A Tale of Two Ships [pdf]
As someone who has worked in both commercial ship and U.S. defense ship design and construction for over 20 years, this is one of the most absurd and uninformed write-ups I&#x27;ve ever seen.<p>VLCC&#x27;s (an example of a commercial ship or &quot;black hulls&quot;) are designed to minimize cost. They use the cheapest steel, burn the cheapest fuel - it&#x27;s basically a metal bucket with a motor. LPD&#x27;s (a military vessel (more specifically an amphib) or &quot;grey hull&quot;) is constructed of higher end materials to protect itself and it&#x27;s crew in peace time and it war.<p>Just to give you an example of where some of that cost comes from - LPD&#x27;s have flight decks with night vision compatible visual landing aids so pilots can land at night concurrent with LCACs bing loaded into the well deck. The flight deck can handle the intense structural heat loading of V-22 aircraft. They have massive hangars to store and maintain aircraft, with precision gantry cranes to do delicate aircraft parts replacement aboard the ship. There is an ASSIST RAST track that does not deteriorate over time and jeopardize heavy weather aircraft landings. There is a state of the art help control station... ALL OF THIS is shock qualified to survive blasts.<p>The list goes on and on - combat systems, command and control, freshwater generation and sewage systems for a massive crew (compared to a ~20 person merchant ship), a propulsion and steering system with much higher installed power and power density than anything anyone would put on a commercial ship due to stringent speed and maneuvering requirements.<p>All of this is very difficult to integrate into a design and equally difficult to build.<p>If you think you&#x27;re going to design and build a grey hull at the same displacement cost (steel weight) as a grey hull, you are grossly mistaken. You&#x27;re comparing a custom Ferrari to a bare bones van and saying &quot;hey, this can weighs more and costs way less. Gee, I need to write a paper to let everyone know that Ferraris are way over priced.&quot;<p>Ding dong.