Munitions Assembly Plant
Mittelspannung Shipyards
Fenris Orbit
deWulf Corporate Democracy
An army marched on its stomach. A navy sailed on fuel. Both fought with ammunition. All three were old truisms that predated spaceflight. Ever since word of the Elysian attack had reached Fenris, the munitions plant that was a part of the Mittelmach shipyards had been in constant operation. Three shifts, every day; two for production, and a third for maintenance and repair. Hundreds of torpedoes had gone out onto the warehouses next to the plant and then onward to the fleet. Even between battles the demand was insatiable. Training was best done with war-shots, and whole production runs were launched into the nearest star, or some unfortunate moonlet as the crews honed their skills.
The assembly plant had only one production line at first, building the standard “RM4-Rhine” for the fleet. But like every war, advances in technology were coming. A second production line was added to produce the upgraded “RM5-Elbe”, soon to see service on the next generation of ships, already in use on the automated drones that the deWulf were using. The late breakthrough in building an even bigger torpedo system, the “RS1-Danube”, demanded a third line almost the size of the first two put together. It was a weapon without a launcher. But there was no doubt that too would be coming, and the production line was kept ready for that moment.
The addition of ECM systems across both torpedo systems required an extension to all three lines, packing the finishing bays to the limit with additional electronics and assembly stations.
Originally built to just hold the single assembly line, the expansions added new station modules and docking points in an almost cancerous manner to the initial plant. The assembly lines expanded out from the side of the shipyard like some tumor, covered in container docking ports and bulging, misshapen walls barely enough to contain what was within. But that still wasn’t enough, and below the main assembly lines a whole duplicate set was being constructed to provide even more redundancy, even more capacity.
Noises were being made to build a whole new munitions plant on the far side of the yards; more efficient layouts, extra space for future unknown enhancements and multiple production lines in parallel. That would then free up space to expand the drone workshops into their own production facility to meet the rapacious needs of a navy awakening to the true power of automated combat.
But that work would take months to plan, years to build. And another old truism had not been forgotten or neglected. Tomorrow is insufficient; today is acceptable; yesterday is preferred. The fleet needed the munitions now. And tomorrow. And every day after that until the fleet would be sent back to its docking slips and mothball orbits to await its next summons to war.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 