Anatomy of a talking point: the smallest Navy sin

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Anatomy of a talking point: the smallest Navy since 1917


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/artic...1917-and-/

In an April 2012 article, Navy Times reported that "Mabus is confident that the future fleet will be effective, and that the 1917 comparison is pointless because today's ships are much more technologically advanced. ‘It's like comparing the telegraph to the smartphone. They're just not comparable,’ he said.

But the claim is not really accurate; more important, it doesn’t tell you much about the Navy’s ability to do its job. PolitiFact has looked at several variations on the claim, and depending on its exact phrasing, we’ve rated it from Half True to Mostly False to Pants on Fire.

The literal accuracy of the claim has changed recently and from year to year. In 1916, the U.S. Navy had 245 active ships. The number peaked at massive 6,768 during World War II. Then the number drifted down during most of the 20th century, with slight upticks during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Today, the number of active ships stands at 273, which is the lowest since 1916.

However, this number bobs up and down a bit during the year as ships are rotated into and out of service. In 2011, there were 285 ships, which was higher than 2006’s 281 ships, making the claim literally wrong at the time.

More worrisome, though, is that the ships of 1917 were most definitely not the ships of today.


The types of ships active in both years, such as cruisers and destroyers, are outfitted today with far more advanced technology than during World War I. More importantly, the U.S. Navy has 11 aircraft carriers (plus the jets to launch from them), 31 amphibious ships, 14 submarines capable of launching nuclear ballistic missiles and four specialized submarines for launching cruise missiles -- all categories of vessels that didn't even exist in 1916. And all are more effective at projecting seapower than their forebears.

Several experts told us that counting the number of ships is simply not a good measurement of defense strength.

The comparison "doesn’t pass ‘the giggle test,’ " William W. Stueck, a historian at the University of Georgia, told us when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said it in 2012.

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