Shipbuilding economies of scale depend on actual order volumes

The plan calls for acquisition decisions to account for a ship's full life, including sustainment costs and readiness risks that can otherwise be deferred into later years. It also links distributed investment and allied participation to economies of scale. The discussion tests that claim against the appendix's slow growth in battleship, destroyer, and frigate orders. Expanding the number of participating yards leaves a separate question about whether enough ships will be ordered soon enough to create the promised production scale.