This is the USNS Mercy (T-AH 19)
What do these two ships have in common? These ships are in classes of ship that are now battle force ships according to the Navy's new approximately 300 ship plan. These ship types were never considered battle force ships under the 313-ship plan.Why are they now battle force ships? Because there were 283 battle force ships when the Obama administration took office. There are 282 ships today. When you subtract 13 PCs and 2 hospital ships from the Navy's new plan, the new Obama administrations plan came out to only a 285 ship fleet, and anything short of 300 was politically unacceptable. In other words, they made shit up. Welcome to the shell game.
The Obama administration has moved BMD to the Navy, but added no ships with that policy change. Now the Obama administration is claiming a pivot to Asia with a maritime focus, and yet the Navy is losing ships and has to fudge finger add in 200 ton PCs and call them battle force ships to hit the political goal of 300 ships. I've said it before, I'll say it again...
The worst kept secret in the DoD: there is no plan.
P.S. If you want to know where the split is between SECNAV and OPNAV, you are looking at it. If the Navy is ready to start counting PCs as battle force ships, does that mean the Navy is ready to build an influence squadron? Yeah right.
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