Warship production depends on vast supplier networks

Large corporations received much of the prime-contract money, but most were not vertically integrated producers. Prime shipyards instead stood at the top of production pyramids containing thousands of specialist suppliers. The comparison with B-29 production shows how cross-licensing and subcontracting could unite designs and parts from many firms into one complex platform. Light-cruiser construction similarly depended on outside producers for boilers, turbines, draft blowers, valves, and other subsystems. The example reframes US mobilization as a networked industrial achievement rather than the work of a few self-contained giants.