"New US Navy Fleet Goal: 308 Ships" Topic
16 Posts
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Tango01 | 06 Apr 2015 10:14 p.m. PST |
"The US Navy is now building towards a fleet goal of 308 ships, according to the latest 30-year shipbuilding plan — a small evolution from the previously-cited 306-ship target. The two ships added to the fleet total are a 12th LPD 17-class amphibious transport dock and a third Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB). The addition of the LPD and AFSB to the fleet objectives mean the number of amphibious warfare ships has grown from 33 to 34 ships, along with the same growth in the number of support vessels — 33 to 34 ships. The changes are detailed in the annual 30-year shipbuilding report — formally called the "annual long-range plan for construction of naval vessels" — that was sent to Congress April 2. Prepared by the Navy, the report was signed out to Congress by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work…" Full article here link How many in WW2 over the water? Amicalement Armand |
PHGamer | 07 Apr 2015 7:21 a.m. PST |
In the "Supplement and General Index", Samuel Eliot Morison (Rear Admiral), which is right next to my desk, there is the entire list of ships of the USN during WWII. 308 ships? We had more ships than that in a single category. 24 CV's 9 CVL's, 111 CVE's, 25 BB's, 2 BC's, 31 CA's, and 53 CL's. (total 255 so far.) About 800 DD's, 790 DE's, (not including various conversions for other missions), 98 frigates/corvettes and at least 270 submarines. (sorry, I am not counting them all) 232 minelayers/sweepers, 320 various tenders, oilers, storage ships (The total is just shy of 3,000 here) and not including PT boats, general transport, amphibious landing ships, surveying, seaplane tenders, 2 paddle wheeler aircraft carriers and the ice cream ship. (Call it another thousand.) |
LostPict | 07 Apr 2015 8:52 a.m. PST |
My understanding that between USS, USNS, and Large Craft that we had about 5000 ships built between the mobilization in 1940 and late '45. That is from a starting point similar today's number. If you add up all the pieces of a wartime Navy today (USS, USNS, MARAD, MSC, US Coast Guard, etc.) the number is much higher than the 308 combatants, but still much smaller than the WII numbers. As a Navy officer whose job it is to build ships, it is a staggering number. |
PHGamer | 07 Apr 2015 9:44 a.m. PST |
I didn't count all the ships listed in the book. In addition to above there were listed some 100 Coast Guard Cutters, some 200 "Unclassified" vessels, tug boats, rescue boats. So that 5,000 number is not out of range. |
Tango01 | 07 Apr 2015 10:20 a.m. PST |
So, actually there are less than 10%. Thanks for the data boys. Amicalement Armand |
PHGamer | 07 Apr 2015 10:56 a.m. PST |
Manpower is similarly shrunk. in 1945, there was over 3.4 million men in the Navy, and just over 350,000 today. Considering the US Navy budget is about 160 billion today, it would cost …only… 1.6 trillion to maintain the WWII force of 4-5 thousand ships (that doesn't get them built, just maintained, with some building) So lets not pine away at the good old days. I don't think anyone wants to spend that kind of money and allocate that kind of manpower today. But the truth is, if we had to, we could. We won't like it, but it is possible. During WWII, by 1943, some 70% of the US economy was dedicated to the war effort. In today's terms, that is about 10.5 trillion dollars. |
Weasel | 07 Apr 2015 11:16 a.m. PST |
We can have all the boats we're willing to pay for. Turns out that number is about 308 |
Only Warlock | 07 Apr 2015 1:23 p.m. PST |
Until people start expecting us to actually protect them. Then we will need more. |
David in Coffs | 07 Apr 2015 4:29 p.m. PST |
Then there is the argument of quantity vs quality. Which we could game out – which set of rules covers naval experience, training, maintenance and morale with the technical differences? |
Lion in the Stars | 07 Apr 2015 7:27 p.m. PST |
Which we could game out – which set of rules covers naval experience, training, maintenance and morale with the technical differences? Only one I'm vaguely familiar with, it was computer-moderated and available back in the mid-late 1990s. It was also WW2 specific, IIRC. It seems most modern naval games totally ignore training/experience in favor of easy-to-specify rivet detail. |
David in Coffs | 07 Apr 2015 8:47 p.m. PST |
You can retrofit the factors by a die mod, not my favourite as it can distort the game mechanics significantly – eg a +/-1 when a 1 is needed is a 0 to 100% difference, I like the idea of an activation roll that is degraded by damage/stress as a mechanism. Thoughts/comments? |
Lion in the Stars | 08 Apr 2015 10:26 a.m. PST |
Speaking as a former Sailor, I'd say that the most obvious place you'd see a difference in crew training/morale is in damage control. On subs, a good crew could also reload torpedoes faster (~9min for excellent crew, ~12min average, ~15min or more for poor), but that's a particularly limited example. While a better chance to activate works well for ground combat, I'm not sure I like that for naval. |
PHGamer | 09 Apr 2015 9:36 a.m. PST |
That is one of the main reasons the Argentinians lost the Belgrano. We were in their fleet base in Buenos Aires about 6 months prior to the Falklands war. Our ship sent an investigative team over to her and came back remarking that a single hit would send her to the bottom as they no longer had the rubber gaskets on their water tight doors. Poor training, poor maintenance. |
David in Coffs | 10 Apr 2015 5:14 a.m. PST |
Damage control is definately effected by training and also by maintence as noted above. It can be modelled as a +/- modifier as it is reasonably quantifiable and would work with most rules if not already there. However activation rolls would be another way of modelling the " focus" of the ships company. I've seen some rules where in a turn your ship can be simultaneously conducting Air Defence, surface action, ASW, helicopter operation and damage control. All of that stretches the bounds of belief. An activation system that is degraded by how much you are intending to do, by stress/morale/damage could be added to many existing rules to capture those uncertainties. |
Lion in the Stars | 10 Apr 2015 5:38 p.m. PST |
However activation rolls would be another way of modelling the " focus" of the ships company. I've seen some rules where in a turn your ship can be simultaneously conducting Air Defence, surface action, ASW, helicopter operation and damage control. All of that stretches the bounds of belief. An activation system that is degraded by how much you are intending to do, by stress/morale/damage could be added to many existing rules to capture those uncertainties. While a sub is pretty much a two-event ship (drive and do one other thing: shoot, put out fires, stop flooding, etc), the reason US surface ships have such a large crew is to allow them to fight, keep moving, and patch holes all at the same time. An Ohio-class SSBN is 560 feet long, displaces 19,000 tons submerged, and has a crew of about 180. A Burke-class DDG is also about 500 feet long, only displaces ~9000 tons, and has a crew of ~300. Some of the additional crew come from the radar techs, some from the gun techs, and most of the rest from dedicated Damage Controlmen. |
David in Coffs | 12 Apr 2015 1:50 a.m. PST |
An advantage of an activation system is even with a negative modifier for subsequent activation attempts in the same "phase" is that the more you try to do the more likely you are to fail. If a failure is a phase hand-over the aim of your asset manage would be not to overreach your fleet capacities by trying to do everything that the ship is capable of, but doing the important things first and then the less important until handover. The aim being to simulate limited C3I, stress, training, maintenance, preparedness, damage and morale with a game mechanic. I'd be happy to hear if a game system that models in an enjoyable gaming evening. |
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