Order commitments, pay, and shipyard capacity

Drachinifel criticizes treating existing industrial output as a fixed limit on the ships a navy can acquire. Alex Clarke contrasts a request for four ships per year with a twenty-ship commitment that could justify expanding a yard. Ordering only four at a time leaves the builder exposed if the next batch shrinks. Drachinifel also separates the physical labor shortage of late-war Britain from his view of the peacetime American recruitment problem. His example of higher pay is a proposed way to attract skills from other work, rather than a measured claim about the salary increase required. Longer production runs would also spread development costs and provide repeated opportunities for learning.