RE: And the warmongers waste no time
August 4, 2011 at 6:33 pm
(This post was last modified: August 4, 2011 at 6:40 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(August 3, 2011 at 11:24 pm)Anymouse Wrote:
I would mention a recent Navy Times article that points out the US Navy has more combat vessels than the next thirteen navies in the world combined. Navies are expensive to maintain and build. There is also a military saying that goes "The world's most expensive hobby is having the world's second best Navy."
That said, a naval force in a general war is not the same as an army. For the most part, in a war, you can induct millions of soldiers if necessary, but generally you only have the ships you started the war with. Because of the length of time it takes to make combat vessels, few replacements will come on line for any ships damaged or sunk during a war (note WWII - neither the US Navy nor the Imperial Japanese Navy significantly added replacements to the number of combat vessels after combat started - ignoring the Japanese sinking of the USS Panay which occured four years before the USA entered WWII, in 1937 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e...y_incident
At the time the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyed the USS Panay (PR-5), the US Government was keen on not entering WW2 against Imperial Japan. Our navy was not ready for such combat. Japan had a proven-in-combat aircraft carrier fleet. Note in 1937, the Japanese destroyed the Panay using aircraft. (The Wikipedia article above includes a link to a newsreel made during the attack, showing the Japanese attack on the ship.)
We already knew of the destructive power of naval aircraft, but it takes a long time to build an aircraft carrier. At the start of WW2, we only had three fleet carriers, versus the six Japanese carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor.
I served aboard the USS Saratoga (CV-60) from 1994 to 1995, which had been laid down before the start of WW2 hostilities for the USA, but only commissioned in the final months of WW2. It was decommissioned in 1994. Once built, we don't really want to throw them away, either, because of the expense and time of building them. - James.
USS Saratoga (CV-60) was ordered on 23 July, 1952, laid down on 16 Dec 1952, and commissioned on 14 April, 1956.
At the time of Pearl Harbor attack, the US had CV-1 through CV-8 in commission. That's 8 carriers by my count.
Let's hope when you draw lessons from history, it's from history that actually happened, and not from what sounded good.
