loving this series. I'd never considered the naval security angle before
Q: quick google search says China, Russia, North Korea all have bigger navies (at least quantity of ships) than the US (Colombia close 5th, wtf). You pointed out 1) ability to deploy ships across the ocean and 2) capacity to support at great distance. How do we judge a countries ability to do these?
1) locations of allies and partners. How many ports around the world will let you dock your warships there and replenish? You need them all over the world if you want the capability operate literally anywhere for a long time. Also requires a robust logistical capabilities to get the supplies where you need them to be for the supply ships to grab.
2) Capabilities of their replenishment ships... So the US Navy has a separate service called the Military Sealift Command (MSC) that resupplies their fleet at sea so they don't have to dock themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Sealift_Command
How many ships can your supply ships service at a time before they have to leave and get more goods? 2? 4? 1??
3) Skill of their sailors .. Doing Replenishment At Sea (RAS) is a dangerous endeavor and you need highly skilled sailors you pull it off week after week successfully with no incident.
All in all distance and location of strategic partners, capabilities, individual skill
loving this series. I'd never considered the naval security angle before
Q: quick google search says China, Russia, North Korea all have bigger navies (at least quantity of ships) than the US (Colombia close 5th, wtf). You pointed out 1) ability to deploy ships across the ocean and 2) capacity to support at great distance. How do we judge a countries ability to do these?
Also you have to look at Navy sizes by tonnage not quantity... Countries like China are bolstering their numbers by making low quality paper ships.
Thank you so much for reading!
How I go about determining is:
1) locations of allies and partners. How many ports around the world will let you dock your warships there and replenish? You need them all over the world if you want the capability operate literally anywhere for a long time. Also requires a robust logistical capabilities to get the supplies where you need them to be for the supply ships to grab.
2) Capabilities of their replenishment ships... So the US Navy has a separate service called the Military Sealift Command (MSC) that resupplies their fleet at sea so they don't have to dock themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Sealift_Command
How many ships can your supply ships service at a time before they have to leave and get more goods? 2? 4? 1??
3) Skill of their sailors .. Doing Replenishment At Sea (RAS) is a dangerous endeavor and you need highly skilled sailors you pull it off week after week successfully with no incident.
All in all distance and location of strategic partners, capabilities, individual skill