DoN Shipbuilding Funny Stuff

Bob? Undersecretary of the Navy Bob Work - is that you on page 9?

As just one of many examples, swift, fast sailing frigates were once the eyes of the fleet. In the future, the eyes of the Navy will be its Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force (MPRF).

With its combination of Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned aerial systems and manned P-8A Poseidon Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft, the MPRF will provide US naval commanders with an unparalleled level of maritime domain awareness. As a result, counting the number of ships in the Navy's battle force no longer gives one a full appreciation for the broad, cross-domain capabilities, capacities, and enablers found in the combined Navy-Marine Corps Team.

Man, Bob does not like frigates. The paragraph above is just full of holes; where do I start? First of all, we don't have 18th & 19th Century frigates. That is the definition he uses above. In the 20th & 21th Century; the US Navy on its actual website defines a frigate as;

Frigates fulfill a Protection of Shipping (POS) mission as Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) combatants for amphibious expeditionary forces, underway replenishment groups and merchant convoys.

I'm sorry Bob, but - fail one. Bob is a good, smart, hard working and dedicated public servant - but his almost palatable blinkered dislike of frigates is a foundation weakness of many of his arguments. Good man; just wrong.

Next fail; how they define BAMS and the P-8A. Fail two is a classic case of hyperbole. The P-8A is simply an evolutionary development. Higher altitude, better reliability, and quicker speed - but only marginally more mission capable than the latest spiral of the P-3C. BAMS is just a maritime Global Hawk. Both do roughly the same mission that maritime patrol aviation has done since WWI. Better evolutionary - but nothing "unparalleled" about it. Also, ask anyone who has worked with theml though useful and important - an aircraft cannot substitute for the long-dwell presence of a warship. Full stop.

Here is the next funny thing. The Terrible 20s in pictures.
Those SSBN numbers will shrink - as will the rest of the graph.

Wait ... something else ... who chopped this thing? Look at the overlap on the y-axis? Classic noob xls graph error. I know that is petty ... but once an N1 .....
DoN 2013 Long Range Shipbuilding Plan Report to Congress