Post by SolomonWPost by SolomonWI was reading this article
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/11/14/when-britain-really-ruled-the-waves/
as was wondering whether these ctiticism is justified
"The British Royal Navy now has more admirals (33) than warships (29, ...As
of last year, there were 260 captains. 'Stick close to your desk, and never
go to sea,” Gilbert & Sullivan wrote, which might not be satirical career
advice anymore"
The modern militaries are top heavy partly due to ideas about
expansion options, partly to politics (he navy is now small enough
the highest rank will be Commodore is not a likely announcement),
and partly to overheads. That is the bases, the main staffs, the
auxiliary units and so on. Then there is the modern reality of the
increase in support versus actual combat units.
Post by SolomonWPost by SolomonWWhat would be WW2 figures for navies?
Since no-one decided to help me out, I decided to do some research as an
approx figure according to the Wikipedia during ww2
Short of someone having a wartime navy list the information is not
all that accessible. What sort of accuracy is required?
Post by SolomonWhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Royal_Navy_admirals_of_World_War_II
Possibly some are not mentioned but listed here are approx 102 RN admirals.
I know many of these were not active throughout the war but let us leave
that out for the approx figure.
According to this website during ww2
http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignRoyalNavy.htm
The British had in 1945, 885 ships in service.
With means very approx there was one admiral for nine ships.
My count as of end September 1945, counting ships in reserve or laid
up is 14 battleships, 7 carriers, 8 light carriers, 39 escort carriers, 60
cruisers, 151 modern and 6 old destroyers, 61 destroyer escorts,
144 submarines, 549 anti submarine escorts, total 1,119.
This ignores the landing craft, the motor torpedo boats, the fleet air
arm, the fleet auxiliaries (fleet train), the bases and dockyards.
Post by SolomonWThe US navy according to the wikipedia here had approx 162 admirals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_Navy_World_War_II_admirals
According to the wikipedia, the US navy had
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_in_World_War_II
At its peak, the U.S. Navy was operating 6,768 ships on V-J Day in August
1945, including 28 aircraft carriers, 23 battleships, 71 escort carriers,
72 cruisers, over 232 submarines, 377 destroyers, and thousands of
amphibious, supply and auxiliary ships.[9]
Since to get a fair comparsion making it like for like which means dropping
many of these ships we get.
Capital ships..23, Carriers....28, Cruisers....72, Destroyers...377,
Submarines...232
About 732 ships, which gives us about 1 admiral per 4.5 ships.
Again, these figures are very approximate.
Agreed but the extensive air and support systems behind the fleets needs
to be taken into account.
My totals, again counting ships in reserve or laid up, effectively matches
the
Wiki count (I have the totals as of 31 August so they are slightly different
for
the cruisers and destroyers), there were also 34 flush decker destroyers and
361 destroyer escorts. The Alaska class are being counted by Wiki as
cruisers, the Independence class as fleet carriers.
Some 16 flush decker destroyers had been "retired" in July and August 1945
while 27 older submarines had been "retired" October 1944 to August 1945.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.