How’s that? I don’t know whether any special capabilities of SEAL Team 6 or whatever they are calling themselves these days were brought to bear in that operation, but short of that, I don’t know of any reason that the Delta Force or the SAS could not have conducted a similar operation.
When I clicked on that link, I got the photo, and my tablet froze. Weird.
If that battle line got to within gun range of the 2012 US Navy, the 2012 version would be on the bottom in short order. The armor on those battleships would stand up to cruise missile hits, and no way in hell could a modern navy ship stand up to getting hit with shells from the main battery of battleship.
Which is a bit like saying if a guy with an axe catches an F16 on the ground its toast. Its true, but kind of irrelevant.
Otara
Oh and just to keep their enormous lead the US navy is starting to test railguns. SO the next generation of US warships might look very futuristic indeed…
So it looks like either Harry Truman or Barack Obama have commanded the greatest fleet in U.S. history…
So, it was a game of Uber Battleship. 
Not really. The USN at the end of WW2 was substantially larger than not just the next 13 nation’s navies, but the combined navies of every country on the planet put together. The Royal Navy was an ally but if in the extraordinarily unlikely event that they had to go against each other the RN would be swept aside with ease, the disparity was that great. Even the three times strength you list for the USN vs. the RN is a bit deceptive; a lot of the RN numbers were sloops and corvettes for anti-submarine work fighting the U-boat war in the Atlantic. British fleet carriers had been designed to carry only 36 aircraft and could only manage to squeeze in 54 when it became obvious 36 was far too small of a complement. US fleet carriers on the other hand had been built from the ground up to carry 90-100 aircraft.
The USNs most likely and most powerful future opponent, the USSR, was barely a tiny blip on the radar compared to the USN. It’s hard to come up with a metric to gauge the USNs superiority over the Soviet Navy it was so great. Their most powerful units were the three ancient Sevastopol class battleships which had been commissioned in 1914-18. Of the three, one was bottled up in the Black Sea, one bottled up in the Baltic Sea, and the third sunk in shallow water at Leningrad where it had been used as fire support during the siege.
One factor of force projection that the USN at the end of WW2 beats the modern navy at hands down at is amphibious lift. The USN had enough landing ships and attack transports to land an entire corp or multiple corps at once with ease. The modern USN would be very hard pressed to lift a single Marine division at one time.
For its time, the USN in 1945 was far stronger than the USN today. Obviously if there was some weird time warp matching up the two against each other today’s navy would win, but the same could be said if in 1945 only a fraction of the USN time warped to the end of WW1, one or two fast carrier task forces would eat the WW1 battleline for lunch without ever coming anything near within visual range.
I understand what you’re saying but I disagree with your conclusion. The factors you mentioned as existing in 1945 are even more true in 2011. Look at the numbers Gray Ghost posted (in 11) and the numbers I posted (in 28). The American naval lead has grown significantly.
I got my figures from here, here, here, and of course here.
American naval strength (2011)
324,466 naval personnel
2384 naval ships
11 aircraft carriers
75 submarines
59 destroyers
30 frigates
12 patrol craft
14 mine warfare craft
30 amphibious assault craft
3700 naval aircraft
Russian naval strength (2011)
140,000 naval personnel
233 naval ships
1 aircraft carrier
48 submarines
14 destroyers
5 frigates
60 patrol craft
34 mine warfare craft
23 amphibious assault craft
157 naval aircraft
===
Argentina:
Personnel: 17,200
Total Navy Ships: 42
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 4
Submarines: 3
Frigates: 0
Patrol Craft: 8
Mine Warfare Craft: 0
Amphibious Assault Craft: 2
Naval Aircraft: 47
Australia:
Personnel: 2,150
Total Navy Ships: 54
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 6
Frigates: 12
Patrol Craft: 14
Mine Warfare Craft: 6
Amphibious Assault Craft: 8
Naval Aircraft: 26
Brazil:
Personnel: 60,000
Total Navy Ships: 106
Aircraft Carriers: 1
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 5
Frigates: 9
Patrol Craft: 36
Mine Warfare Craft: 6
Amphibious Assault Craft: 5
Naval Aircraft: 85
Canada:
Personnel: 8,500
Total Navy Ships: 33
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 3
Submarines: 4
Frigates: 12
Patrol Craft: 20
Mine Warfare Craft: 12
Amphibious Assault Craft: 0
Naval Aircraft: 36 (operated by the air force)
China:
Personnel: 250,000
Total Navy Ships: 972
Aircraft Carriers: 1
Destroyers: 25
Submarines: 63
Frigates: 47
Patrol Craft: 332
Mine Warfare Craft: 52
Amphibious Assault Craft: 233
Naval Aircraft: 800
France:
Personnel: 44,000
Total Navy Ships: 289
Aircraft Carriers: 1
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 10
Frigates: 23
Patrol Craft: 35
Mine Warfare Craft: 18
Amphibious Assault Craft: 13
Naval Aircraft: 208
Germany:
Personnel: 17,000
Total Navy Ships: 90
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 4
Frigates: 15
Patrol Craft: 0
Mine Warfare Craft: 20
Amphibious Assault Craft: 2
Naval Aircraft: 52
India:
Personnel: 58,350
Total Navy Ships: 175
Aircraft Carriers: 1
Destroyers: 8
Submarines: 15
Frigates: 12
Patrol Craft: 31
Mine Warfare Craft: 8
Amphibious Assault Craft: 20
Naval Aircraft: 181
Indonesia:
Personnel: 74,000
Total Navy Ships: 136
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 2
Frigates: 6
Patrol Craft: 31
Mine Warfare Craft: 12
Amphibious Assault Craft: 8
Naval Aircraft: 70
Iran:
Personnel: 28,000
Total Navy Ships: 261
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 3
Submarines: 19
Frigates: 5
Patrol Craft: 198
Mine Warfare Craft: 7
Amphibious Assault Craft: 26
Naval Aircraft: 69
Italy:
Personnel: 35,200
Total Navy Ships: 180
Aircraft Carriers: 2
Destroyers: 4
Submarines: 6
Frigates: 12
Patrol Craft: 14
Mine Warfare Craft: 12
Amphibious Assault Craft: 39
Naval Aircraft: 80
Japan:
Personnel: 45,800
Total Navy Ships: 110
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 10
Submarines: 16
Frigates: 36
Patrol Craft: 6
Mine Warfare Craft: 29
Amphibious Assault Craft: 25
Naval Aircraft: 361
South Africa:
Personnel: 5,000
Total Navy Ships: 53
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 3
Frigates: 4
Patrol Craft: 31
Mine Warfare Craft: 8
Amphibious Assault Craft: 0
Naval Aircraft: 5 (operated by the air force)
South Korea:
Personnel: 68,000
Total Navy Ships: 170
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 1
Submarines: 14
Frigates: 9
Patrol Craft: 155
Mine Warfare Craft: 10
Amphibious Assault Craft: 10
Naval Aircraft: 70
Spain:
Personnel: 47,300
Total Navy Ships: 95
Aircraft Carriers: 2
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 4
Frigates: 10
Patrol Craft: 21
Mine Warfare Craft: 6
Amphibious Assault Craft: 17
Naval Aircraft: 59
Taiwan:
Personnel: 38,000
Total Navy Ships: 118
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 4
Submarines: 4
Frigates: 22
Patrol Craft: 79
Mine Warfare Craft: 4
Amphibious Assault Craft: 3
Naval Aircraft: 53
Turkey:
Personnel: 48,600
Total Navy Ships: 265
Aircraft Carriers: 0
Destroyers: 0
Submarines: 16
Frigates: 19
Patrol Craft: 108
Mine Warfare Craft: 20
Amphibious Assault Craft: 55
Naval Aircraft: 75
UK:
Personnel: 36,640
Total Navy Ships: 99
Aircraft Carriers: 1
Destroyers: 6
Submarines: 11
Frigates: 13
Patrol Craft: 23
Mine Warfare Craft: 15
Amphibious Assault Craft: 10
Naval Aircraft: 170
I obviously didn’t include every navy in the world. And I’ll acknowledge that I ignored some numerically large navies like North Korea’s and Sweden’s. But while these countries have a large number of ships, they are all coastal defense ships with no ability to travel out into the ocean. The North Korean navy, for example, is divided into two commands for its eastern and western coasts and none of its ships are able to travel between them.
What do you base this claim on, and how is it germane to the topic?
I didn’t know that about the DPRK Navy; thanks, ignorance fought. A quick scan of your list seems to support those proponents of the 1945 USN being the relative greatest, at least on a hulls and personnel basis. As others have noted, by late 1945 it was pretty much the USN, the Brits/Canada, and nobody else, torpedoed refugee liners aside. Was the interred French fleet, at least those parts that existed after the British shelled them at Mers-el-Kebir and the scuttling at Toulon, significant in size? I don’t think the Italian Navy ever sortied with Allied crews. I still think the networked capabilities of the modern US CVBG, along with satellite-based assets, have a transformative effect far in excess of their numbers sufficient to make the modern USN the greatest relative power of all time, but reasonable people may certainly differ.
I wonder how the list characterizes the two extant members of the Kirov-class, or the multiple Ticonderoga-class cruisers, as it seems to omit cruisers? I guess you could lump the Ticos in with the rest of the destroyers. It is funny how classifications change over time. The 1960s-era Spruance-class destroyers displaced over 8,000 tons, or more than the Atlanta-class light cruisers of WW2. Of course, the immediately post-WW2 Des Moines-class of heavy cruiser displaced roughly the same as H.M.S. Dreadnought. So it goes.
I’ll just leave this here…
No, fr srs. The article above posits, in summary, that the advances in anti-ship ballistic missiles over the last 30 years have so changed the dynamic of modern naval warfare that our big-carrier fleet, though more effective at fighting World War 2 than our WW2-era navy would be, is completely out of its depth (pardon the pun) at any future modern conflict. The sinking of the INS Eilat by Styx missiles in 1967, the author continues, demonstrated conclusively that the era of big surface ships is over, except as tools of fighting asymmetrical warfare.
Though my knowledge of naval conflict is limited to time spent playing computer games, and I think the Kirov is the best-looking warship in the world, I find myself swayed by his opinions. Can anyone respond?
Well it was a Navy team.
Scholar, I don’t agree as the US anti-missile defense is outrageously accurate at this point. A combination of missiles & the Phalanx systems mean very few missiles in the world are even a mild threat to a US Fleet at GQ and ready.
Well, yeah, but so what? You don’t measure the power of a military force by its ability to bump off civilians (no matter how uncivil they might be).
Sorry, that was meant more as humor. I agree with you and also think a few other nations had the ability to do what that Seal team did.
The original post wasn’t mine.
Yes, but just the same, I’m keeping my eye on China: Admiral: China progressing on anti-carrier missile system | Stars and Stripes
Probably everyone reading this has already done so, but this would be a good place to mention John Birmingham’s Axis of Time series. Basically a bunch of futuristic Navy ships from 2021 accidentally go back in time to WW2, and lots of things happen differently in ways (at least for me) I never would have thought of.
The USN may be bigger and more diverse now than it ever was, but those old timers were really something. “Wooden ships and iron men.” We’d watch *Victory At Sea[/] on our ship’s CCTV, and see the WWII navy doing underway refueling in 20 foot seas with green water over their bow, and say holy shit we couldn’t do that.
The 2,384 figure for U.S. Navy ships is clearly erroneous–from the Wikipedia list Number of warships in service worldwide, the total for warships of all nations is 2,848, of which 341 are U.S.–the U.S. Navy itself reports 283 “Deployable Battle Force Ships” (possibly some of the discrepancy comes from auxiliary vessels, or maybe the Wikipedia article is counting the U.S. Coast Guard as well. Or maybe Wikipedia is just wrong).
The U.S. Navy is definitely the biggest and most powerful navy in the world–for example, it has as many aircraft carriers as everyone else put together (and “everyone else” includes close NATO allies of the U.S.; France, Italy, Spain, and the UK). Not to sound too Freudian about it, but American carriers are also bigger than everyone else’s.