Submarine Quote of the Month (August 2016)

Background 

“It’s very clear (the Defense Department) as a whole has excess capacity, you need something to shrink that,” said Mabus in an interview with the Connecticut Mirror. “I’m sure we’d have something (on the base-closure list), but I don’t know what that would be.”

He said all Navy facilities, including sub bases like the one in New London, would be scrutinized in a new BRAC round, but he indicated the impact on the Navy and Marine Corps would be less severe than on the Army or Air Force.

Submarine Quote of the Month

Washington —

“The last BRAC round was in 2004, and the first several years I was here, I was still writing checks for that,” Mabus said. “If you are going to do something like this, you have to be more the ‘C’ than just the ‘R.’  If you just realign, it’s going to take a long time to save money…you actually have to close things.”  - Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, "Outgoing Navy secretary still urging a base-closing round",  Connecticut Mirror,  August 9, 2016.

Braggadocio [exaggerated talk of someone trying to sound very proud]

Mabus set a Navy goal of 308 battle force ships, consisting of aircraft carriers, submarines, surface combatants, amphibious, combat logistics, and support ships. That plan includes an increase of 10 Virginia-class attack submarines built by Electric Boat. The fleet today numbers 273 ships and subs.

“When I got here the fleet was declining, declining precipitously,” said Mabus, who took the reins of the Navy in 2009.  [implying the U.S. Navy is declining no longer]

Questions of the Week

1 - When did the U.S. Navy's fleet last have 273 ships?  1930 (eleven years before WW2)
2 - When did the U.S. Navy's fleet last have 308 ships?  1931 (ten years before WW2).
3 - Did Secretary Mabus brag in hopes of a future Democrat Navy Secretary naming a naval combatant the USS Ray Mabus?

Submarines are always silent and strange.