But take a look at the types of ships on the list. Yes, there are cruisers and destroyers, but also:
Gunboats
Steel Gunboats
Torpedo Boats
Monitors (that’s kind of a small warship)
President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney debate defense spending and the size of the military at the second presidential debate on Monday.
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These types of boats aren’t on the list anymore. Instead, the current list of Navy ships includes behemoths such as aircraft carriers, “SSBN” (nuclear-powered, ballistic-missile carrying submarines) and “SSGN” (cruise-missile submarines).
In other words, this is an apples-and-oranges comparison. Romney’s line reminds us of a similar strained comparison he made last year regarding the workforce needs to make ships during World War II and today. But in this case he goes even deeper back into history. After all, 1916 is not only before computers, it is before television — even before regular radio broadcasts.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, notes that it is difficult to make comparisons between ships that are even much more recent. “Today’s aircraft carrier has about 10 times the lethality of an aircraft carrier of 20 years ago, due to the advent of precision munitions — in the old days, it was sorties per target, now it is targets per sortie,” he said.
The current level of ships, 285 in fiscal 2011, is actually not even the lowest since 1916. The historical list shows that the lowest ship force was reached during the Bush administration, when the number of ships fell to 278 in 2007. Given the change over time in the composition of the naval force, that probably is the most relevant comparison — and the trend line is up.
(Continue for more on this claim, or read the original Fact Checker column)
The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran wrote last night that there is still a small use of bayonets in the military:
Does our military, as President Obama told Mitt Romney tonight, have fewer bayonets than it did in 1916? Almost certainly.
But that doesn’t mean the bayonet has gone the way of the cavalry horse or the arrow.
U.S. Marines still train on bayonets in boot camp. Many Marines still are issued bayonets as standard equipment. But the Army discontinued bayonet training at its basic training facilities in 2010.
After the debate, the Obama campaign bought a promoted tweet for searches of #horsesandbayonettes, Natalie Jennings reported:
Wondering if the Obama “horses and bayonets” line was planned? The Obama campaign moved quickly after it was delivered to take out a promoted tweet on the hashtag #horsesandbayonets, which suggests his team may have known it was coming.
(Continue to see an image of the promoted tweet)
The Romney campaign isn’t backing down from the Navy assertion; it released an ad quoting the candidate today, Rachel Weiner reports on the Election 2012 blog:
What it says: The ad quotes Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s debate saying, “Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. … That’s unacceptable to me.”
What it means: Taking out President Obama’s memorable response to this line – “we also have fewer horses and bayonets,” Romney is again pushing one of his more aggressive debate attacks out to voters. He also cut an ad accusing Obama of apologizing for America. Our Fact Checker gives the Navy claim Three Pinocchios, calling it a “nonsense fact.”
Who will see it: Military-heavy areas, most likely.
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