AAAA

Angatahuaca-Amegatlan Acalquetztia Amictlanyotl

Aerial view of the AAAA shipyard facility.
Industry	Shipbuilding
Founded	April 1944 (1944-04)
Number of employees	65,000

The Angatahuaca-Amegatlan Acalquetztia Amictlanyotl (Nahuatl: 𐐈𐑌𐑀𐐰𐐻𐐰𐐸𐐶𐐰𐐿𐐰-𐐈𐑋𐐯𐑀𐐰𐐻𐑊𐐰𐑌 𐐈𐐿𐐰𐑊𐐿𐐯𐐻𐑆𐐻𐐨𐐰 𐐈𐑋𐐨𐐿𐐻𐑊𐐰𐑌𐐷𐐬𐐻𐑊, lit. "Angatahuaca-Amegatlan Shipyard of the Amictlan Ocean") better known as the AAAA or 4A Yards is a major shipyard in the Aztaco Republic, Zacapican. It's facilities are located in the Angatahuaca-Amegatlan harbor in Angatahuaca bay. The shipyard was established as an outgrowth of the Amegatlan steel calpolli in 1921 with the opening of two slipways for the construction and repair of small ships, located along the then-underdeveloped southern waterfront of the city of Amegatlan. As it expanded its operations, the AAAA yards became an autonomous calpolli corporation and grew to consolidate all of the shipyard facilities in the Angatahuaca bay. In 1984, AAAA was able to acquire rights to additional land south of Amegatlan along with development assistance from the Industrial Construction Administration establishing what is now the second largest shipyard facility in Zacapican by area, taking up 6 square kilometers of the bay coastline. The advanced manufacturing capabilities of the association's new central shipyard facility enable it to construct technologically complex vessels with nuclear marine propulsion, namely naval warships such as the nuclear-powered Nochcalima class cruisers and Ezcoatl class attack submarines. Together with the city's steel industry, the shipyards make up the bulk of the Amegatlan economy and represent one of the largest firms in the economically important Angatahuaca area. In over a century of operation, AAAA has built more than 900 ships for the Zacapine Navy, the merchant marine, and a diverse international clientele.

History

The Amegatlan shipyards, built in a cove within the Angatahuaca bay to the south of the city of Amegatlan, were established in 1921 as a subsidiary calpolli to the then-nascent Amegatlan steel producing calpolli association. This early shipyard facility was a far cry from the expansive modern facility, featuring much smaller slipways and being mainly intended to service small fishing and cargo vessels. At the time, many smaller shipbuilding calpolli existed around the active Angatahuaca bay area, the majority of the small relatively small with a few thousand or hundreds of workers servicing ships, building new vessels and cracking old ones. This high activity of the maritime industries in the region, as well as the high population and political weight of the Angatahuaca urban zone, contributed to the rapid and expansive industrialization of the area as a major economic hotspot in Zacapican and an attractive target for migration from around the world. The shipyards of the bay were some of the main calpolli which mainly employed immigrant labor, as many of these calpolli were only recently established and were looked down on by the better off native population who viewed shipbuilding and breaking as dangerous and menial work, leaving the industry to be dominated by foreigners and internal migrants from the Zacapine hinterlands.

A great influx of funding and attention from the national government into the bay area's maritime industries during the Hanaki War and in the aftermath of the disaster at the Xaltozan narrows lead to a great deal expansion from the individual calpolli shipyards and drydocks around the bay, which in turn led to the growth of inefficiencies within the industry from inter-calpolli competition for business, resources and skilled labor. The cost of these inefficiencies began to mount over the years until in 1944 the calpolli began to form a unified bay-wide calpolli association to consolidate the shipbuilding industries of the region for the benefit of the workers and to increase the output of the industry. This led to the foundation of the Angatahuaca-Amegatlan Acalquetztia Amictlanyotl, the association of all shipbuilders of the Angatahuaca bay area, with the name also referencing the Amictlan ocean directly beyond the Xaltozan narrows which was closely linked to the maritime culture of the bay. The flagship facility of the modern AAAA, a massive complex on the western shore of the bay began construction with heavy subsidization and assistance from the Industrial Construction Administration of the national government. Between the acquisition of the land and the end of construction, the expansive 6 square kilometer facility would take six years to complete and would open in September of 1984. From that point forward, AAAA would become the second military shipyard in Zacapican behind the Tecolotlan Acalquetztia Makrianyotl shipyards on the west coast.

Products

Shipbuilding

The main business of the AAAA is the manufacturing of entirely new marine vessels. Like the other major Zacapine shipyards, the expansive facilities give the AAAA a particular economic advantage in producing large ships at a lower cost thanks to the efficiency advantages of scale. With the construction of its main facility south of Amegatlan, the AAAA pioneered the now widely accepted modern shipbuilding technique of extensive prefabrication of entire sections encompassing multiple decks and at times a full cross section of the planned vessel. These pre-fabrication facilities utilize a massive amount of steel and require many workers specializing in this labor, leading to an extremely close relationship between the AAAA shipbuilders and the steelworker calpolleh workers of the the Amegatlan Steel calpolli association. The activity of the shipyard is widely credited with keeping the Amegatlan steel industry alive, where this along with other industrial manufacturing sectors have declined in neighboring Angatahuaca.

Cargo ships make up by far the largest proportion of vessels built by the AAAA. The largest ships of this type, being so large that they meet the maximum possible vessel size the shipyard is capable of handling, are superheavy container vessels capable of transporting approximately 14,000 standard shipping containers at a time. Bulk cargo carriers serving mainly as ore-carriers play an important role in the global economy supplying the industrial powers such as Zacapican with the vast amounts of minerals and raw materials needed supply their production plants and processing facilities, although they now represent a declining portion of the AAAA shipbuilding output as both the Zacapine and global economies continue to evolve and develop.

A lift-on/lift-off cargo vessel manufactured by the AAAA shipyard, serving as an auxiliary sealift vessel for the Zacapine military

However, smaller cargo and passenger vessels critical to the highly maritime Zacapine supply chain are the most common type of vessel built by the AAAA, due both to the high demand for such vessels and their smaller size compared to higher capacity superheavy ships which are much more resource and time intensive to build as a result. Of this class of ships aimed at the domestic Zacapine shipping industry, there are two main subtypes. Many varieties of roll-on/roll-off vessels including large and small passenger ferries with vehicle and cargo carrying capacity, car carriers which exclusively carry vehicles, train ferries used to transport rolling stock to and from islands and isolated regions of the country, and general purpose ro-ro cargo ships for domestic shipping. AAAA is the only Zacapine shipyard still producing the increasingly uncommon lift-on/lift-off configuration of cargo ship, which is equipped with its own onboard cranes for loading and unloading. These vessels are important for shipping to and from small provincial ports with only minimal shore facilities.

Although the AAAA no longer widely produces the type of small fishing vessels of its earlier operations and which are common in the eastern Zacapine fishing industry, the shipyard retains its role in servicing the needs of the fishing industry by manufacturing the large oceangoing factory ships which range much father afield than the small and ubiquitous fishing craft of the Matlayahualoyan. These ships became more common in the 1970s through the 1990s as the overfishing of the Matlayahualoyan caused heavy restrictions to be placed on fishing in that region, pushing fishermen further and further afield into the world's oceans to meet the significant demand for fish of the Zacapine market and therefore increasing the demand for the large industrial fishing vessels used for that type of fishing.

Military naval engineering

A special sector of the AAAA shipyard, specially equipped to maintain security and staffed by an elite force of shipbuilders and naval engineers of the calpolli association, is specifically equipped to handle military projects for the Zacapine Navy. Although the number of military ships built by AAAA pales in comparison to the vast number of civilian passenger and cargo ships, military contracts make up a greatly disproportionate part of the calpolli's income, justifying a significant investment in military shipbuilding facilities and technology. Some of the more advanced or specialized systems of navy warships, such as targeting radars or naval weapon systems are built in offsite facilities of the Cuauhquetztia defense industries conglomerate, specifically the Naval Armaments plant in the Zacaco Republic. However, the bulk of the components and work done on these vessels is done in house within the AAAA facility, including the installation of nuclear propulsion systems and the application of modern naval stealth systems.

Heavy machinery

Besides the construction and repair of entire vessels, the AAAA shipyard is also capable of manufacturing ship components to be installed at other shipyards. This mainly consists of the large machines used for various shipboard functions, especially the powerplant and engines of a ship. AAAA is one of only two shipyards in Zacapican with the facilities, expertise and safety precautions necessary to handle the construction and installation of nuclear propulsion systems which are primarily used for military vessels but also installed on some civilian ships such as the significant Zacapine fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. Likewise, it is one of a limited number of facilities worldwide capable of servicing and preforming maintenance on a shipboard nuclear reactor, making it an important facility for such nuclear-powered vessels active in the southern oceans. The facility is also fully equipped to manufacture and service conventional power plants running on marine fuel oil or liquefied natural gas. The production facilities at the AAAA are also capable of building auxiliary equipment related to the shipping industry, such as heavy cranes for loading and unloading shipping containers.

The AAAA facility also serves to supply the offshore drilling industry with the necessary equipment and vessels. In particular, offshore drilling platforms are assembled in a separate AAAA shipyard facility on the east side of the bay. Unlike the fixed drilling platforms used in shallow water, those semi-submersible platforms built by AAAA and other shipyards are in effect ships unto themselves with large submerged hulls that keep the oil rig afloat and stable for drilling to be conducted in deep water and the open ocean.