JeffEngel wrote:cthia wrote:The reclamation yards must be a site to see. Entire ships are delivered to that reclamation graveyard. It must get awfully busy during war time. The epic battles in the Manticore system must have sent a steady stream of steel to be recycled, reclaimed. Manticoran, Havenite, Grayson, and SLN steel. It must be an enormous operation, with gargantuan sized machinery, and is a strategic objective of invading fleets, being part of critical system infrastructure.
When battles happen in other systems, who owns the wreckage?
Whoever can take it and wants it. That's pretty much how ownership works for anything in war. For that matter, it's a fair basic account of ownership of anything outside war too: civilization is just ironing out the details in some way that hopefully doesn't amount to more war.
Would reclamation sites be all that critical? How hard are the systems to replace, and how critical are the recovered parts for re-use? I'm not aware of recycling plants being considered a strategic objective now, and that'd be about the nearest counterpart. Sheer raw materials aren't a critical issue for Manticore or Haven - it's putting them together, being able to put them together into competitive or superior equipment, and being able to put competent people behind them that are the controlling factors. The reclamation yards aren't going to get you more than raw materials at worst and probably out-of-date equipment for re-use at best. Certainly not all starship equipment from a century past is terribly dated - the war probably hasn't pushed bunk and toilet development into a brave new world (eep?) - but interfering with the Manticoran devils' ability to reuse commodes from old starships isn't going to bring their warmaking capability to a constipated, jumping-around-on-one-leg in line for the potty halt.
I was thinking more of metals. Reclaimed steel. And the monstrous, certainly quite expensive, machinery. Hulls don't just materialize, and I would assume that reclaimed steel is rather practical and necessary with limited hulls and rushed production. Especially in war time. Many people make the common mistake of looking at manufacturing processes through theoretical lenses only, without experience in real world manufacturing conditions and realities. I wouldn't want to guess the percentage of steel that could come from reclamation yards. Yards that are in close vicinity to shipyards in comparison to mining locations.
Yes, reclamation yards could be very critical. Materials are very important! During wartime, freighters are targeted for a reason, incoming goods to the war effort. Blockades, piracy, accidents, ship malfunctions, et cetera, could conceivably raise even further, the importance of the breakers.
Recycling centers may not be targets
per se but an enemy's steel production has always been a strategic objective ...
... In 1943 the RAF made a modest attack on the steel industry of the Ruhr.
THE U.S. THIRD FLEET off the coast of Japan. While the air strikes were going on, the surface warships were steaming up and down the east coast of Honshu shelling enemy installations. During these attacks by aircraft and surface vessels, steel-producing centers, transportation facilities, and military installations were struck; hundreds of enemy aircraft were destroyed or crippled; and most of the ships of the Japanese Imperial Fleet were either sunk or damaged.
Germany heavily relied on foreign resources. The loss by 1945 of most of the foreign sources caused industrial steel production to slump. In 1943 30.6 million tons of steel were produced, by 1945 output had fallen to 1.2 million tons. Of the 29.4 million-ton drop, bombing was responsible for approximately 8.5 million tons. The disintegration of the steel industry prevented Germany from continuing the mass production of aircraft and tanks.
Germany possessed one of the most complex and well maintained railway systems in the world, but a complacency which grew from this fact meant few steps had been taken to prepare against an air attack. By the end of 1944, marshalling capacity had fallen to forty percent of normal and barely twenty percent by the end of January 1945. This hampered the receipt of raw materials and delivery of the finished products.
The water transport system, which was mainly used for the transport of coal and coke, was initially very efficient. In the first few months of 1944, 66.2 thousand tons of coal and coke were moved by water daily. By October 1945, the daily average had fallen to 23.4 thousand tons. This crippled the industrial and railway sectors. They were effectively useless without coal to heat their boilers.
None of the major battles of World War II proved the correctness of Douhets theory. In reality, the German industry worked harder for longer as the war progressed. Efficiency continued to increase until it reached its crescendo. Where from there it continued to drop until the conclusion of the war.
The shortage of fuel was a contributing factor to the allied victory. The German armed forces were defenceless without vital oil supplies. The Luftwaffe was unable to maintain air superiority and the armies were forced to abandon tanks and alike simply because they had no fuel. The bomber fleet disabled the train systems, destroying the German marshalling yards.
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Steel production is steel production. Wherever the source.
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