Old Salt
Posts: 489
Location: San Freakcisco CA area | Subject: RE: Shipyards
Answering this question is tantamount to starting a holy war ... so I'll refer to CDR Allen's excellent book on the WWII Fleet Submarine -- in it, he placed Manitowoc built boats at the top of the heap for quality, schedule, and cleanliness. He placed EB at the bottom, mainly because their wartime manangement appeared to be more concerned with change claims than progress --
Remember, wartime improvement recommendations were coming back with each patrol. EB resisted making changes while Manitowoc jumped on them right away -- even though Manitowoc was a "follow yard" to EB and was, therefore, technically dependent upon EB's design and engineering process.
The major drawback to either Manitowoc or EB was --- those damn Jimmies in the enginehouse! Which made Portsmouth my personal favorite. |