True Size of the Imperial Shipyards [999.M41] 3D Documentary

Warships of the Imperial Navy represent some of the largest man-made structures in the entire galaxy. And yet, by necessity, there exists a class of structure which is even larger. The dockyards which birthed them in the first place. Such facilities are critical to the functioning of the Imperium as it is they which make possible the production and maintenance of the trillions of vessels which both connect and protect the far-flung reaches of its galactic empire. But not all dockyards are created equal. As with warships, they can be categorized by class, from the smallest of dry docks stuck building small vessels at the bottom of gravity wells, to the orbiting space stations which produce multiple ships of the line at a time, and the gargantuan forge worlds capable of spewing forth entire battle fleets. All have their place in the vast war machine which churns endlessly to keep at bay the horrors of the grimdark future. So, today, let us explore the nature of these impressive facilities and the methods by which they assemble the ships of the Imperial Navy. This is the true size of mankind's naval shipyards in the 41st millennium. So, as you'll be seeing in this video, the Imperium certainly has its hands full when it comes to managing the production of a galactic-wide fleet, and they could certainly use the help of today's sponsor Odoo. It's an all-in-one software for managing organizations in an integrated way. As with other ERP tools, this means empowering you with a range of applications to simplify the day-to-day management of a business, including invoicing, accounting, project management, inventory, website creation, and more. With over 15 million users worldwide, Odoo is a well-established company with tens of thousands of specific apps to meet different company needs. Let's say, for instance, you want to build a website. There's an app for that, to quickly set things up, customize the look and feel with themes, fonts, animations, and more. If you need to sign documents, there's an app for uploading, viewing, signing, and revising these files. If you need to manage timesheets, there's an app to track and validate billable hours, approve time spent on tasks, and simplify invoicing your services. If you need to manage workflows, there's an app to organize projects with stakeholders, tasks, due dates, dependencies, and statuses. The list goes on and on. And best of all, the whole ecosystem can be linked together on Odoo. So try it out today. The first app you get actually comes for free and comes with unlimited hosting and support. From there, you can access all applications starting at under $25 a month. Enjoy! Before we dive deep into the topic of ship manufacturing, it will be worth reminding ourselves of the true size of the Imperial Navy being constructed. It is a vast, galaxy-spanning organization composed of countless ships whose size ranges from tiny shuttlecraft to large cruisers and gargantuan freight haulers. All such assets, which fall under the banner of the Emperor, are broadly grouped into the Imperial Fleet. It is composed of three major branches, the War Fleets, the Merchant Fleets, and the Civil Fleets, with smaller branches operated by independent entities such as the Space Marines, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Inquisition. But just how large are these organizations? A proper accounting of their numbers is impossible. Any estimate will range in the trillions upon trillions when just counting vessels, with even more math to be done to include estimates for their crews, support staff, and administrators. However, some general remarks can be made. First is that the vast majority of interstellar vessels, roughly 90%, will hail from the Merchant Fleets, whose role it is to shuttle resources within and between star systems. Though some are capable of FTL travel, most traverse the sublight speeds. For long hauls, this can mean multiple generations of crew will be needed to complete a journey. Such is the scale of these merchant activities that decades may even be spent just waiting to pass through congested shipping lanes or ports of entry. Even in a military context, the tooth-to-tail ratio ensures that support vessels far outnumber their combat-ready peers. Yet, while the war fleets may be vastly outnumbered, their ranks are nonetheless astronomically large. After all, each planet with a respectable population will have hundreds of sublight PDF vessels and space stations at its disposal. Star systems, meanwhile, may add to this capacity with a handful of interstellar warships in a squadron. Subsectors, in turn, may have dozens of additional warships which operate in a battle group. Entire sectors, meanwhile, can have hundreds of warships in a battle fleet. And segmentums will easily have hundreds of thousands of warships on their roster of escort size and above in various states of operation with many more in reserve. Running it all the way to the top, the end result is a galactic war fleet whose vessels easily number in the millions with naval personnel in the trillions. Yet, when we recall that this is but a small slice of the overall imperial fleet, the scales become truly mind-boggling. But we shouldn't let our imagination stop there. Now remember that size also matters, and many imperial vessels are so large that their mass can easily equate to that of hundreds of your average ship class. Thus, measured in tonnage, the fleet could easily outweigh many planets' worth of raw material. This all raises the question, how did the Imperium produce such a massive fleet? We could begin to answer this question on the level of an individual warship with generalized methods of construction. This involves the following steps. Design, manufacture, assembly, outfitting, and testing. We can take each in turn. When it comes to design, a brand new ship will utilize one or more standard template constructs, with some degree of modification or innovation to achieve the desired ship specifications. This will typically be the domain of the Adeptus Mechanicus, though designers are also present within the naval and civilian sectors. Next, manufacture can begin. First, the raw materials will be collected and fabricated into the required parts. This ranges from simple structural beams and piping to complex plasma drives and Geller field generators. Generally speaking, all parts can be produced in parallel. However, efficient manufacturing requires the diligent management of lead times and supply chain bottlenecks. Next, assembly can begin. Usually, this involves the preparation of sub-assemblies, where key components and infrastructure is pre-installed. These sub-assemblies can be as small as a cabin or as large as multi-decked sections. Such block construction minimizes the need to install components deep within the hull once it is assembled, and allows for more efficient pre-assembly across distributed facilities. The assembly of some classified parts is strictly controlled. For example, the astropathic choir is only built by members of the Adeptus Astra telepathica, while the navigator chamber is built by the Narvis nobility. Eventually, all parts will make their way to a central location. Here, the ship will begin to take shape as massive steel and adamantium beams are assembled into a skeletal superstructure. Within this frame will be embedded the sub-assemblies which constitute the organs of this growing monster. These will be interconnected with the mechanical equivalent of arteries, nerves, and musculature. Finally, the armour plating and outer hull will be installed at which point the vessel can begin to be pressurized. Around this same time, outfitting and testing will be taking place. This involves the laborious process of completing the balance of construction. Here, crews will install hatches, partitions, seals, wire terminations, comms relays, sensor tuning, systems integrations, paint, signage, and all the final accoutrements befitting a warship of the Imperium. Checks occur along the way and are often accompanied by blessings and religious rites. Finally, after years, decades, or even centuries of hard work, the new vessel will be deemed fit for service. As you can see, the process of building a new ship is a massive resource investment. Therefore, the Imperium actually does its best not to start from scratch. This might mean repurposing or upgrading existing vessels. Damaged ships can also be scavenged for parts and the frames of space hulks make for excellent building blocks. The Mechanicus has turned to salvaging defeated ships from traitor fleets, whose make is, after all, of Imperial design and often includes older, superior patterns. But the taint of chaos is ever present, and efforts have been made to curb this practice. With this understanding of the construction steps in mind, we can now turn our attention to the facilities in which they take place. Since before its inception, the Imperium has been using shipyards scattered across its domains. Such facilities take many forms, from the humble terrestrial dry docks of minor planets to the gargantuan orbital facilities of forge worlds and everything in between. Each will be categorized into manufacturing classes based on available materials, equipment, labor, and talent. Lower-tier facilities might only have the means of building a tiny number of small ships over a long time, while higher-tier facilities can pump out many ships of superior class at a rapid pace. To get a sense of things, we can present a few examples along the spectrum of small, medium, and large dockyards. The smallest dockyards typically exist on the surface of a habitable planet or moon. Here, the presence of some level of atmosphere and gravity make it far more practical to use existing infrastructure, dry docks, and traditional methods of construction. However, on the flip side, gravity wells and atmospheres impose limits on the size of warships which can be lifted out of orbit. Thus, these sorts of facilities are only suited for building the smallest of escort-class ships, such as sloops and raiders. This in turn makes construction more achievable, as these boats lack the warp drives and complex systems which can often bottleneck more ambitious projects. While the capabilities of such simple naval dockyards may be overlooked when outfitting a battlegroup for war, they should not be dismissed. After all, war is not the only use of a warship. Local star systems each have a need for lower-level duties such as policing, escort, logistics, and reconnaissance. These small, sub-light vessels produced by minor shipyards can easily meet this need. The next tier of medium dockyards will typically be in space, often in stationary orbit around a planet, moon, or asteroid. Unshackled from gravity wells, they will more freely be able to assemble large warships such as escorts or cruisers. The facilities usually include a central dock, around which are arranged supply depots, fuel storage, workshops, admin buildings, and habitation. However, these medium dockyards are unlikely to have everything they need in orbit. Thus, they still rely heavily on the support of terrestrial facilities, which can bring up men and materials using transport craft or space elevators. Basic versions of such space dockyards can be set up across most planets, even if on a temporary basis. Imperial reports, for instance, tell of how a lunar-class cruiser was assembled in the skies above the feral world of Unloth. Here, the labor of the locals was harnessed to mine and smelt vast quantities of metal for what they believed to be sky temples. After 11 years, their hard work was rewarded with a new star lighting up the sky. Truly an impressive feat. Yet, in this case, we can assume that to build a cruiser, there were also substantial support facilities and perhaps a Mechanicus Ford ship in orbit to assist with construction. Other dockyards of this class can be expected to have somewhat similar output levels. However, this depends greatly on the planet they are parented to. Areas with more resources and expertise will be able to expedite the process. Yet, even still, productivity increases can only go so far in the face of inherent bottlenecks in the process. Critical parts like plasma reactors and Geller field generators have notoriously long and unpredictable lead times. The next tier of large dockyards can begin to solve such issues with economies of scale. These will be facilities which are able to berth multiple ships at a time, with many shared systems for streamlined production. Their layout typically consists of a central hub from which extend massive radial arms. Each arm in turn has docking points for vessels in the process of being built or maintained. Within each bay, adjustable girders, machinery, and docking tubes can be extended to service its assigned ship. In this way can men and materials be efficiently directed by the station's workmasters and Mechanicus personnel. Dockyards of this size also benefit from the sheer weight of their socio-economic gravity. After all, on account of the scope and scale of the work taking place, they are massive resource sinks which attract huge labour forces with many tradesmen, overseers, and administrators. As such, important political figures of the Imperium are often involved who can use their leverage to negotiate better supply terms for the station to ensure the work remains on schedule. This is especially true of stations with important strategic value to the Navy. Though at the same time we should note that political and bureaucratic attention does not always lead to better outcomes. However, even in the idealized case where these large dockyards hum along at peak levels, it can take many years for their labour to bear fruit. Thus, as the individual capacities of any given dockyard is strained, the wider industrial base of a sector featuring multiple facilities can ensure a new warship is completed on average every year or even every month. The Calaxis sector, for example, was reported to have been able to produce 50 corvettes over just a few years. But this is a relatively fringe region of the Imperium. For some of the most impressive incarnations of these large shipyards, one can turn to more prominent regions of space, such as Port Moor, the base of Battlefleet Gothic, or the segmentum fortress worlds of Baca, Hydrafur, Sipramundi, and Khardunyash. Yet, even with such specimens in mind, there still remains a class of facilities beyond what we have already covered. Such massive-tier shipyards are singular locations whose industrial output can rival entire sectors. These are the manufacturing capitals of the Imperium, which come in the form of forge worlds, directly controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Not all specialize in the production of warships, but those who turn their aims towards such goals are capable of truly impressive feats. To this end, there are no greater examples of massive, dedicated facilities than those found at the Jovian and Martian shipyards of the Sol system. After all, it was here that the bulk of the expeditionary fleets were built for the Great Crusade. To enable such results, both Jupiter and Mars made use of entire orbital rings of dockyards. In the Martian case, this is no loosely spaced constellation, but rather a continuous conglomeration of facilities in geosynchronous orbit known as the Ring of Iron. Spanning the entire equator of the planet, its diameter measures at least 6,800 kilometers across, with a distribution of space elevators linking it to the surface. At this scale, the industrial output of such facilities begins to run into a rather peculiar bottleneck in the 41st millennium. The need for enough warm bodies to crew such vessels, and more specifically, the precious astropaths and navigators required to enable their warp-based travel. But such limitations are not always of pressing concern. New ships can always be put into storage or can be shipped out with skeleton crews at sublight speeds. In this way do the millions of warships of the Imperium make their way to the front lines of a galactic empire. In our next episode, we shall finally turn our attention to the details of their operation whilst in service. For now, you can catch script previews and download HD versions of our art on Patreon and YouTube memberships. A big thanks to the current supporters and to the researchers, writers and artists for making this episode possible. We couldn't have done it without this team and this community. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these other related videos. See you in the next one.