Incredible Shipbuilding Capacity of the US in WW2

Yeah but their patrol range was pretty limited when they didn't have any wings, like that one Rough ride too!

 

I'm sure they mounted the wings when it was going to fly. It's part of the pilots pre-flight check. Gas tanks full: Check. Wings attached to fuselage: Check. Ham sandwich in pocket: Check.

 

Here's a few broken Liberty ships.

 

Reguarding overhaul of the arresting gear on the LEXINGTON CVS/CVT 16 and the INTREPID CVS 11. The arresting gear compartment consists off
a huge piston and housing with a cross head assembly. The cross head assembly has a number of sheaves with spacers in between with the cables going
up to the deck. Normally there would be 4 arresting cables. We would disassmble the sheaves following the planning departments work package and have
the spacers machined , as necessary replace the sheaves, inspect the piston and replace the seals. We had a rigger assigned to us for most of the time
and a code 2390 engineering technician to provide any guidance we might need. At least one time we had a engineering technician from NAVAL AIR
STATION LAKEHURST NEW JERSEY assigned to the job. Dont quote me about the above wording because it was over 40 years ago. I was an
apprentice SHIP WEAPONS MACHINIST at the time and later a journeyman. Most other NAVY YARDS ship weapons was part of shop 38 marine
machinist or outside machinist.
These older carriers used hydraulics systems for the catapults vs steam on newer carriers.

gusord

 

men's lives depended on your work, no? I haven't heard much on accidents regarding faulty arresting gear......I work in a machine shop, so I am always interested in how the things work...

 

Yes the mens lives depended on our work. I dont remember a way to test the arresting gear except during sea trials. Usually for the catapults you fire a
dummy load off the flight deck to simulate an aircraft load.

gusord

 

great point...how would you test it?? but they would do a touch and go if it failed?? don't they throttle up at touchdown??

 

I am no authority on ship building but it would seem if a ship came off the ways every day that probably were in construction for a week or so in various assembly stages simply having one released every day with the next ship being nearly ready. Most ships are built on land in slips and the hull launched when water tight. Smaller craft seem to be then finished off at a pier but larger ones in dry docks for the installation of larger pieces. .

It would appear Liberty ships and DE's were almost automobile assembled by a production line whereas large warships are piecemeal by necessity.Someone please enlighten me on this. I do not think they were line assembled but perhaps built in groups at various stages then launched daily one a day. The completed turret of a 16" battleship weighing approximately what a small destroyer might weigh in total.. I had not thought about it until seeing a documentary on discovering the Bismark that the turrets sat on their rings by gravity and fell out as the ship rolled going down. Makes sense..

About 10 years ago we passed over the bridge overlooking the Bath Iron Works and a singular ship, appeared to be a guided missile frigate, was being completed. Interesting post when one imagines the activity in ww2.

I know frigates and destroyers are still built at Pascagoula, Mississippi, the Cole was repaired there after being delivered by a Dutch heavy lift ship. The irony of all this is that Thyssen-Krupp built a steel mill in Alabama near mobile to supply these ships. That the plant is up for sale indicates slowed production....at least to me.

US Industrial production of warships during the war seems unimaginable today. Pardon me if I read as a bit incoherent, on meds for an infection,.

Gaines

 

Slightly off topic but you can explore the coast Guard Cutter Taney, almost DE size, in Baltimore. She was laid down prior to WW2 so precedes the topic here but gives one a great feel for the smaller warships . She saw action in the Pacific and Atlantic and was actually at Pearl , december 7th. It would be interesting to to be able to understand how she was built relative to those during war time production.


http://historicships.org/taney.html

 

Technically, the USS Taney was in Honolulu Harbor, not Pearl Harbor, at the time of the attack.

As to understanding how they were built, relative to those during wartime production. The Treasury class high endurance cutters were unusual, in that they were all constructed in US Navy shipyards, rather than the usual civilian shipyards.

 

I didn't serve on the Taney, but have been onboard her and others of that class - high endurance cutters. I did drug interdiction with Taney and some of the other Treasury class cutters in the 80s in the Caribbean while on a cutter named Sagebrush (medium endurance cutter) which was also built in the 1940s. Like Storis, another ww2 era cutter on which I served, they had riveted hull construction which is quite different than the "new" welded hull construction which made the Liberty ships so quick to build - and so easy to break up, until the technology caught up. The neat thing about Taney and those other high endurance class cutters of that era was that they were still steam propulsion and served well into the 1990s. The Snipes loved those steam engines. They took far less maintenance than "modern" engines.

 

While noting that US Merchant ship construction in 1942 was 5,400,000 tons, one might observe that losses in the Atlantic alone, mostly off the US east coast, amounted to some 6,100,000 tons.

 

Also worth noting that the US only lost about 4.16 million gross tons of merchant shipping during the entire war.

Also worth noting

http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html

 

The losses in 1942 were almost entirely due to the total incompetance of the US Navy. Read any serious history on the subject. Morrison, Bauer, Roskill, Gannon. . . . .

In the end the Marshall, head of the US army, had to issue a direct order to Admiral King to start convoy. . .

'The losses by submarines off Atlantic seaboard, and in the Caribbean now threaten our entire war. The following statistics bearing on the subject have been brought to my attention.

"Of the 74 ships allocated to the Army for July by the war shipping administration 17 have already been sunk.

22% of the bauxite fleet has already been destroyed. 20% of the Puerto Rican fleet has been lost tanker signals have been 3.5% per month of total ships in use.

We are all aware of the limited number of escort craft available has every conceivable improvised means been brought to bear on this situation. I am fearful that another month or two of this will so cripple our means of transport we will be unable to bring sufficient men planes to bear against the enemy critical theatres to exercise a determining influence on the war"

General Marshal to Admiral King June 1942

 

Or read a very serious history, such as Clay Blair's definitive (at least in the English language) two-volume account of the war against the U-boat, which rather conclusively demonstrated inexperience and lack of resources was as major and possibly a greater factor.

BTW, you may want to stop and think before you bandy about recommendations for "serious history" that quite a few persons here have done extensive reading in both primary and secondary sources on many of these subjects, they have done it over many years, and that their opinions are at least as well-informed by those sources as are yours.

As for example, this:

George Catlett Marshall was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. His authority lay with the War Department and the U.S. Army. He could no more order King, who was Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations to "start convoy..." than I can order you to better check your source materiel before posting incorrect information.

 

In this case, I believe he is referring to the excretions known as Black May and Operation Drumbeat, both of which Blair extensively takes to task.