Good series. I like the fact that Birmingham didn’t just portray it as technological difference between the two eras. He recognized that people thought differently in that time.
Wikipedia lists three different figures in three different articles:
United States Navy: “It operates 286 ships in active service and more than 3,700 aircraft.”
Number of warships in service worldwide: “United States Navy … Total: 341”
List of current ships of the United States Navy: “There are about 436 ships listed here (238 USS ships, 198 USNS, MV, SS and other ships) that meet this definition of current ships.”
I got my figures from Global Firepower. I don’t know the site enough to know how credible their information is. But this chart shows 2384 wasn’t just a typo.
It’s probably just a different standard of what they count. Wikipedia says China has a total of 239 ships and France has a total of 72 ships. GFP says China has 972 and France has 289.
(I thought perhaps GFP included Merchant Marine ships in the Naval Total. But that isn’t it. They have Russia listed as having a total of 233 Navy ships and a Merchant Marine Strength of 1097 ships. So obviously Merchant Marine ships aren’t including in the total.)
I’m wondering when the era of robotic warships will come-it seems to me a cheaper way to have a naval force-lots of heavily armed missile platforms, with no human crew-controlled via a floating commqand center.
I’m pretty sure it is a typo. GFP shows the (UK) Royal Navy as having 99 ships, which is the number of commissioned ships plus fleet auxiliary. The US Navy has 290ish commissioned ships and another 50ish in the auxiliary, so it’s counting USN ships it isn’t counting elsewhere.
Carrier in heavy seas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWpQ_0fqJOM&feature=related
Just linking that 'cause it’s always fun to watch.
The cost of that aircraft vs the annual income of the kid whose job it is to gripe it fast to the deck!
Definitely a typo. Even the Reagan-era goal of a 600 ship navy was including auxiliaries, only 357 would be combatants. Breakdown by type is on page 25 here.
I disagree for the simple reason that the modern navy (nukes aside) doesn’t carry enough ammunition to sink all the ships of the WWII navy. But if you include a supply train, then yes.
You might find interesting this GD thread on your topic. I disagree with the War Nerd’s conclusions, and wish that Dolan would get back to writing that character, as I’m not a fan of much of the rest of the Exiled website. Eileen Jones’s reviews are occasionally exceptions.
Just saw this on p. 47 of the April 2012 issue of Naval History magazine:
“In 2005, CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] Admiral Vern Clark made a very important point to the Senate Armed Services Committee: ‘The number of ships in the fleet is important. But it is no longer the only, nor the most meaningful, measure of combat capability… In fact, today’s Navy can deliver more combat power than we could 20 years ago when we had twice as many ships and half again as many people.’”
I’d have to say that one has to measure power in relative terms and in that respect, the US Navy in the immediate postwar years was without peer or credible potential opposition. Today’s navy is indeed powerful, but even its nukes can be countered or have counterparts in other countries. Projection of power by aircraft is as powerful then as now, but the sustainability of the fleet today is not what it was in 1945. This is the era of asymmetrical warfare and the fact that the incredibly powerful US fleet is (by itself) unable to stamp out piracy at sea is a sad testament to how times have changed. You cannot measure power in a vacuum, it has to be considered in the light of the situation.
I think the US only lacks the political capital to stamp out modern piracy. We need a Lusitania event before the government has the mandate to shoot first and ask the salvaged remains later.
Impressive - I would not want to be on the receiving end of any sort of attention from the old Iowa though. http://johnfenzel.typepad.com/john_fenzels_blog/images/uss_iowa_broadside.jpg it is not allowing me to paste in the img clicky and i am stuck in bed with a horrible cold and not dealing with board screwups .. sorry
Even better IMHO - check out the water: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7_Iowa_pic.jpg
It makes for a good sound bite, but I wouldn’t place too much cotton in it. Combat power is a very nebulous term; did the lethality or effectiveness of conventional weapons more than double between 1985 and 2005? By what exact metric did combat power more than double on a per ship basis between those years? Deliverable to where - force projection onto land, ability to fight decisive naval battle against surface ships, ability to control the sea lanes, ASW, or in achieving air superiority?
As a WAG, I would guess almost all that extra firepower comes from Tomahawk cruise missiles. They existed 20 years ago, but the navy refitted (or re-tasked) some Aegis cruisers (which can theoretically carry about 125 each), Arleigh Burke and Spruance destroyers (which carry about half that), and even some former SSBNs to carry shitloads of them. In the surface ships they essentially emptied out most of the anti-aircraft missiles in the VLS systems and replaced them with Tomahawks. In the subs they developed some new tech to house clusters of Tomahawks in the former strategic missile tubes. And the converted subs can hold about 150 each.
These weapons can’t be used against other ships, however. They are for attacking fixed targets on land.
Unfortunately, stamping out piracy is much more than just shooting up ships and pirates: it would involve a physical invasion and occupation of the various territories and ports (some very primitive) that support the idea of piracy as a viable means of getting power and wealth.
The whole point of asymmetrical warfare is that the political cost of victory against the weaker foe is made too high for even the most powerful of nations. No fleet in the world can stamp out piracy without a land army and many years, lives and dollars to nation-build new societies that are not dependent upon that form of activity to support themselves.
Oddly, the US Monitors, esp the twin turrented monitors would have blown anything esle afloat out of the water for a few years. The 110# guns of say the Warrior would have bounced off the armor like hail on a tin rook, whilst the 15" Dalgrens would have punched thru the Warriors armor like it was tissue paper.
Nope.
They did build an anti shipping variant.
Otto Skorzeny.