"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 27 Aug 2014 05:53:05 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Aug 2014 01:57:03 -0700, Gunner Asch

wrote:

On Wed, 27 Aug 2014 01:02:12 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

John B. Slocomb on Wed, 27 Aug 2014
08:31:17
I don't know that the Military ever "made their own stuff" :-)

Once upon a time, there were Army Arsenals, and Navy Yards, where
the work got done.

Indeed there were.

It was not all contractors and bids and slush funds

Didn't they use soldiers and sailors to build those, keeping the
troops in shape and busy during times we were not at war? Take the
labor fees away from building a ship and it gets a whole lot
cheaper.

I didn't realize you were such a fan of socialism, Larry. In fact,
you're really nudging toward communism there.

But that isn't the way it was. My grandfather was a civilian panel
carver at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, carving the mahogany filagree
around the hatches of officers' quarters on submarines during WWI.
Those were civilian workers.

--
Ed Huntress

Skippers' memoirs mention the assigned crew helping complete the
construction work on new submarines, but they don't say how much of
that doubled as hands-on training to repair the machinery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankowner

-jsw