xtfoster said:
There is no such thing as an "hull element plant". Ships are (for the most part) not built in shipyards. They are ASSEMBLED in shipyards, and even then not completely.
The hull comes from a steel foundry, the same one you get the steel for your tanks from.
The guns come from an armory, the same one you get your Artillery and Tank guns from.
Very little of what goes into a ship is specialized to ship only production.
Look at it a different way. During WWII airplanes were built by (and at) automobile factories.
In 2008 maybe, but in 1936? I live in the north-east of England where ships were BUILT on the River Tyne and River Wear until the 1980's, when shipyards in the Far East who ASSEMBLED them made it too expensive to continue to build ships in the old way, and the yards closed.
The shipyards were situated on the two rivers, which are only a few miles apart. Engineering companies, such as Parsons, which built the huge steam driven turbines which powered the ships were within a mile or two, and a steel foundry was about 10 miles away in Consett, all surrounded by the Northumberland and Durham coalfield.
The idea that you could just convert the shipyards to airplane manufacture is just rubbish. Have you seen the size of a Battleship compared to a Spitfire? Here is a picture of one of the shipyards, Swan Hunters:
I used to live right on the River overlooking those massive cranes. My house was built on the land where people are watching the launch of this ship:
The cranes which could lift over 150 tons were truly awesome, but they have all gone now.
Because of the ready supply of iron and steel, and the engineering skills that existed in the area, armaments factories did exist in the area, including Vickers-Armstrong works close to the River Tyne, which produced artillery and later also some tanks. The Vickers-Armstrong works produced the naval guns for the warships produced on the Rivers, as they also owned a naval shipyard there. In 1939/40 they built HMS George V (which took part in the sinking of the Bismarck) and HMS Anson:
Vickers-Armstrong was a huge engineering company that had grown to include factories across the UK. The company's interests pre-war included railway carriage manufacturers in Birmingham, and it was these that were then converted to produce British tanks, such as the Mk I and II Cruisers, and the Valentine, not their works on the Tyne.
They also set-up production of airplanes at Brooklands Airfield (this would be within the Aldershot province in HOI3, southwest of London), from where they produced Vickers Wellington bombers. There was no airplane manufacture in the Tyne/Wear area AFAIK.
Another, manufacturer of airplanes, Hawker Siddeley, also produced airplanes at Brooklands, including the Hurricane. The Spitfire was designed by Supermarine who were a subsidiary of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd. Their main works was near Southampton on the south coast.
Engines for both planes were produced by Rolls-Royce, the car manufacturer, based in the Birmingham and Coventry area.
To help build the Spitfires in the numbers anticipated, a huge new facility was started in 1938 at Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, as a "shadow" to Supermarine's original factories in Southampton: the most modern machine tools then available were being installed two months after work started on the site. The project was at first managed and equipped by Morris Motors Ltd under an expert in mass construction in the motor-vehicle industry. It was funded by the government. Although the new factory had been completed in late 1939, continual problems were experienced in building a complete airframe. The Spitfire required skills and techniques outside the experience of the local labour force and a continual stream of changes were demanded by the RAF.
Finally, in May 1940, with no sign of a single Spitfire being built, the Minister of Aircraft Production took over Castle Bromwich for the government, sent in experienced management staff and experienced workers from Supermarine and Vickers-Armstrongs. In June 1940 10 Spitfires were built, 23 in July, in August they produced 37, and in September 56. These could hardly have affected the Battle of Britain which was already taking place, but it was to prove crucially important in the longer-term following bombing raids by the Luftwaffe in September 1940 which destroyed the Southampton factories. Over the next few years thousands of Spitfires were built at Castle Bromwich.
Very little of what goes into a ship is specialized to ship only production.
No-one can doubt that the steel could have been used to produce something else, but the shipyard that took that steel and the men who worked there were highly specialized.
It's not a "gearing" factor in converting to production of other units - the Tyne and Wear shipyards could never have been used for the mass production of small items like planes or tanks, never mind rifles and machineguns. Nor did the thousands of men who worked there have the skills necessary to build planes.
Anyone who thinks that large-scale aircraft, tank, or ship production can just be turned off and on is living in a fantasy land.
Sorry, Johan, but it really isn't enough that people are encouraged to maintain relatively constant flows of different types of units, rather than constantly swapping and changing. Other than perhaps the US and Canada, no country could significantly increase their own shipbuilding capacity even in a few years. The capacity in most of Europe was a product of geography and over 50 years of history. In many cases, much much longer, the Tyne had been a centre of shipbuilding from the 17th century. The existing shipyards could be swapped from producing merchant ships to warships, but nothing else.
Taking it to it's extreme we could have an HOI2 Hungary, land-locked in 1936, which captures Yugoslavia early in the game, and makes itself into a naval power by building ships, launching them along the Adriatic Coast. Ah yes, Dubrovnik that well-known shipbuilding city:
Come on! Surely the developers can think of a mechanism that stops this sort of nonsense in HOI3. I can - since you did it in EUIII.
