The Navy is both under-manned and its hulls under-maintained, with close to 70 percent of ships unable to get through maintenance availabilities on time, [head of the Senate Armed Service Committee Senator Jim] Inhofe said, noting there’s $1.8 billion in outstanding maintenance needs still unfunded. “Overall,” the senator added, “it seems to me that the Navy is having trouble maintaining today’s fleet of 291 ships, and the challenges will only grow as the fleet surpasses 300 ships in 2020 and 310 ships in 2022, on the way to 355 ships in the 2030s.” ...
Inhofe noted that “there are problems with the Ford beyond the elevators, and those problems have to do with the arresting gear, catapult and the radar.” He asked Gilday to provide the committee with regular updates on the carrier’s progress.
In 1991 the Soviet navy dropped off the radar as a threat and the Chinese navy was not even close to being a threat.
And in 2001 America began more than a decade of major land combat operations with the Navy in a supporting role only with no threats to command of the sea threatening that support.
Now the Russians and Chinese are increasingly hostile.
Luckily the Russian navy is essentially up on cinder blocks in the driveway rusting away. And China's rapidly built navy is no doubt short of experienced crews and commanders manning their shiny new ships.
But those shortcomings of foes are just a reason not to panic in the short run. In an era of great power competition, the Navy doesn't seem ready to compete with a great power's navy.
