor st ship books ship book sping maritime live ship books newsard of construction also meant that exFrench prizes needed much more money spent on repairs ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news maintenance. ship books ship booksping maritime live ship books news if this is dismissed as a`not invented here' attitude, look no further than French opinions of British ship booksping maritime marine engineerings; the stship books ship booksping maritime live ship books newsard complaint was that Royal Navy ship booksping maritime marine engineerings were, type for type, more heavily armed than their own.
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