OT: salvage of WW2 shipwrecks

[Ries]

good history of the development of naval armor up thru 1937 here- no mention of bad guvmint intervention, though.
Development of Warship Armour

Okay- here is what he is talking about- it actually did happen, that, for about 3 years, the government did build a mill, and it did fail. So he is right- in 1913, Woodrow Wilson and his cronies did, indeed bungle a steel mill.
The Armor-plate Scandal | AMERICAN HERITAGE

[FONT=&quot]But when the Wilson administration came to office in 1913, it was perturbed by the fact that the bids for contracts by the handful of companies that could produce armor plate were often nearly identical. The reason was simple enough. The Navy was afraid that if it awarded an entire contract to the lowest bidder, less efficient companies might drop out of the armor-plate business and the country would not have an adequate supply in wartime. So it made a practice of giving all the companies an equal share of any large contract, provided they met the lowest price. With no incentive to bid low, no company did so.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Josephus Daniels, Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy, thought the solution was a government armor plant. Congress appropriated the money after a Navy report estimated that a plant with a yearly ten-thousand-ton capacity could be built for $8,446,000 and could produce armor for only $314 a ton, while the steel manufacturers were then being paid $454 a ton.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The steel companies, hardly happy about the idea of the government, already a monopsony for armor plate, becoming a competitor as well, fought the project. But they needn’t have worried. When the plant was finally finished, three years after World War I ended, it was millions over budget and could not produce armor for less than nearly double what the steel companies charged. The plant was shut down after producing one batch of armor plates and never reopened.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]For almost a century leftist historians have been regularly dredging up the “armor-plate scandal” as an example of capitalist greed at its worst. What it really is, of course, is one more example of government incompetence both as a customer and as a manufacturer.[/FONT]

 

[Trueturning]

You have any kind of citation for this?
I have a pretty decent library on the history of steelmaking in the US, used to have relatives in Pittsburgh- and I have never heard of a "socialized" steel mill.
Most of the big battleship steel came from Bethlehem, or USS, both completely capitalist and privately owned.
there may have been times when the feds told the companies what to make, and there certainly were price controls set by the government during WW2, as well as rules telling the private companies what they could and couldnt make- but that applied to Ford and Boeing and General Electric equally with US Steel and Bethlehem.

Ries,
You may find this interesting then.

You use “”“socialized” steel making”” socialized in quotes. I want to make clear that it is not a quote from me I did not use that term.

Did you think there was none since you did not know about it? I read it in a book.

There are links though. Many miss the value of robberbarons-the great accomplishments which they made.

Andrew Carnegie is mentioned in the article.
Here;
“ So President Benjamin Harrison personally appealed to Carnegie to resume construction of his armor-plate mill at the Homestead Works, and he did so.”

Homestead Pennsylvania.

“ So President Benjamin Harrison personally appealed to Carnegie to resume construction of his armor-plate mill at the Homestead Works, and he did so.
By 1892 it was in operation, but the great Homestead strike of that year ended production for a time, and when it resumed, after the strike had failed, disaffection among the workers was, understandably, intense.”

“ Josephus Daniels, Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy, thought the solution was a government armor plant. Congress appropriated the money after a Navy report estimated that a plant with a yearly ten-thousand-ton capacity could be built for $8,446,000 and could produce armor for only $314 a ton, while the steel manufacturers were then being paid $454 a ton.
The steel companies, hardly happy about the idea of the government, already a monopsony for armor plate, becoming a competitor as well, fought the project. But they needn’t have worried. When the plant was finally finished, three years after World War I ended, it was millions over budget and could not produce armor for less than nearly double what the steel companies charged. The plant was shut down after producing one batch of armor plates and never reopened.
For almost a century leftist historians have been regularly dredging up the “armor-plate scandal” as an example of capitalist greed at its worst. What it really is, of course, is one more example of government incompetence both as a customer and as a manufacturer.”

Link here; The Armor-plate Scandal | AMERICAN HERITAGE

 

[Trueturning]

Ries another historical discussion.

These are good.

Google Books

Interesting article likely copied from a newspaper .

Monopoly Is Insolent | Ann Arbor District Library

 

[gwelo62]

Hello Herr. Hoffman. I was wearing my 5000GHz Pickelhaube at the time. I thought equipment manufacturers would just calibrate to allow for any residual radioactivity.
Wrong Again!

 

[LockNut]

You have any kind of citation for this?
I have a pretty decent library on the history of steelmaking in the US, used to have relatives in Pittsburgh- and I have never heard of a "socialized" steel mill.
Most of the big battleship steel came from Bethlehem, or USS, both completely capitalist and privately owned.
there may have been times when the feds told the companies what to make, and there certainly were price controls set by the government during WW2, as well as rules telling the private companies what they could and couldnt make- but that applied to Ford and Boeing and General Electric equally with US Steel and Bethlehem.

Per the book, "Freedoms Forge", all companies contracting with the federal government were bound by a "cost plus 8%" as to what companies could charge the government during the war effort.

In addition to that, there was demand from the socialists of the day to nationalize all manufacturing for the war effort. William Knudsen firmly talked the president out of this dismal idea.

 

[Trueturning]

good history of the development of naval armor up thru 1937 here- no mention of bad guvmint intervention, though.
Development of Warship Armour

Okay- here is what he is talking about- it actually did happen, that, for about 3 years, the government did build a mill, and it did fail. So he is right- in 1913, Woodrow Wilson and his cronies did, indeed bungle a steel mill.
The Armor-plate Scandal | AMERICAN HERITAGE

[FONT="]But when the Wilson administration came to office in 1913, it was perturbed by the fact that the bids for contracts by the handful of companies that could produce armor plate were often nearly identical. The reason was simple enough. The Navy was afraid that if it awarded an entire contract to the lowest bidder, less efficient companies might drop out of the armor-plate business and the country would not have an adequate supply in wartime. So it made a practice of giving all the companies an equal share of any large contract, provided they met the lowest price. With no incentive to bid low, no company did so.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3F3F3F][FONT="]Josephus Daniels, Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy, thought the solution was a government armor plant. Congress appropriated the money after a Navy report estimated that a plant with a yearly ten-thousand-ton capacity could be built for $8,446,000 and could produce armor for only $314 a ton, while the steel manufacturers were then being paid $454 a ton.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The steel companies, hardly happy about the idea of the government, already a monopsony for armor plate, becoming a competitor as well, fought the project. But they needn’t have worried. When the plant was finally finished, three years after World War I ended, it was millions over budget and could not produce armor for less than nearly double what the steel companies charged. The plant was shut down after producing one batch of armor plates and never reopened.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3F3F3F][FONT="]For almost a century leftist historians have been regularly dredging up the “armor-plate scandal” as an example of capitalist greed at its worst. What it really is, of course, is one more example of government incompetence both as a customer and as a manufacturer.[/FONT]

Are you using material from the article and leaving out quotes and mixing it in with your commentary?

Ex. This ; “ Josephus Daniels, Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy, thought the solution was a government armor plant. Congress appropriated the money after a Navy report estimated that a plant with a yearly ten-thousand-ton capacity could be built for $8,446,000 and could produce armor for only $314 a ton, while the steel manufacturers were then being paid $454 a ton.”

This is confusing that you quote the article and do not use quotes. You do this a lot. You then mix your own commentary into it. I noticed this quite some time back. It only takes a few seconds to use the quotes. This is a reasonable thing for accuracy.

 

[john.k]

The post WW1 period up to 1922 was marked by massive inflation,and insatiable demand for items such as motorized vehicles ,and all kinds of manufactured articles......So increase of the price of steel from a new built plant in 1919-20 period is to be expected,and would also have to compete against surplus steel from plants that had been built with government open ended contracts for cost plus.

 

[BlackBart]

You have any kind of citation for this?
I have a pretty decent library on the history of steelmaking in the US, used to have relatives in Pittsburgh- and I have never heard of a "socialized" steel mill.
Most of the big battleship steel came from Bethlehem, or USS, both completely capitalist and privately owned.
there may have been times when the feds told the companies what to make, and there certainly were price controls set by the government during WW2, as well as rules telling the private companies what they could and couldnt make- but that applied to Ford and Boeing and General Electric equally with US Steel and Bethlehem.

USS or US Steel has been publicly owned since 1901 the year of its listing on the stock exchange. Reporting from Pittsburgh "The Paris of Appalachia".