Limited industrial capacity, especially for reduction gears, meant that relatively few of these designs of ships were built. Ship types included two tankers and three types of merchant vessel, all to be powered by steam turbines. The number was doubled in 1939 and again in 1940 to 200 ships a year. In 1936, the American Merchant Marine Act was passed to subsidize the annual construction of 50 commercial merchant vessels which could be used in wartime by the United States Navy as naval auxiliaries, crewed by U.S. History Design Profile plan of a Liberty ship A colored diagram of compartments on a Liberty ship, from the right side, front to the right The immensity of the effort, the number of ships built, the role of female workers in their construction, and the survival of some far longer than their original five-year design life combine to make them the subject of much continued interest. Their production mirrored (albeit on a much larger scale) the manufacture of " Hog Islander" and similar standardized ship types during World War I. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 19 (an average of three ships every two days), easily the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design. The class was developed to meet British orders for transports to replace ships that had been lost. Mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the Liberty ship came to symbolize U.S. Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Stern-mounted 4-in (102 mm) deck gun for use against surfaced submarines, variety of anti-aircraft guns Brown, one of four surviving Liberty ships, photographed in 2000
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