Comment by lazide
4 months ago
Why can’t we mass manufacture aircraft carriers by making a lot of small boats and joining them up?
It’s the same kind of problem.
(And notably, it’s not that it’s actually completely impossible to do it that way - just impractical compared to the alternative. You could actually make something that kind of sorta worked for an aircraft carrier by joining tens of thousands of small pontoons and support ships. Operationally, it would just suck compared to the alternative.)
> You could actually make something that kind of sorta worked for an aircraft carrier by joining tens of thousands of small pontoons and support ships.
In fiction: "Tom Swift and his Ocean Airport" (1934) [1] In reality, a floating pontoon airport, with over 10,000 pontoons, was built during WWII, as "Project Sock".[2] It worked OK in a protected bay. Once large planes could cross the Atlantic, and small carriers with small planes were built for convoy protection, there was no military need. Floating airports have been tried a few times since, but it's never been worth the trouble.
Prefabricated pontoons were a big thing in WWII. Used for bridges, barges, docks, etc. Useful when you really need a temporary structure in a hurry, and aren't too concerned about its long term lifespan.
Putting multiple transformers in series is quite possible, but it's rarely done because it's less efficient than a larger transformer and takes up more space.
[1] https://www.tomswift.info/homepage/oceanair.html
[2] https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2024/f...