How Many Cruisers Did the PRC Build in the Time ...

the pattern continues towards decline, deindustrialization, and defeat

It is easy in navalist circles to quickly lose 95% of your target market in the public discussion space by engaging in “angels on the head of a pin” arguments concerning strategy (or lack of one), the latest required fleet ship number extruded this week from OPNAVY Ouija Board, or pontificating on where the Navy stands WRT the latest OSD struggle session.

We will never get traction on a very real crisis - one that, all lame excuses aside, resides firmly in the self-supporting defense bureaucracy festering inside a commute distance of The Pentagon.

Breaking through all that fog of incompetency, rent seeking, and self-promotion is a challenge. One of the best ways to confront spin is the same way to respond to emotion; facts.

Chris Cavas, as he often does, puts that out clearly and to the point;

Eight years.

Back in 2015 I decided we needed a measure of time for things in the Navy, and settled on a measure of time called a WorldWar;

I think "years" does not really tell the best story about how long it takes to get even the most simple ship to displace water after the "go" is given.

Perhaps we need a new measurement - one that provides context. We need one defined in American terms, natch, and I have an idea.

I've used it before; the time from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the signing ceremony on the Mighty Mo.

That is 07DEC41 to 02SEP45. 3-years, 8-months, 26 days. Including the end date, that is 1,366 days.

So, eight years is equivalent to 2,920 days.

One of our last remaining cruisers has been in the yards for modernization for 2.1 WorldWars.

Makes you proud?

Speaking of cruisers, let’s pull the thread on that 8-year benchmark.

In the 8-years, and who knows how many suffering command tours, how many cruisers has the Peoples Liberation Army Navy commissioned?

Their Type-055 “destroyer” is really a cruiser at 12-13,000 tons full load (2-3,000 tons more than a USN Ticonderoga Class cruiser at full load.

How many Type-055 have they commissioned while the Gettysburg sat in the yard consuming retention rates and money?

Eight. That is right … “8” cruisers … from 2020-2023. Two a year.

How many cruisers has the USN commissioned?

Zero. “0.”

Our last cruiser was commissioned in 1994, USS Port Royal (CG-73) and was already decommissioned last September. “Pacing threat” my Aunt Fanny.

“But Sal,” you say, “The Arleigh Burkes are the equivalent of cruisers.”

Well, bullsh1t on that, but I’ll humor you. Fine. How many Arleigh Burke DDG have we commissioned in the last eight years?

Nine. That is right, “9.”

“Nine is one more than eight, Sal. You’re just being a pain in the a55.”

Well, that may be true, but if we are going to move needles like that, let’s look at the 9,300 ton displacement Flight IIA Arleigh Burkes compared to the other destroyer the PLAN is building, the 7,500 ton Type 052D. How many Type 052D did they build?

Nineteen. That' is right, “19.” More than 2 a year.

So, in the time CG-64 was gibbeted in Norfolk the PLAN commissioned 27 Type-055 and Type-052D. The USN commissioned 9 Arleigh Burkes.

That is a formula for decline, deindustrialization, and defeat.

That is what happens to a maritime power who forgets what it means to be a sea power. It is what happens to a ruling class that allows their national defense to be hobbled by a 37-yr old, ossified Goldwater-Nichols structure designed during the Cold War. It is what happens when people who know better chant the sacred words of the Cult of the Joint for personal gain and clout. It is what happens when The Pentagon and Congress allow the accretion hobbled acquisitions system to be served by the defense budget, not to be in service to it. It is what happens when the intellectually immature and morally hazardous system of incentives and disincentives have people cry for more things while refusing to properly steward what they already have.

Behold, as we enter 3QFY23 our Navy continues to debase its legacy … and for what?