Re: Thinking out loud. . .

--- hal@buffnet.net wrote:

> yet, find a liason
> officer in public relations and ask him that
> question "What is the tail to
> teeth ratio in the navy?"
>   Other than that, I can't offer you too much more.

Well, let's see. . . 

According to their website, the USN has 386,904
personnel.

53 SSNs @ 134 = 7102
18 SSBN @ 155 = 2790
12 Carriers @ 5597 = 67164
7 LHD @ 1108 = 7756
5 LHA @ 964 = 4820
2 LCC @ 842 = 1684
11 LPD @ 420 = 4620
2 AGF @ 499 = 998
27 CG @ 364 = 9828
36 DDG @ 323 = 11628
19 DD @ 382 = 7258
15 LSD @ 358 = 5370
34 FFG @ 300 = 10200

141,218 in the combatant ships of the USN totals 1.7
support weenies (including crews of logistics ships)
per crewmember of warship.  Where different classes of
ship varied, I used the smallest crew total for them
all.

Now, I did cheat and include the Gator Navy
(Amphibious ships--anything with an L in the title). 
Without those, and their 24,250 crewmen the total
drops to 116,968 and 2.3 support weenies (including
Gator Navy sailors) per fighting crewmember.  

So, 2 per warship crewman is a reasonably estimate.

Now, just under half of those ships are actually at
sea at any given day.  But they exist and could
presumably sortie in an emergency situation.

The thing about the Navy is they take their tail with
them and hence it counts (sort of) as teeth.  In the
USAF anyone not flying an airplane is tail.  In the
USA or USMC anyone not pulling triggers, yanking
lanyards, or otherwise directly killing badguys is
tail.  In the USN, only their infrastructure and
logistics counts as tail, since they take all their
mechanics et al with them into a combat zone.  To make
a meaningful comparison with the Army or Marine
tooth-tail ratios, you'd have to figure out who in/on
those ships actually spends their time operating guns
and missle launchers.

John

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