US Navy HSLA Steel Mill Investment

Navy developed HSLA-60/80/100 in 1980s-90s for surface ships (more weldable than HY series). Subsequent NAVSEA/Newport News study of HSLA-60 for next-class carrier showed $1/lb material → $10/lb fabricated, killing the weight-saving case.

So the Navy started looking in the 1980s and 90s at developing new steels — the HSLA steels. You have HSLA-60, HSLA-80, HSLA-100. The sub guys will not use anything but the HY steels for the hulls because they're conservative, and the surface ship guys will use whatever will give them more surface ships, which is the HSLA steels because they're more weldable. Back when I was working for Bethlehem Steel in the mid-70s, they wanted to use the precursor to the HSLA steels — which had one percent nickel in it — to build the Alaskan Pipeline. Nickel adds toughness, so you won't get brittle fractures. It would have used a substantial fraction of the nickel in the world to build that one pipeline. You can build a few ships, but when you start building whole pipelines it actually takes more steel than to build a few ships.