I've been railing about what the Ukraine war proves (to me at least). The U.S. has no industrial capacity to fight a real war. Almost 3 years on and where are the artillery shells? Nowhere because you can't make profits on a commodity product. So not enough factories built. You can't make a profit building merchant marine vessels, support ships. So not enough shipyards, as you point out. Not telling you anything you don't know. What surprises me is how obvious it is if one looks.

I believe Isoroku Yamamoto predicted (WWII) that Japan would do well for 6 months and then would get crushed by U.S. industrial capacity. The same will happen if the U.S. goes to war with China. This time, they have the capacity.

Mini rant over, thanks for throwing the softball ;)