4 ms·

> It's clearly not optimized for efficient use of personnel I disagree. When the sub sinks, all these people die. That's far more inefficient use of personnel.

> It's clearly not optimized for efficient use of personnel I disagree. When the sub sinks, all these people die. That's far more inefficient use of personnel. It feelf like you're putting more emphasis on the material cost ("the cost ... can be very large indeed") than on what actually matters.

wongarsu 4y ago
It feels like a wartime-vs-peacetime priority problem. In wartime you would care about efficiency, build the largest number of subs staffed with the minimum crew. And since training crew quickly becomes the bottleneck you would probably go for the highest degree of automation that doesn't impact production times too much. In peacetime, efficiency isn't as important. What is important is the bad PR of losing one of your submarines in a training excercise or on patrol, so crew safety becomes a much bigger concern. Losing those sailors in war would have been a noble sacrifice for the cause, losing them to the exact same accident in peacetime is a national tragedy.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  Losing a ship (boat?) during peacetime is a PR disaster. Losing one during wartime can cost you the war. An inefficient one that probably won’t sink due to combat damage can stay in the fight long enough to matter.
  - WJW 4y ago
    Submarines are referred to as boats rather than ships due to naval tradition. As a former naval officer I can only say that technically losing any vessel could be the one that loses a war, just as any soldier lost could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. But if your navy is so rickety that the loss of a single vessel is enough to lose then the main deficiency was in planning rather than any specific warship loss. Losing one in peacetime should never happen but is not unheard of even in modern times. See eg the Kursk or the Fitzgerald.
    - UncleEntity 4y ago
      It’s also not unheard of for a single vessel to have outsized effects on an entire war https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/20/enigma-code-u-boat-u559-hms-petard-sebag-montefiori https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/20/enigma-code-u-... It could also be argued that the Romans capturing a single Carthaginian warship turned the tide for their entire empire.

wongarsu 4y ago

It feels like a wartime-vs-peacetime priority problem. In wartime you would care about efficiency, build the largest number of subs staffed with the minimum crew. And since training crew quickly becomes the bottleneck you would probably go for the highest degree of automation that doesn't impact production times too much. In peacetime, efficiency isn't as important. What is important is the bad PR of losing one of your submarines in a training excercise or on patrol, so crew safety becomes a much bigger concern. Losing those sailors in war would have been a noble sacrifice for the cause, losing them to the exact same accident in peacetime is a national tragedy.

UncleEntity 4y ago
Losing a ship (boat?) during peacetime is a PR disaster. Losing one during wartime can cost you the war. An inefficient one that probably won’t sink due to combat damage can stay in the fight long enough to matter.
- WJW 4y ago
  Submarines are referred to as boats rather than ships due to naval tradition. As a former naval officer I can only say that technically losing any vessel could be the one that loses a war, just as any soldier lost could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. But if your navy is so rickety that the loss of a single vessel is enough to lose then the main deficiency was in planning rather than any specific warship loss. Losing one in peacetime should never happen but is not unheard of even in modern times. See eg the Kursk or the Fitzgerald.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    It’s also not unheard of for a single vessel to have outsized effects on an entire war https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/20/enigma-code-u-boat-u559-hms-petard-sebag-montefiori https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/20/enigma-code-u-... It could also be argued that the Romans capturing a single Carthaginian warship turned the tide for their entire empire.