Is it just me, or there won't be efficiency increase in producing ships?

[Umbaretz]

In recent WWW there was a production screen in Japan:

And, as you can see, there is no efficiency bar in ship production. Which is kinda strange, considering that there were cases of large-scale production, where efficency, of course, increased, compared to small series:

200 Fletchers, 100 Hundred Gearings, 30 destroyers per class in Royal Navy, lots of Clevelands (which shared their body with Independence-class light carriers), lots of project 68 cruisers.

Even capital ships should benifit from that since in the process of being built ships require different processes and people to work on them.

But it should work only if several ships or one class are produced at once.
Than you can have it like irl - each ship is, for example, takes one year to build, you order five of them on one yard - they are being laid down 4 months apart and commissioned 4 months apart.
Therefore you would have 5 of them in 2,5 years instead of 5.

Things like building carriers in dated, but geared up line for cruisers or battleships/battlecruisers would be awesome too.
Or maybe you're mad, tired of cariers and want other way around - who knows?

 

[Axe99]

The devs have said that there's no efficiency for ship-building, as there wasn't a huge decrease in ship-building times for ships just because a country had built a lot of one previously. This is definitely the case generally, and while there were some exceptions, it wasn't always clear whether this was due to greater efficiency, or because the US was now at war so throwing more resources at things (the Essex class CVs, for example, had improvements in build times through the class until it was clear the war was over, but then I think (going from memory, could be wrong) the last few to be completed were done quite slowly.

Taking the Fletcher class destroyers as an example (there weren't many classes of ships with more vessels of a similar size - the Type VII U-boats and LST Mk IIs being the only ones I can think of, off the top of my head), USS Fletcher was laid down in October 1941, launched in May 1942 and Commissioned in June 1941 (eight months, which in itself is a pretty quick destroyer build time). USS Wiley, one of the later ships in the class, was laid down in August 1943, launched in September 1944 and commissioned in February 1945, 17 months! (dates from http://www.navypedia.org/ships/usa/us_dd_fletcher.htm). This could have been for a bunch of reasons (different US shipyards were quicker than others, and the Fletchers were built at a range of different yards - or maybe that yard had to prioritise other ships (like LSTs) - or bunch of other things that I won't think of, off the top of my head).

Given that, I think it's a reasonable call. The situation with practicals in HoI3 was far too 'rapid production' friendly if we were looking for historical plausibility.

 

[Pathfinder12]

I also understand that it's to late to start adding features at this point, it could delay the release by weeks.
So I'd say, wait and add it in an update instead, if you are going to add it.

That being said, It would be fun to be able to convert heavy cruisers and battleships into escort carriers like many nations did (Japan for one)!
Although this has little to do with production since converted escort carriers where never newly produced.

 

[Umbaretz]

The devs have said that there's no efficiency for ship-building, as there wasn't a huge decrease in ship-building times for ships just because a country had built a lot of one previously. This is definitely the case generally, and while there were some exceptions, it wasn't always clear whether this was due to greater efficiency, or because the US was now at war so throwing more resources at things (the Essex class CVs, for example, had improvements in build times through the class until it was clear the war was over, but then I think (going from memory, could be wrong) the last few to be completed were done quite slowly.

Taking the Fletcher class destroyers as an example (there weren't many classes of ships with more vessels of a similar size - the Type VII U-boats and LST Mk IIs being the only ones I can think of, off the top of my head), USS Fletcher was laid down in October 1941, launched in May 1942 and Commissioned in June 1941 (eight months, which in itself is a pretty quick destroyer build time). USS Wiley, one of the later ships in the class, was laid down in August 1943, launched in September 1944 and commissioned in February 1945, 17 months! (dates from http://www.navypedia.org/ships/usa/us_dd_fletcher.htm). This could have been for a bunch of reasons (different US shipyards were quicker than others, and the Fletchers were built at a range of different yards - or maybe that yard had to prioritise other ships (like LSTs) - or bunch of other things that I won't think of, off the top of my head).

Given that, I think it's a reasonable call. The situation with practicals in HoI3 was far too 'rapid production' friendly if we were looking for historical plausibility.

The point is, shipyard would build 3 ships more efficiently than 3 wharfs those same ships, cause different people do different jobs while ship in conctruction, and dry dock, for example, is emply when ship is already launched.

But it should work only if several ships or one class are produced at once.
Than you can have it like irl - each ship is, for example, takes one year to build, you order five of them on one yard - they are being laid down 4 months apart and commissioned 4 months apart.
Therefore you would have 5 of them in 2,5 years instead of 5.

I also understand that it's to late to start adding features at this point, it could delay the release by weeks.
So I'd say, wait and add it in an update instead, if you are going to add it.

That being said, It would be fun to be able to convert heavy cruisers and battleships into escort carriers like many nations did (Japan for one)!
Although this has little to do with production since converted escort carriers where never newly produced.

To cruisers and battleships - light and fleet carriers, escort carriers were converted from transports and tankers.

Also, of course it's not now in game, but nowadays paradox gamesycle is so long that you can expect much more after release.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Capital ships arent built on assembly lines, especially not on the scale of tank or plane assembly lines. There were, however, multiple battleships of the same class laid down simultaniously in different docks. The only ships that were really mass produced that i can think of right now would be the Liberty Class Cargoship, which was essentially a pre-fab ship that the docks simply needed to weld together if i recall correctly. It would simply be unrealistic to add productionline efficiency to something that isnt really built on an assembly line, but rather in serial or in paralell.

 

[Denkt]

If you wan't a large navy you must build alot of dockyards, it is no more complex then that.

Ship take a long time to build compared to the stuff that military factories produce.

 

[Imminentstorm]

To cruisers and battleships - light and fleet carriers, escort carriers were converted from transports and tankers.

The American Independence class light carriers were all converted Cleveland class cruisers. None were built "from scratch". The Japanese carrier Akagi was laid down as the 2nd Amagi class battleship and converted to a carrier in construction. The Japanese carrier Kaga was launched as a Tosa class battleship and converted to a carrier prior to commission. The Japanese carrier Shinano was started as the 3rd Yamato class battleship and also converted to a carrier in construction. The HMS Courageous, HMS Glorious, and HMS Furious were British battle-cruisers converted to carriers.

 

[Umbaretz]

The American Independence class light carriers were all converted Cleveland class cruisers. None were built "from scratch". The Japanese carrier Akagi was laid down as the 2nd Amagi class battleship and converted to a carrier in construction. The Japanese carrier Kaga was launched as a Tosa class battleship and converted to a carrier prior to commission. The Japanese carrier Shinano was started as the 3rd Yamato class battleship and also converted to a carrier in construction. The HMS Courageous, HMS Glorious, and HMS Furious were British battle-cruisers converted to carriers.

I said that. None of cruisers were converted to escort.

 

[tommylotto]

German and Italy had a lot of trouble building their first carrier. Delay after delay, and neither were ever finished. Both nations had plenty of experience building ship's generally, but did not have the knowhow to build a carrier. I'd like to see it be more difficult to build the first of a class and later ones get cheaper.

 

[GermanPower]

The logic is simply that you get better qualified people the more ships you make and more knowledgeable about the production...meaning it takes less time to make one. Look at US Convoys. It gets ludicrous at one point. Its not at all the same as Tank building obviously because you build a lot less. Maybe simply have it capped at 10% or something along those lines. There is something to the idea that the more you build the more proficient you become.

 

[Snow Wolf]

Mods!

 

[Axe99]

The point is, shipyard would build 3 ships more efficiently than 3 wharfs those same ships, cause different people do different jobs while ship in conctruction, and dry dock, for example, is emply when ship is already launched.

But it should work only if several ships or one class are produced at once.
Than you can have it like irl - each ship is, for example, takes one year to build, you order five of them on one yard - they are being laid down 4 months apart and commissioned 4 months apart.
Therefore you would have 5 of them in 2,5 years instead of 5.



To cruisers and battleships - light and fleet carriers, escort carriers were converted from transports and tankers.

Also, of course it's not now in game, but nowadays paradox gamesycle is so long that you can expect much more after release.

In terms of the multiple ships laid down and completed quicker, generally speaking, I haven't found a lot of evidence of this (and I've been going through a lot of ship data). Looking at the Essex class carriers, Newport News built more of them than anyone else (not surprisingly, given they were and are huge). The first Essex class was laid down on 28/4/1941, and commissioned on 31/12/1942 - 20 months. Their last completed during wartime (the ones that went out past the end of the war took longer, as they slowed production), Boxer, was laid down on 13/9/1943 and commissioned on 16/4/1945 - 19 months.

If we're looking at benefits from concurrent construction, there doesn't seem* to have been a huge amount of benefit from this as well. Newport News, at one point, had I think eight Essex classes in construction at once (!), while the Philadelphia NyD only had four (and only two laid down in 1943). Philadelphia's first (the other three went past the war's end, so the timing isn't helpful - particularly of the one that was cancelled ) took 22 months. This may suggest a slight benefit, but we're talking about ten per cent, for comfortably the most mass-produced example available, in a situation likely only to be replicable in the US (the UK, comfortably the second largest ship-producer during the period, didn't have any one yard that could do anything like Newport News).

I know, intuitively, it feels like it should be the case, but the data I've looked at just don't seem to bear it out in practice. Happy to look at more data if you're not comfortable with that though, I'm interested in being on top of what happened, not being argumentative

Let me know if you'd like me to look at it from this angle for other classes, easy enough to do .

* Unfortunately, there's a lot more impacting the speed of a ship's construction than the amount of a class being constructed concurrently, and I'm just looking at the aggregates here, not doing an in-depth case study on the production of each CV - so (hypothetically, I don't think this was actually the case) Philadelphia could have been more efficient generally but had less concurrency 'scale of production' bonus.

Capital ships arent built on assembly lines, especially not on the scale of tank or plane assembly lines. There were, however, multiple battleships of the same class laid down simultaniously in different docks. The only ships that were really mass produced that i can think of right now would be the Liberty Class Cargoship, which was essentially a pre-fab ship that the docks simply needed to weld together if i recall correctly. It would simply be unrealistic to add productionline efficiency to something that isnt really built on an assembly line, but rather in serial or in paralell.

The Casablanca class CVEs were also mass-produced, and the Germans tried some mass production techniques with their subs (although, going from memory, they weren't terribly successful).

The logic is simply that you get better qualified people the more ships you make and more knowledgeable about the production...meaning it takes less time to make one. Look at US Convoys. It gets ludicrous at one point. Its not at all the same as Tank building obviously because you build a lot less. Maybe simply have it capped at 10% or something along those lines. There is something to the idea that the more you build the more proficient you become.

The Liberty ships (and the Casablance class CVEs) were fairly unique cases, Kaiser's brainchild, so to speak, and not good examples of shipbuilding (and particularly military shipbuilding) during the period. There really weren't many shipyards large enough for this to happen, particularly for capital ships. I totally get the logic, but in this case we've got the actual data (for, literally, almost every military ship covered in HoI in the period), and the data don't really bear out the logic.

German and Italy had a lot of trouble building their first carrier. Delay after delay, and neither were ever finished. Both nations had plenty of experience building ship's generally, but did not have the knowhow to build a carrier. I'd like to see it be more difficult to build the first of a class and later ones get cheaper.

This works well for things like carriers, but maybe less so for someone producing their first CL if they've already built CAs (or vice versa). I do like the idea in general though .

 

[Fortes241]

I have never build carrier or battleships in HoI 2 & 3, they use to much industrial capacity and time.

I have build a lot of submarines (against convois), destroyer (against submarines) and light cruiser / cruiser (against some destroyer), also I have build a lot of navy bombers, they destroyed the most big ships and the Ports.

I hope its will be not so easy again in HoI 4.

 

[GermanPower]

In terms of the multiple ships laid down and completed quicker, generally speaking, I haven't found a lot of evidence of this (and I've been going through a lot of ship data). Looking at the Essex class carriers, Newport News built more of them than anyone else (not surprisingly, given they were and are huge). The first Essex class was laid down on 28/4/1941, and commissioned on 31/12/1942 - 20 months. Their last completed during wartime (the ones that went out past the end of the war took longer, as they slowed production), Boxer, was laid down on 13/9/1943 and commissioned on 16/4/1945 - 19 months.

If we're looking at benefits from concurrent construction, there doesn't seem* to have been a huge amount of benefit from this as well. Newport News, at one point, had I think eight Essex classes in construction at once (!), while the Philadelphia NyD only had four (and only two laid down in 1943). Philadelphia's first (the other three went past the war's end, so the timing isn't helpful - particularly of the one that was cancelled ) took 22 months. This may suggest a slight benefit, but we're talking about ten per cent, for comfortably the most mass-produced example available, in a situation likely only to be replicable in the US (the UK, comfortably the second largest ship-producer during the period, didn't have any one yard that could do anything like Newport News).

I know, intuitively, it feels like it should be the case, but the data I've looked at just don't seem to bear it out in practice. Happy to look at more data if you're not comfortable with that though, I'm interested in being on top of what happened, not being argumentative

Let me know if you'd like me to look at it from this angle for other classes, easy enough to do .

* Unfortunately, there's a lot more impacting the speed of a ship's construction than the amount of a class being constructed concurrently, and I'm just looking at the aggregates here, not doing an in-depth case study on the production of each CV - so (hypothetically, I don't think this was actually the case) Philadelphia could have been more efficient generally but had less concurrency 'scale of production' bonus.



The Casablanca class CVEs were also mass-produced, and the Germans tried some mass production techniques with their subs (although, going from memory, they weren't terribly successful).



The Liberty ships (and the Casablance class CVEs) were fairly unique cases, Kaiser's brainchild, so to speak, and not good examples of shipbuilding (and particularly military shipbuilding) during the period. There really weren't many shipyards large enough for this to happen, particularly for capital ships. I totally get the logic, but in this case we've got the actual data (for, literally, almost every military ship covered in HoI in the period), and the data don't really bear out the logic.



This works well for things like carriers, but maybe less so for someone producing their first CL if they've already built CAs (or vice versa). I do like the idea in general though .

Speak data. But it doesn't speak logic. To say a crew building there first CV will do it as quickly as someone who's built 5 is totally wrong. There should be some sorta bonus. Minor. But something. A example like that is liberty ships and I don't see why you'd discredit them.

 

[Axe99]

Speak data. But it doesn't speak logic. To say a crew building there first CV will do it as quickly as someone who's built 5 is totally wrong. There should be some sorta bonus. Minor. But something. A example like that is liberty ships and I don't see why you'd discredit them.

If the logic doesn't match the data, then it's probably missing something . In this case, my best guess would be that ships (particularly capital ships) were so large and complex that it wasn't easy to convert on the potential synergies. Newport News isn't building 1 ton trucks here, they're building 27,000 ton aircraft carriers. Given the extreme size, it may well be that they need to produce far more than eight* to get much in the way of synergies (or maybe it's something that humans aren't particularly capable of). At the end of the day, though, what actually happened, in the nation that built the most warships during the period, is that the 'economy of scale' bonus was non-existent in the vast, vast majority of cases, and may have been up to 10% in a handful of isolated incidents.

On the liberty ships, I'm not discrediting them, but they (and the Casablanca class) were built on standardised mercantile hulls - far simpler and easier to build than warships - so not a great example of potential efficiencies in warship production. They were also a very isolated example, so using them as a model for all shipbuilding would lead to historically implausible results.

Keep in mind that all the evidence suggests that shipbuilding times in vanilla HoI4 are going to be ridiculously fast anyway - we hardly need economies of scale when Germany can build a Bismarck a year while missing key resources .

* Actually, eight is a really small number to get much of an economy of scale benefit, so this makes a bit of a sense. You generally get economies of scale when you build hundreds or thousands of something (or tens, for something simple, which a warship isn't), not when you build a handful.

 

[GermanPower]

If the logic doesn't match the data, then it's probably missing something . In this case, my best guess would be that ships (particularly capital ships) were so large and complex that it wasn't easy to convert on the potential synergies. Newport News isn't building 1 ton trucks here, they're building 27,000 ton aircraft carriers. Given the extreme size, it may well be that they need to produce far more than eight* to get much in the way of synergies (or maybe it's something that humans aren't particularly capable of). At the end of the day, though, what actually happened, in the nation that built the most warships during the period, is that the 'economy of scale' bonus was non-existent in the vast, vast majority of cases, and may have been up to 10% in a handful of isolated incidents.

On the liberty ships, I'm not discrediting them, but they (and the Casablanca class) were built on standardised mercantile hulls - far simpler and easier to build than warships - so not a great example of potential efficiencies in warship production. They were also a very isolated example, so using them as a model for all shipbuilding would lead to historically implausible results.

Keep in mind that all the evidence suggests that shipbuilding times in vanilla HoI4 are going to be ridiculously fast anyway - we hardly need economies of scale when Germany can build a Bismarck a year while missing key resources .

* Actually, eight is a really small number to get much of an economy of scale benefit, so this makes a bit of a sense. You generally get economies of scale when you build hundreds or thousands of something (or tens, for something simple, which a warship isn't), not when you build a handful.

Nothing really to disagree with here. Haha. I think a small bonus should be for a shipyard. I think if you look at the total of carriers built the US defiantly does speed up. All the various classes they build. The time is shortened. They build something like 40. The US>

Edit: Just looked and the data points are everywhere.

 

[Axe99]

Nothing really to disagree with here. Haha. I think a small bonus should be for a shipyard. I think if you look at the total of carriers built the US defiantly does speed up. All the various classes they build. The time is shortened. They build something like 40. The US>

Edit: Just looked and the data points are everywhere.

. In HoI3, they had a strategic resource for faster ship-building - maybe something like that for the US, or a national spirit? I'll definitely be looking closely at shipbuilding times for the naval mod I'm hoping to put together, and have a think about what is or isn't possible. The US built a lot of ships, and fast, once war broke out.

 

[GermanPower]

. In HoI3, they had a strategic resource for faster ship-building - maybe something like that for the US, or a national spirit? I'll definitely be looking closely at shipbuilding times for the naval mod I'm hoping to put together, and have a think about what is or isn't possible. The US built a lot of ships, and fast, once war broke out.

I think looking into the actual crews might yield some information. I have a feeling what they did considering they built 28 of just the Essex class is they spread crews out in order to build more instead of compartmentalizing. Maybe that's it. I assume it takes a lot of manpower to build one of these things and they'd draw from all over. They certainly dwarfed everyone else ability to build ships by a mile.

 

[Secret Master]

One of the problems of the system in both HOI3 and HOI4 is that there are competing issues at play.

If you look at the shipbuilding programs of the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany, there were problems with building new ship types. The Soviets had a real problem building the battleships they planned. Germany and Italy had problems completing the carriers. These problems, in HOI3, were represented by very poor practicals. That seemed reasonable.

But on the other hand, practicals for ships could reach ridiculous levels. Completing CAs in less than a year was possible once you built up enough practicals. You could hypothetically even get BBs under 24 months if you tried really hard. This effect from practicals was kind of silly and unhistorical.

I suppose if you could just do whatever you wanted with infinite development hours, it would make sense to have a limited efficiency bonus to naval stuff. You'd have negative efficiency until you hit some production milestones, then you could get no more improvement.

 

[bcoop1701]

@Axe99 don't use the 1945 build times for your data. The US intentionally geared back construction once they realized they had effectively eliminated the Japanese navy as a threat. Use the 42-44 build times. I agree with @GermanPower there should be a small efficiency bonus but it should be capped low.