Warships don't hold over 200,000 tons of cargo for an empty weight of say, only 60,000 tons.
That's because the empty weight of warship isn't that much different from its fully loaded weight. A Type 054A might be standard loaded fully loaded at 4,000 tons. At empty it may only be 3,600 tons. A freighter with an empty weight of 4,000 tons, can have a deadweight of around 10,000 tons, and when fully loaded, displaces around 13,000 to 14,000 tons. Big difference.
When a merchant ship is riding high, its not hauling cargo, its not loaded with fuel and its not running on a contract. When its fully loaded, then someone is paying for this.
When a container ship is running high on the water, its either not running a delivery, or its doing a run that's losing money, which means it will recoup its cost going outward by charging you the cost of both runs in one run.
For example, some ships head to this country on empty, load the cargo, and then head back. If this happens, the cargo freight is 2X the cost designed to cover both in and out runs. A ship has to be fully loaded from Country A to Country B, then fully loaded back to Country A in order to have the lowest freight and fuel cost.
They don't operate light as its main business model, because if a box ship operates light, its losing money. And because of that, they don't operate very light much more often, because you are simply going bankrupt. If you are operating light, for one way trips, like say, transporting freight from the US to Puerto Rico or Hawaii, and there is nothing to ship back to the US from Hawaii or Puerto Rico, then one trip isn't making money and while the other is making money and the shipping company will charge you the cost of both trips for one trip. So instead of say, $1000 for a 20 ton container, you have to charge $2000. But if you are shipping two major countries directly that has much trade with each other, say China to US and back, you make money both trips and you can charge only $1000 per container.
Operating like the way your describe is the exception for the shipping business not the norm. Like for example. you are making Jones Act ships. If you are going to be servicing islands that have no outward export business, you are going to be using much smaller freighters.
Good try because going back to the shipyard at hand, Jiangnan Shipyard does not make Jones Act ships or is in the business of making small freighters to service some small island in the Pacific. The ships they make are those that go between Europe to China or China to USA. It does not make the kind of ships where you expect to be transiting on empty. Major container ships, like those with over 20,000 TEU are guaranteed to be servicing routes where the two points have significant in and out business which means the shipping business line will try to ensure the ship will be fully loaded as much of its time as possible.
Back to the question. How many warships do you see with a bulbous bow typical of very large merchant ships like this? Go ahead, find me a picture.
Irrelevant bluster. Warships don’t operate very light, commercial ships do.
now repeat after me. Analysis by analogy is not definitive.
