"Is The U.S. Navy Really Too Small?" Topic

"For decades, the United States has had the world's largest and most advanced naval fleet, positioning ships and aircraft carriers in strategic locations across the globe to protect national interests and facilitate free trade.

But as rival nations, such as China and Russia, expand their own naval capabilities, and with China's increasingly aggressive posture in the South China Sea, GOP presidential candidates are warning voters that America's dominance of the world's oceans could end unless lawmakers add significantly more ships to its arsenal to bring the fleet size closer to historic levels.

Former military officials and defense experts, however, say that weighing the current size of the Navy against past ship levels is a misleading comparison that misses the broader point: making sure the Navy is capable of achieving U.S. strategic goals, which depend as much on technological capability and force deployment as the raw number of ships. While many analysts think the Navy needs to grow, others think it's large enough -- given its global dominance -- and that funding realities mean there's a limit to how much it could expand in any case…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

If ever WW3 starts, that's when you'll know the US Navy was too small…

If ever WW3 starts, it may be the USN size would be immaterial.
Depending on alliances it may not be seriously challenged.
Or if the nukes fly – it will probably exist for a bit longer than most of the rest of the world population.

Actually its not small enough…

GOP presidential candidates are warning voters that America's dominance of the world's oceans could end unless lawmakers add significantly more ships to its arsenal to bring the fleet size closer to historic levels.

Well, of course they'd say that. Gotta toss some red meat to the base.

If ever WW3 starts, that's when you'll know the US Navy was too small…

Amen …

If ever WW3 starts, it may be the USN size would be immaterial.
Depending on alliances it may not be seriously challenged.
Or if the nukes fly – it will probably exist for a bit longer than most of the rest of the world population.

Many US allies have smaller militaries. With the ever increasing cost of having an effective 21st Century combat force. Tech costs … lots ! Of course if in comes to nucs being used … all bets are off. If the initial blast, etc. does not kill you … the fallout, etc., will … Very few places would be "safe" …

If ever WW3 starts, that's when you'll know the US Navy was too small…

Amen …

If ever WW3 starts, it may be the USN size would be immaterial.
Depending on alliances it may not be seriously challenged.
Or if the nukes fly – it will probably exist for a bit longer than most of the rest of the world population.

Many US allies have smaller militaries. With the ever increasing cost of having an effective 21st Century combat force. Tech costs … lots ! Of course if in comes to nucs being used … all bets are off. If the initial blast, etc. does not kill you … the fallout, etc., will … Very few places would be "safe" …

The US spends more money on its military than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of those are allies.

If it's too small, then they're doing wrong. Seriously, ship design needs to be reviewed.

The US spends more money on its military than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of those are allies.

The US is largest force in NATO with Turkey coming in #2 … Just saying …

What are you going to give up to make it bigger?

I agree we need more carriers. Cut most of the European bases and the civilians we have to hire and use the money for more carriers.

Then look at all the programs we are doing in the military and scale back on some of them. If drones is the future then paying $100 USD million per F-35 is retarded. All we are doing is help some general in the Air Force with his new job after retirement.

"What are you going to give up to make it bigger?".

Foreign aid to countries and people that hate us, and are actively working against us.

kyote has an excellent point.

Stop being the world's policeman unless people want to help fund the force, and compensate us for our time, trouble, and casualties.

Fire a bunch of generals, and give others significant pay cuts.

Gut the Federal bureaucracy – 10% cuts for most agencies, across the board, for the next ten years.

Slash/eliminate over-funded pensions for Presidents, VPs, the House and the Senate. They are all multi-millionaires anyway, so why add further to their wealth? Also, let them pay for their own security details, after they're out of office – they can afford it.

Our founding fathers meant government to be run by normal citizens, who would serve for one, or a few terms, for the benefit of the country, and not become overpaid, life-time serving, elitists.

Carriers are an outmoded platform to fight a war from. They are a singular big floating target with a lot of resources and assets invested into them, the loss of which would be devestating to this nations morale, economy, and warfighting capability (for that reason, its likely that if we ever lose even a single carrier, we'd probably move away from them and rework our entire military doctrine). The only reason they've survived this long is because they are a symbol of our might and because we haven't lost one since WW2, which has given us a false sense of security as to how survivable they are.

And really, the writing is on the wall, across all service branches everything is moving towards redundancy and 'asset distribution', the only thing that hasn't been moving that direction is the resource sink that is a Supercarrier.

Also, military spending and military size/capability do not necessarily go hand in hand. That all has to do with purchasing power, and when it comes to military hardware, the US has less purchasing power than other countries do. I mean, sure, US tech is theoretically better built and more reliable, and has a technological edge to some extent, but there is a quantity tradeoff when compared to say China or Russia, who may be building something only 75% as good as what we're pumping out, but are buying 2x more of it.

Foreign aid to countries and people that hate us, and are actively working against us.

That would be my first move regardless …

Is the USN too small?

Yes. The USN can only respond to 3 or 4 hot-spots around the world at one time, max, and usually there are two carriers at any given hot spot.

Also, there are about half the number of submarines that the fighting commands have missions requiring submarines to do. Back in the late 1990s, the fighting commands said that had missions for at least 75 fast-attack subs, and that since the end of the Cold War the number of missions had increased by at least 33%. That makes the current 56-sub fleet half the size it needs to be. We need about 100 fast-attack subs to have 33 fast-attacks at sea.

Hell, on December 7, 1941, the USN consisted of 900 warships. We are currently just short of 300 warships. The USN needs to be about 450-500 ships to meet all the demands the current POTUS is making of it.

How to afford such a massive ramp-up? There's a sarcastic joke that the Newport News Naval Shipyard is nothing but a jobs program that spits out an Aircraft carrier every 10 years. Get more people employed, more people pay taxes. Also, employing more people at shipyards (wherever those shipyards are) means the local economies get large boosts, which means more people get hired at businesses that serve the shipyard employees.

The US Navy could do more with less. Instead of building this:

or building this:

for $700 USD million per hull, We should be building something like:

or

or

for the $220 USD million per hull that the LCS's were originally supposed to cost. 3 time the number of hulls is three times more places you can be at the same time. And oh yeah, those other 3 vessels we could be building actually do what they are supposed to---Sail in harm's way and put ordnance on target.

The US military budget is large because we pay our service members a lot of money. An American private probably gets paid more than a Chinese general. The US defense budget includes things like breast cancer research and other non-defense related items.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

In its heyday, the Royal Navy was supposed to be big enough to fight the next two largest navies on the planet at the same time. How does the USN stand in relation to this criterion?

An American private probably gets paid more than a Chinese general.

I was curious about this so I hit up Google. Bottom line: yeah, you're probably right. Which is shocking. ( link )

I'd agree that the Navy is too small….if policing the entire planet is your goal. I don't think it should be, though. Also agree that we could free up significant funding if we:

-cut overseas Army and Air Force bases
-cut most of the USAF's fighter assets
-cut the bulk of the Army's heavy brigades (move them to the National Guard)

The US's force posture should be fundamentally expeditionary and sea-based in nature. The US Navy and USMC should do the bulk of our heavy lifting. Instead, we still retain enough ground and air hardware to fight a land war across Eurasia.

Build the (US-made!) Sa'ar 5 class to replace LCS.

The US Navy could do more with less. Instead of building this:

I like that concept …

An American private probably gets paid more than a Chinese general.

You have to keep the military pay a bit competitive with the public sector. It's generally hard enough to get people to join the military regardless. And a draft is not a workable solution in 21st Century. As a former commander, I'd rather lead volunteers than draftees who don't want to be there. This is not WWII, etc. …

-cut overseas Army and Air Force bases
-cut most of the USAF's fighter assets
-cut the bulk of the Army's heavy brigades (move them to the National Guard)

No – we need some forward deployed assets to get there more quickly. And act as a deterent, etc. … Militant islam and Putin are 2 very good reasons. Army Heavy Bdes – most need to be kept with the regular Army. You don't train a large effective combat ready force with one weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer. Again, my solution and it appears others is cut Foreign aid to countries and people that hate us, and are actively working against us.

It's my understanding that the LCS2 class is actually a pretty usable hull. Has a big helo deck and hangar, has enough space under the flight deck to haul a full mechanized company (Strykers or even Bradleys), and doesn't need well-developed ports to offload them.

The problem it has is the LCS weapons package. Need to see if the Independence-class hulls can survive mounting the 5"/62 gun and some Mk57 VLS cells forward of that.

The Freedom-class LCS are trash.

Why not just make upgraded versions of these? They were great little ships:

link

Update the electronics, give it more than an single screw, toss on VLS, a laser or two, and upgun to 5" and you would have a splendid tin can. They would be flexible, affordable, and proven platforms.

No – we need some forward deployed assets to get there more quickly. And act as a deterent, etc. … Militant islam and Putin are 2 very good reasons.

Again, my solution and it appears others is cut Foreign aid to countries and people that hate us, and are actively working against us.

Use Amphibious Ready Groups and MEUs for rapid response. Right now we have 3, I would double it to 6. I don't think *anything* deters radical Muslims and Putin is crafty enough to have a Plan B and Plan C full of "plausible deniability", such as his annexation of Crimea and volunteers in Ukraine, to neutralize deterrents by removing the justifications for employing them.

Army Heavy Bdes – most need to be kept with the regular Army. You don't train a large effective combat ready force with one weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer.

1. We need to move away from having a large heavy offensive Army…it clearly gives our politicians too much incentive to try their hand at "regime change".

2. The Big Army contributed 3 heavy brigades to the push up-country in OIF1. Using the "1/3rd" rule for readiness/availability we could maintain 9 heavy brigades and still invade medium-sized countries without activation of National Guard units. Apparently we are currently down to 10 brigades, so that's close enough for me. And we should definitely be able to maintain our mechanized offensive skillset with 10 Active Duty heavy brigades. Last time I checked previously we had 15 (1st/3rd/4th Infantry Divisions, 1st Cav, 1st Armored, all 3 brigades each). Actually, I'm not really sure what scenario would require us to deploy more than 3 divisions of heavy armor (necessitating an ARNG mobilization) short of Russia/China…so the NG might not need them at all.

. We need to move away from having a large heavy offensive Army…it clearly gives our politicians too much incentive to try their hand at "regime change".

That is not a good reason, IMO to reduce combat units and their effectiveness.

The Big Army contributed 3 heavy brigades to the push up-country in OIF1. Using the "1/3rd" rule for readiness/availability we could maintain 9 heavy brigades and still invade medium-sized countries without activation of National Guard units. Apparently we are currently down to 10 brigades, so that's close enough for me. And we should definitely be able to maintain our mechanized offensive skillset with 10 Active Duty heavy brigades. Last time I checked previously we had 15 (1st/3rd/4th Infantry Divisions, 1st Cav, 1st Armored, all 3 brigades each). Actually, I'm not really sure what scenario would require us to deploy more than 3 divisions of heavy armor (necessitating an ARNG mobilization) short of Russia/China…so the NG might not need them at all.

Better to have too many AFVs than too few, IMO. And 15 Bdes are better than 10. Of course, I may be biased. As I served in 4 Infantry Bns and 3 of those were Mech. And frankly I'd rather not deploy any NG/Res units. Unless it is really unavoidable. Not to allude to anything negative about these units. Many performed very well. But again, 2 days and month and 2 weeks in the summer is not really a lot of training. But yes, many support assets are in the Res. Overall I look not just at Heavy Bdes. But the total package of US ARMY Light units like the 82d, 101, 173d, 75th RANGER, the 3 Stryker Bdes .., did I miss any ? The Alaskan Defense units ? We trained and developed the Light/Heavy unit integration concept at the NTC and elsewhere. So I tend to look at from a different angle, I guess. Plus add to that all the USMC units. It may sound like a lot of forces. But again, it's better to have more combat ready units that too few, IMO … And give less money to "questionable allies", etc. …

Have to say that I find this question bizarre.

If every other navy in the world got together to fight the US navy, the US would probably win. However, this is not a fair scenario as the many of the other navies in the world with any sort of decent combat capability are allies of the US so would line up to fight alongside the US navy not against it.

Us amphibious assault ships have as much combat power as other counties aircraft carriers……

What conceivable scenario is there in the next say 3 decades that the US navy is not powerful enough to deal with? An outbreak of open warfare against the US air force? Alien invasion?

It might be possible that technological change will (or possibly already has) render aircraft carriers obsolete I suppose. But am guessing that technology wise the US will continue to be in the forefront of any advance.

@Tgunner: making the FFG-7 hull twin screws alone would be about as complex as designing the Indy-class LCS. Bump the Indy-class up to 76mm and some ESSMs. Oh, I guess you'd need some VLS units for ASROCs, too.

All good points Durrati …

Use Amphibious Ready Groups and MEUs for rapid response. Right now we have 3, I would double it to 6.

Which requires doubling the number of "gator freighters" to 22.

People seem to be missing the point that for every ship deployed, there are at least two more of the same class either in shipyard for overhaul or getting ready to deploy.

'An American private probably gets paid more than a Chinese general.'

That's just the base salary you are looking at. Once you factor in the OTE from bribes, selling officer commissions, and commercially developing the odd bit of PLA-owned land, the Chinese General's compensation starts to look a lot better.

It is not as easy as just building more ships, high ticket items, in terms of money to build and maintenance.

That's just the base salary you are looking at. Once you factor in the OTE from bribes, selling officer commissions, and commercially developing the odd bit of PLA-owned land, the Chinese General's compensation starts to look a lot better.

Plus Generals get more chicks.

If you want a larger navy you'll first need to get China's permission to build it.

China controls 90% of the global market for rare earth elements. They also fund our military budget since we're unwilling to tax ourselves to pay for it.

Here's an interesting document on vulnerabilities of our national security supply chain written by an American Brigadier General:

PDF link

Building a larger navy is more complicated than the process used in "Axis & Allies". Imagine playing that game as the Americans and having to ask Germany to both finance your production and provide components needed to buy your playing pieces. That's the situation we're in.

There are pernicious aspects of globalization. But maybe one upside to a more interconnected world is that our dependencies make war more expensive. If your enemy is your biggest trading partner and going to war crashes your own economy maybe there's less of an incentive to consider war. And maybe we can then redirect those resources to more productive uses.

China owned about 7% of outstanding US debt, but have been reducing their holdings (lately) to prop up their stock market and currency…

Net impact on the US? Interest rates, on Fed debt are basically unchanged. So, no, we don't need China's approval.

Indeed … that little "Chinese Surprise" cost me [ and many others !] a bit of from my mutual funds … I'll never eat egg rolls again …

Indeed … that little "Chinese Surprise" cost me [ and many others !] a bit of money from my mutual funds … I'll never eat egg rolls again …

The past 8 years has been a big black eye for fresh water economics. You and your fund manager would have been better off using freshman econ textbooks written between 1950 and and 1970 than freshwater econ textbooks from the past 40 years, since they can model zero-interest rate policies with little difficulty.

As for China, it also boils down to the proposition of owe the bank a million dollars, the banks owns you, but if you owe the bank billions, you owe the bank. The reasoning behind that is that if China were to sudenly call in all of their US debt at the same time, it would crash the value of the USD, and essentially kill the value of the debt on it's books. The "pistol" China has pointed to the US's head isn't loaded, and it shoots water rather than FMJs.

No admiral is ever going to say he needs less ships, but someone's gotta pay for it.

"As for China, it also boils down to the proposition of owe the bank a million dollars, the banks owns you, but if you owe the bank billions, you own the bank. The reasoning behind that is that if China were to suddenly call in all of their US debt at the same time, it would crash the value of the USD, and essentially kill the value of the debt on it's books. The "pistol" China has pointed to the US's head isn't loaded, and it shoots water rather than FMJs."

In blunt terms, its a suicide pact. And the Chinese (who are currently hurting bad) know it all too well. And the impact on China may well be worse than that on the US.

But maybe one upside to a more interconnected world is that our dependencies make war more expensive. If your enemy is your biggest trading partner and going to war crashes your own economy maybe there's less of an incentive to consider war. And maybe we can then redirect those resources to more productive uses.

That line was said, practically verbatim, in 1913.

That line was said, practically verbatim, in 1913.

Yup.

But it's not 1913.

And international finance and business work very differently from 1913 directly as a result of WWI and WWII.

Not saying there couldn't be another world war or war between major powers. In fact one could argue that competition over strategic resources in Africa could lead to such a war. And China is indeed going through a painful process of trying to make its economy more consumer-driven (by the Chinese themselves) rather than being so dependent on exports for crazy growth rates.

Economists expect China's economy to surpass the US around 2026. As we reach 2050 or so, if they stay on that course, then I would rate the probability of conflict much higher.

Things change and the Chinese are taking the long view when it comes to the US being an adversary. For now, as I note above, we're too codependent and they're too weak militarily to compete. In the future that will not be the case.

The most dangerous time will be the transitional period when China reaches parity with the US in economic and then military power. Either side could then miscalculate the chances for success in a "limited" war. That's probably 20 to 30 years out.

Well lets get back to the original questions, China's need oil…the oil is shipped on tankers that go from the Middle East to China…on the ocean that the US Navy patrols…so as long as the US Navy has a few Subs to sink China's oil tankers then the US Navy is not too small.

Some argue that was the reason for Japan's war with the US and Britain.

And it's why China won't risk war with the U.S. for now but will become more assertive over time. I believe that they've learned the lessons of history for now and are being patient.

They are currently extremely active in Africa and central Asia (the 'stans) trying to lock in access to natural resources. Simultaneously their island-building program is designed to build unsinkable aircraft carriers to control a crucial sea lane.

And they're transforming their economy to be more robust internally.

They're patiently preparing for long term competition. It may or may not result in war. In fact, they're trying to develop a foundation strong enough to make it seem futile for other great powers to go to war with them, a sort of Pax-China.

The past 8 years has been a big black eye for fresh water economics. You and your fund manager would have been better off using freshman econ textbooks written between 1950 and and 1970 than freshwater econ textbooks from the past 40 years, since they can model zero-interest rate policies with little difficulty.

Yes, my Business degrees were from '75-'79. I was very lucky to have been so "lucky" … up until Jan. 2016.