What would be the barriers to some shmuck building his own drydock somewhere and churning out cheap but reliable naval vessels? I've heard tell the US navy has masically reached its patrolling capacity given its current fleet. Some news about not having a spare aircraft carrier to possibly go down to Venezuela and blockade/spook them.
I'm imagining the oldschool cruisers and battleships sailing again under a civilian mercenary operation, hiring themselves out to patrol global shipping lanes and nations that lack their own naval power or wish to supplement their current fleets.
How would such an operation differ from current infantry mercenary companies? How do current mercenary companies manage to operate legally?
then start small. use old retired artillery pieces. Might have to rebore the barrels but once you get one ship floating out there and doing independent business you've completely changed the game. It'd be like iron man "privatizing world peace"
Austin Cook
The big question would be who's let you pull into their piers? Would it be a civilian pier or a military one Who would offer you services while at sea (i.e. how would you do extended patrols if you don't have supply ships giving you fuel, food, and mail?).
Also, who are you going to buy your weapons from?
Easton Morris
idk, maybe the russians would be cool with it if we purchased from them. They love selling weapons as much as the americans and I bet they'd love causing stress and chaos to the "new world order". They're in a corner so any way they can indirectly fuck with NATO they still will try lol
Gabriel Turner
Money and technology. Relevant navies of the world can be counted on fingers of one hand and they all have industry to build it. Your scenario of "some shmuck building his own drydock somewhere" is simply delusional.
>then start small. And then you don’t actually make any money, because the countries that have interest in projecting power have their own methods of projecting power that are vastly superior to a bunch of faggots in a patrol boat. And now you’ve wasted all that money.
Luke Bailey
I really like this, it's got a strange ghetto/diy feel to it. >Ivan, make gunboat with spare part from warehouse
Gavin Rodriguez
well A: i wouldn't be starting on a battleship, maybe a destroyer and B: how hard can it be to mount some turrets on a sea worthy ship? This isnt meant to take on the established navies of the world, it's meant to supplement them and take the burden of shipping patrolling off their military budgets. One lightly armored and fast destroyer with minimal turrets would be able to deter basic pirate raids so national navies could focus on other waters
Michael Jackson
what about developing a sea worthy drone platform? Aircraft carriers are too big and too expensive. What would happen if america lost even one of them? Can you imagine the moral loss? A drone hive could be a tenth the size with a quarter of the crew
Jackson Morales
>maybe a destroyer Most of countries in the world will struggle even with a corvette. >mount some turrets on a sea worthy ship See above, all you will end up with is a boat that is only good for river patrol against smuggling or something like that.
Nathaniel Lopez
the russians sold a navy that was like the 6th largest in the world to Pepsi and a gutted out carrier to china. You're telling me they dont have a dusty old destroyer and some spare tank turrets lieing around?
Luke Williams
>A drone hive could be a tenth the size with a quarter of the crew Except now instead of sourcing guns, you have to source armed drones, people to fly them, weapons to put on them and the tech to actually use them. Plus, however many millions of dollars it would take to actually build a ship. AND, while you’re building your ship (which will take several years) you’re basically throwing money down a pit, because you’re not actually MAKING any money
Jace Jackson
Do you want to deal with decades old Russian cast offs? Look at how much trouble they’re having with their carrier and keep in mind that it’s actually somewhat maintained.
Nolan Thomas
>the russians sold a navy that was like the 6th largest in the world to Pepsi To scrap it. >You're telling me they dont have a dusty old destroyer and some spare tank turrets lieing around? We're talking about "some shmuck building his own drydock somewhere and churning out cheap but reliable naval vessels", not importing warships, which is a normal practice.
Dominic Edwards
the problem with river patrol boats is that they're no fucking good for going out to sea with
Jacob Martin
Whats the smallest ship you can safely land a huey on?
Wyatt Price
depends on how deep the water is
Isaac Richardson
>battleships Are way too expensive to maintain unless you're Google or Pepsi or something. The crews come in the thousands, and there is no way they'll make enough money to pay for themselves just performing escort duty. Half the reason the Iowas were eventually retired was because of the sheer operating costs of a ship manned by over a thousand and a half men in shitty WWII crew quarters for the enlisted causing a high turnover rate.
At most, you'd want something destroyer-sized, and even that would be overkill against pirates. I think some private organizations run cutters and corvettes, and that's really what you'd want as a private security firm.
Benjamin Peterson
I recall once reading an article about privateers being a thing again in the Carribean. But having a cruiser actually capable of defending itself in a decent naval engagement is RETARDEDLY expensive, like 8 figures just build the fucking thing, not to mention training costs, fuel, ammo, radar sets etc etc.
Sebastian Bell
Are you fucking 12?
Do you have any idea how much modern ships cost? An Arleigh-Burke costs over a billion dollars. Any similar-sized second-hand cargo ship will cost several million at least and that's before you get into refitting and arming the fucking thing.
Anyone with the money to pull off something like this knows they'll get a better return investing in literally anything else. Hell, you'd be better served just taking the second-hand cargo ship as using it as a fucking cargo ship. The chance of actually being boarded by pirates is so low per journey that no one is going to pay you enough to make running some dinky little patrol a more valuable use of time than just shipping dragon dildos and fentanyl from China to San Fran
