(08-02-2020, 11:46 AM)jagibelieve Wrote:

(08-02-2020, 10:44 AM)mikesez Wrote: Fine.
How many of each type to we need to have? How many do our enemies have?

Figure it out.  At any point in time a Navy ship (as well as aircraft) is in one of three basic phases.  Pre-deployment where testing, evaluation and training takes place.  Deployment (including moving to/from the patrol area).  Post-deployment when maintenance and time consuming repairs commonly take place.

Now keep in mind a couple of things.

1.  A ship stays "on station" until it is relieved.  In other words, a ship patrolling say the Mediterranean will stay there until the ship(s) relieving it arrives and they do turnover, so at any time there might be two ships on the deployment cycle assigned to the same area.

2.  There is also a break in the "normal cycle" of operations for major work such as an overhaul or refueling.

I know all of that. a ship is only available for battle operations maybe a third of the time, at least during a peace time cycle.
Why do you assume we need to have a battle ready ship 24/7, in every potential hot spot?
Would a one or two month delay in response to something going on near Muscat or Singapore really be catastrophic in a naval context?
None of our potential adversaries make this assumption.

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And please pay attention to what I said about ICBM armed submarines.
If the range of the ICBM is 2/3 of the circumference of the Earth, how many submarines do you need deployed to complete the triad and have mutual assured destruction of every point of the globe? (The answer is two)
if those submarines need to be cycled in and out such that you need three submarines for every one that's battle ready at any given time, how many do you need? (The answer is two times three, six.)
And how many of these did we actually build?

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