Why Does One of the World’s Smallest Navies Want One of the World’s Biggest Warships?

War is Boring ^ | 12/04/2013 | David Axe

[Billthedrill]

LOL - yeah, and with some other words that would probably get me banned forever...

[GeronL]

South Korea has a bigger navy than the UK, insane.

[piasa]

Well, that explains why Hillary’s pal Ambassador Joe Wilson has business dealings with Angola.

[BroJoeK]

"We have more admirals than ships too."

Near as I can tell, that's an exaggeration, though not by much.
First, you have to count submarines as "boats", not ships, which by tradition the Navy does.
Second, you'd have to count in some less than fully active (i.e., reserves or retired) to boost the number of admirals.

Still, in WWII there were 30 ships for every admiral, so that says a lot about how far we've fallen.
No doubt part of the explanation is that should the time come when we must rapidly expand the armed forces, there will be necessary leadership to fill the new slots.

[BroJoeK]

"I’d like to buy some Angolan imports....what do they import?"

Before their civil war (1975-2002) Angolans exported mainly agricultural products such as bananas, coffee and sisal-hemp (a tough fiber used in ropes, carpets, footwear, etc.).
Today those are relatively minor and Angola's predominant exports (98%) are petroleum products and diamonds.
In the recent past those totaled approx. $55 billion per year compared to $25 billion in imports giving Angola a trade surplus of $30 billion per year.
Today's latest numbers are significantly lower...

As for mosques, Angola's Muslim population is circa 1%.
Most Angolans are Catholics, from their heritage as a Portuguese colony.

Finally, we might note that Angola has been the worlds number one importer of "special purpose ships" such as floating docks, fire-boats and dredges.
This may have something to do with keeping their capital city and major port operating smoothly.

[Tijeras_Slim]

The Duchy of Grand Fenwick wanted to bid but getting ship into the Alps was too difficult.

[jospehm20]

A little exaggeration but not much. There were 234 commissioned ships (including submarines) in the Navy as per the US Naval Register, current as of 31 December 2016 . There are 223 active duty Admirals (O7-O10) now. That includes 162 Admirals assigned to the Navy plus 61 more Admirals assigned to joint billets as of 2016. This number comes from the 2016 report at the link below and does not include reserve component Admirals. The number of active duty Admirals has been reduced significantly since 2012 so I am not certain that it was an exaggeration in the past.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44389.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_ships_of_the_United_States_Navy

[BroJoeK]

Thanks, I've seen various numbers, not sure which ones should apply:

"The United States Navy has over 440 ships in both active service and the reserve fleet, with approximately 70 more in either the planning stages or under construction, according to the Naval Vessel Register and published reports."

Of those, as you posted, just 234 are "commissioned", the rest non-commissioned (105), ready-reserve (51) and other support ships (50).
Non-commissioned ships include such as USNS Spearhead class, and Mercy class hospital ships:

[PLMerite]

“Straw Man?”

Quite possibly, but for whom, I wonder?

[jospehm20]

I would go with the 234 commissioned number. PE Trump said he wants a 350 ship Navy. I am guessing that he does not intend to get there by scrapping 90 ships.

[Mycroft Holmes]

Angola's Flag:

[mad_as_he$$]

Class and type: Príncipe de Asturias-class aircraft carrier
Displacement: 15,912 tons standard,
16,700 tons loaded

Length: 195.9 m (643 ft)
Beam: 24.3 m (80 ft)
Draught: 9.4 m (31 ft)
Propulsion: 2 × Bazan-General Electric LM2500+ gas turbines in COGAG configuration, one shaft, 46,400 shp
Speed: 26 knots (48 km/h; 30 mph)
Range: 6,500 nautical miles (12,000 km; 7,500 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement: 830 (total); 600 ship crew, 230 air crew
Sensors and
processing systems: Raytheon SPS-52C/D 3D air search radar,
SC Cardion SPS-55 surface search radar,
ITT SPN-35A aircraft control radar,
FABA SPG-M2B fire control radar,
SELEX Sistemi Integrati RTN-11L/X missile approach warning radar,
Selex RAN 12 L target designation radar

Electronic warfare
& decoys: Nettunel electronic countermeasures unit,
Super RBOC,
Sensytech AN/SLQ-25 Nixie decoy

Armament: 4 × FABA Meroka Mod 2B CIWS,
12 × Oerlikon L120 20 mm guns

Aircraft carried: 29 fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft
Aviation facilities: 12° ski jump 46.5 m in length