True. And we did not have welfare programs, food stamps, Medicaid, disability insurance, Pell grants, agricultural subsidies, or social insurance programs like Social Security or Medicare.
In 1913, the military budget was $400 million. Today, it's $700 billion.
In 1913, the military budget was $400 million. Today, it's $700 billion.
Interesting. In 1913 that $400 million included a navy of 214 ships while today $700 billion includes a navy of 284 ships. In 1913 GDP was $39.1 billion so the military budget would have been just over 1% of GDP, today it would be roughly 3.75% of GDP. Of course a great deal of our defense spending goes to cover for other nations which shirk their own responsibilities, for example the top 6 European members of NATO have a combined GDP almost 10 times that of Russia.
Back in 1913 federal spending ws 2.5% of GDP while local was 5% (state was 0.8%). For 2010 the figures were 23% federal versus 11% local, local governments spend more than double as a percentage of GDP what they spent in 1913, while the ratio to federal spending has flipped to being half of what was spent by local governments to more than twice as much. And state governments have gone from less than 1% of GDP to 10%. The trend is clear, that government has been grabbing a larger share of GDP over the past century, and spending at levels of government with less accountability.
The people serve the government, and the government is electing a new people who are more reliable in rubber stamping what the government wants at the ballot box. A great deal of welfare spending is to support the new people the government is electing.
I'll pit one of today's ships against all 214 1913's ships and sink every one.
Excepting aircraft carriers, any other ship would likely run out of ammo before it could sink 200 WWII ships. Maybe it could flee the rest, but if not, it'd lose.
I'm guessing I wouldn't need that many nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, nuclear- tipped torpedoes and MIRVd surface-to-surface nuclear missiles to do the job.
Most modern US navy ships are not equipped with nukes. Probably only carriers and ballistic missile subs, and carriers only for aircraft delivery, of course.
As for only one being required, as Sneaky said, a direct hit from a single 15" shell from a WWII battleship would end game over for any smaller modern ship. It wouldn't surprise me if modern vessels are much more complex than the WWII counterparts, and would therefore less able to survive the same amount of damage. That's the way of tech. Modern war craft are designed more to avoid getting hit than they are to survive a hit.
Most modern US navy ships are not equipped with nukes.
The Navy will not confirm or deny that.
"In addition to the added radar capability, the Ticonderoga-class (cruisers) built after USS Thomas S. Gates included two Mark 41 Vertical Launching Systems (VLS)."
"The two VLS allow the ship to have 122 missile storage and launching tubes that can carry a wide variety of missiles, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, Standard surface-to-air air missile, Evolved Sea Sparrow surface air missile, Evolved Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile, and ASROC antisubmarine warfare (ASW) guided rockets."
I would have to believe that any of those missiles could be equipped with a nuclear warhead.
