FactChecker: Romney’s claim that the Navy is as small as in 1916 (3 Pinocchios)
The historical records of the Navy show that in 1916, the Navy had 245 ships. This was also the year that President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Naval Act of 1916, which put the United States on a crash course to build a world-class Navy.
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 and Monitors (that’s kind of a small warship). 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.
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The Pinocchio Test
This is a nonsense fact. In his counting of ships, Romney equates gunboats with aircraft carriers and torpedo boats with nuclear-powered submarines. For such an important speech, one would think the candidate would resolve to use the most relevant facts possible.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/romneys-claim-that-the-navy-is-as-small-as-in-1916/2012/10/08/6f47e6d6-1191-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_blog.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Reagan liked gunboat diplomacy...Like all contemporary R's, Romney is communing with the corpse:
Artillery is a matter of probability...it's not precise so you've got to have the capacity to throw a lot of shells to destroy a target.
GPS guided cruise missles make all those barrels and turrets a terribly expensive waste.
He had to have those battleships and their old technology guns.
Of course a few years down the road that had deadly consequences for 47 seamen on the Iowa
Not only that, but since Obama came in to office, he's been dismantling warships and subs for scrap metal --that's how Obama's Navy is so much smaller the Shrub's was just a few years earlier!!!
