Shipbuilding 325

The Great Tang Group had been constantly improving their shipbuilding technology, and the most widely tested manufacturing innovation they worked on was a new technique known as welding.

An ironclad warship is assembled from pieces of steel, and there are only two ways to join steel—welding and riveting.

Riveting is a more primitive and cumbersome method of connection, but it has its advantages, the main one being—it's old enough. A technology that is old enough indicates that it is mature and reliable.

The Brunas-class warships that Tang Mo initially built actually used a large amount of riveted structures, but afterward, he began experimenting with welded structures on the Wolf-class warships.

Even though welding is a very advanced manufacturing technique, the biggest problem with new technologies is that training new workers takes time, and it also needs time to be assimilated.