U.P. Cinnabar wrote: ↑2018-05-15 09:51pm
KraytKing wrote: ↑2018-05-15 08:50pm
Crazedwraith wrote: ↑2018-05-15 02:19pm
So... Dehli builds enough capacity for 24 cargo ships (not carriers. They're not carriers) when there is five in existence?
Say capacity is tripled. That's the equivalent of 15 container ships.
I just googled and there are about 50,000 container ships in the world. These flying ones needed to be a hell of a lot more effective to be worth it.
As E_F says, these seem to fill a niche of transporting really big heavy objects quickly for a lot of money.
There are only five, but Canada will double that number in two and a half years, and double it again in five. That's twenty, with only Canada actually building any.
Canada. Not exactly the best-suited for massive industrial projects. Once they figure out the tech, India will have no trouble building a few dozen to keep the Delhi port occupied.
Once the entire world is in on it, there will be no problems building dozens or hundreds per year, given their apparent cheapness of operation. You're waaay underestimating capacity.
And, of course, if the Indians have at least one military helicarrier(which they will), the Paks will find a way to get one too.
Why not a heliport complex at Kolkata and Mumbai as well? Especially since Mumbai is India's New York?
Mumbai and New York are similar because they are huge ports. They'd both get busy building berths to allow them to ship to landlocked cities, but you could land the helicargocarrier on the sea and toe it into the existing ship docks with a little adaption I think. I chose Dehli as archetypal huge, rapidly developing city that happens to be landlocked. It's easier to imagine Dehli doing it then Paris, say
Docks would probably be built to overcapacity across many places in the developing world. Many cities in Vietnam built deep water docks, with officials hoping to skim money off the trade passing through. Too many docks meant none of them were actually profitable. It'd be the same lesson again for the non-port cities.
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So, what secondary effects?
The big shipping constraints end, with important geopolitical implications. Sure you can shoot the carriers down, and threatening to do so allows an equivalent of a naval blockade, but you can always just go around the hotspot. I wonder if some poorer countries can make money from providing protected airspace lanes?
Panama suffers. Suez suffers. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt loose a bit of USA support, but not too much as surface fleets will remain important. The helicarriers are basically skeet in military terms. The most dangerous aspect of their militirazation is that India and China no longer have a nice fat buffer called the Himalayas to prevent war. That's going to be a major flashpoint and arms race.
Singapore gradually declines in importance as a trade hub. They attempt to retool as a transit place, where many ships from different areas meet a helicarrier to feed in cargo from multiple sources. BUT there is conflict between passenger flight routes and helicarrier routes, and the big city to big city direct routes, ignoring the straits, nibble away at Singapore's importance.
Skirmishes in the South China Sea over oil rights can occur without shutting down global trade directly. They are therefore slightly more likely to happen imo.
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