104 STRUCTURAL STEEL STANDARDIZED CARGO VESSELS. 



ers, bridges and tanks from which America had obtained such a reputation in steel 

 construction; and, on account of the great emergency and the demand for a large 

 number of ships, we further suggested that we be permitted to manufacture ships 

 and not build them one at a time. 



Our plan called for utilizing the large number of bridge and structural steel 

 shops throughout the country which were not then busy with commercial work and 

 which could be employed in fabricating steel shapes and plates from accurate draw- 

 ings and patterns which we would supply. On account of using unclassified steel, 

 we suggested that we compete in size of ship with the then proposed wooden vessel of 

 3,500 tons deadweight capacity, but as we progressed in the details of design and con- 

 struction it was found possible to increase the deadweight capacity and still retain 

 standardization in design and material to 5,000 tons, which is the size of the ship 

 we are now producing in quantity. This size was fixed for other reasons. An analy- 

 sis of pre-war merchant shipping disclosed the fact that the average commercial 

 c^-go carrier ranged between 4,000 and 5,000 tons with a full-load speed of 9 knots. 

 It was therefore believed that a 5,000-ton craft, able to make io}4 knots per hour, 

 would be preferable and probably prove a desirable type for service in the years to 

 come. Further, and of no less importance, careful investigation showed that the 

 unit features of a 5,000-ton ship, fabricated at more or less distant outlying plants, 

 would utilize freight car capacities to their fullest and most economical extent and 

 still carry out the plan of having as many rivets as possible driven at the fabricating 

 shops. A total of 427,000 rivets is required to be driven for one of these hulls, and 

 of this total over 100,000 are driven at the fabricating plants, where the work is done 

 on a much more economical basis than in the shipyard. For illustration, the smoke- 

 stacks were so designed that their maximum diameter came within the width of an 

 ordinary gondola car, permitting the stacks to be shipped completely assembled. The 

 floors with intercostals were assembled in groups of three, the ordinary 36-foot 

 flat or gondola car carrying six sets of floors which, when loaded, kept within the 

 railway clearance. It was recognized at the start that the railroads would be heavily 

 burdened and, as a very wide region would have to be drawn upon to furnish ma- 

 terial, it was absolutely essential that the car space should be made the most of, so 

 that the fewest possible carriers would be needed to maintain a steady flow of sup- 

 plies to the assembly yard on Newark Bay. 



Our problem was first to use commercial structural shapes and plates that could 

 be had in large quantities, and design the ships so that these could be assembled with 

 a minimum of alteration through bending, and next, that the plans should be so de- 

 veloped that the bridge builder and the structural shops should have no difficulty in 

 reading the drawings and adapting their experience and equipment to the fabrication 

 of the parts for ship construction. The naval architect had to speak and draw in 

 terms familiar to the great army of structural steel workers, requiring some radical 

 modifications in the matter of classification details, and imposing rather pronounced 

 departures from the ordinary shipshaped models, in order that the materials at hand 

 might be incorporated in the most efficient manner for maximum production and 



