NB I'm talking about CONSTRUCTION ONLY here, not the design stage (which presumably takes years)

I remember that we had a few similair threads about this...I think they are now in the archive...

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Spend all your time waiting for a second chance, a break that would make it ok...

"I read somewhere that during the Dom. War, the Feds were producing one ship each three days, so that would mean that an average starship can be manufactured in only three days"

The above statement is only true if there is only one starship being produced at a time, and if there is only one shipyard. The truth of the matter is that it takes somewhat longer to produce a single ship.

Assuming that starfleet has at least five shipyards, and that each shipyard has at least two ships in production simultaneously, it would be reasonable to assume that each shipyard (on average) required 30 days to produce a single ship.

The 30-days-per-ship rate of construction would vary depending upon several factors. If a critical non-replicable component did not arrive on schedule it could cause a delay in the ship's construction. If the construction crew had high morale or was highly motivated (and was well-rested, etc.) the construction time would be somewhat less.

It is reasonable to assume that smaller ships would require fewer resources and thus would be constructed somewhat faster than larger ships, but this is offset by the fact that there are nearly as many parts in a smaller ship as a larger one, so the number of assembly steps is only somewhat less than for a larger ship.

Three days to manufacture a ship? Well, operhaps a shuttlecraft or possibly a runabout, but only if all the parts are on hand to start with.

--Baloo

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"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"
-- Jacob Marley's Ghost (A Christmas Carol -- Charles Dickens)
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm

Now, take today's modern US Nimitz Class Carrier. Approximatly twice the length of the Defiant, it takes 4 years from the keel being layed to the ship being released from drydock. It then takes another year or two to complete all the details for her final commissioning. And with the most recent Nimitzes (sp?), like USS Harry S. Truman CVN-75 (commissioned June 1998), they actually built the ship in massive modules. Each module was prebuilt elsewhere and then attached to the existing hull, and so on.

Now, if you ask me, it takes at least 2 years to build a Defiant, and even then, it would take longer if it were from scratch.

As for construction yards works being high on morale, I doubt if that is possible during war time. The workers would be living in fear, because yards are prime targets, and they would be overworked to get ships out into the fleets, causing stress.

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"The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey

San Francisco (Earth)
Earth Station McKinley (Earth)
Spacedock 1 (Earth, according to DS9TM)
Copernicus (Luna)
Starbase 134 (Rigel VI, according to DS9TM)
Utopia Planitia (Mars)
Antares (Antares IV)
Beta Antares (Antares Sector)

Also, I would conjecture that each fleet yard is capable of working on 50 starships at any given time, with possible exception of Earth Station McKinley, which appears to only have 1 dock.

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"The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey

As for time to build a ship... Well, IMO, we don't know. Unless they specifically say on the show how long it takes, we have no way of accounting for factors that we may not even know about. Given the technology difference, I don't really think it can be compared to the construction of current warships.

I forget, how long did it take them to build that copy of the Defiant in the mirror universe? However long that was, we can assume it takes less time for SF to build one.

This is from www.liberty-ship.com:
Once the production lines got under way, the time taken to build a Liberty at Fairfield Shipyard dropped to as little as 28 days. On the average, it took 592,000 man-hours to build a Liberty Ship. The construction of one Liberty ship required 3,425 tons of hull steel, 2,725 tons of plate, and 700 tons of shapes, which included 50,000 castings.
The Kaiser shipyard in Oakland, California, built the SS ROBERT E PEARY, from keel laying to launching, in 4 days 15 hours and 30 minutes. The PEARY was then outfitted, painted, taken on sea trials, the crew was trained and the vessel fully loaded with 10,000 tons of cargo. The PEARY sailed 7 days after the keel was laid.

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Andrew

You'd think that welding would be more watertight than rivets, but apparently rivets hold the ship together better than welding. It was a trade-off that allowed a vast increase of available transport ships to be constructed in a minimum time. I suspect that much of Starfleet's additional ship construction was allocated to vessels that, like the Liberty ships, provided logistical support.

Throughout history, the ratio of actual fighting forces to the logistical support required for them to fight has been creeping towards a higher amount of support required for each unit that fights. If that trend continues into the future, I would expect that each fighting starship requires a very large number of noncombatant vessels and personnel to keep it in fighting shape. Such logistical support would probably include resupply vessels to provide the ships with replacement stores such as food, medicine, and possibly personnel, hospital ships, salvage and repair tenders, etc.

Some of the support vessels would be civil vessels that were subsidized by the Federation with the understanding that in wartime conditions, they would become support vessels for the war effort, much as many airliners are subsidized by the U.S. government with the agreement that in wartime, they will be subject to use as transports. The owners are compensated for their trouble, and the compensation is part of the agreement. It's sort of like being in the reserves, except airliners aren't required to do 2 weeks of Active Duty each summer .

The remaining logistic support vessels would be Starfleet vessels that had already been constructed, and would include vessels that were already in service, vessels that had been mothballed and returned to service, and vessels that were constructed specifically to support the present effort. This last group would probably have been designed to be quickly constructed and just as quickly recycled at the end of the emergency. After all, starships are made of valuably rare stuff.

--Baloo

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"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"
-- Jacob Marley's Ghost (A Christmas Carol -- Charles Dickens)
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm