You are seeing money in absolute terms, it is in reality a unit of time x value. Building 3 over 25-30 years would also better support the industrial cycle.
I don't really want to pick holes, but....
Like most people in the real world, we tend to deal with REAL things, like £1.00 Sterling being worth 100 UK pennies, so your analogy isn't quite true.
However, if you were to discuss it in the context of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), as in the whole life of the ship, its construction, support costs, running costs & disposal, then it would be more in line.
Secondly, as one whose job is reliant on the UK Shipbuilding Industry being maintained, I cannot & will not buy into the pish-posh that you’re peddling, WRT stretching the build programme of the largest & probably most complex warship that will be built in the UK in the 1st quarter of the 21 century.
I do appreciate that you are being hypothetical, but I'll look at this from a REAL perspective, so we can see how YOUR idea would work, in absolute terms.
At present, CVF is keeping approx 1,000 shipbuilders employed on the Clyde, about 500 at Portsmouth, 300 - 500 across A&P Tyne & Cammel Laird, with say (for arguments sake) 500 at Rosyth.
Taking those numbers to their max, that gives us a nice round figure of 2,500. Now that's the figures for those DIRECTLY employed by the Alliance, to build the ship. You could probably add at least another 1,000 in the support structures of keeping the yards open (the maintenance crews, the transport teams, the design sub-contractors & the manufacturing subcontractors), again within the Alliance, but tagged as INDIRECT Labour.
Now, for each one of THOSE jobs within the Alliance (direct & Indirect), it is ESTIMATED that there are TEN employed in the public sector, from the companies who make the cabling & electrical equipment, down to the paint manufactures & those making the construction steel or pipes.
I’ll round figures up, so we'll say 40,000, as it make the maths easier ! (Then again, if you listened to the media in the run up to the UK Election in 2010 those figures varied from 50,000 thru to 75,000).
So... Let’s imagine the build programme as a sine wave (looking at only the positive cycle) & on the basis that construction started in 2009 & will probably run through to 2019, it's fair to say that of the 40,000, the majority will be employed for an estimated 6 years, spanning the centre of the peak (3 years each side). Again, using rule of thumb and employing the 80/20 rule (80% being the six peak years, 20% being the lean years of start & finish).
As both ships are being constructed with overlapping build timetables, the figures will gradually rise, peak, then fall slowly, but in sharp steps, with no boom & bust, so no cyclic elements of variance & giving a large workforce the ability to remain employed for a good period of time, allowing Govt coffers to receive a steady income, all the while allowing employees to be able to spend their income over that same period, allowing for growth domestically in the retail sector. (A long term GOOD THING!)
So let’s look at the prospect of building 3 identical ships, on a FIXED PRICE CONTRACT, across a 30 year period (1 ship per decade) with all costs & contracts being agreed & placed before construction of the 1st ship has commenced.
Following the descriptive analogy above (the sine wave), we’d have 3 sine waves, (1 for each decade), but with a reduced manpower total at the peak, as we’re only building one ship. Practically, that would equate to about a 33 to 50% REDUCTION in the overall labour force of the Alliance. This build style would also dictate a ‘Boom & Bust’ cycle, with the added issue of skill gaps, skills fade & continuity / transfer of knowledge (WRT the workforce).
As it’s a FIXED PRICE Contract, the practicalities of the manufacture of components & materials in the public sector would be affected also, with many companies opting to produce all the materials for the 3 ships at once & then SUPPLY them to the Alliance, for
them to STORE the parts. This action alone would skew the figures of employment for the 1st decade by INCREASING them, but would in turn reduce the total on the next 2 cycles. This would give the Public sector figures an estimated REDUCTION of 33% for the 1st decade, 50% for the 2nd & 85% for the 3rd.
The ‘Boom & Bust’ approach also allows the skilled workers with the intrinsic knowledge to complete the work, the ability to move onto similar tasks in other sectors of Heavy Industry construction, during the ‘bust’ section. This happens as the Alliance can’t afford the overhead costs of MAINTAINING employees when there isn’t anything for them to do.
Of course, the Alliance can’t expect any loyalty from these employees, as they will have moved onto the next wage earner, so that they can maintain their ability to provide for the own needs & those of their families.
So, without attempting to put actual monetary figures into this, it’s apparent to the lay-man that the CURRENT build approach of x2 ships, overlapping, is the BETTER option for the UK.
The Upshot is that when CVF is finished, it would be an IDEAL time for T26 to start, that’s assuming that there won’t already be orders from other nations, as such an ideology allows the shipbuilders to MAINTAIN their workforce, keeping key / relevant skills alive, while providing continuous employment for current & future generations.
SA