[bert]

think submarines

[lentulusgracchus]

Well, the larger point is, Fleet assets to move around, and the willingness to support them, maintain them, pay their crews (without making "dissatisfier" issues), and use them.

In the 1940's, Harry Truman used the Iowas in just this way. When the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. died in D.C. while the Turks were trying to fight off a Communist "war of national liberation" (so were the Greeks) started by the Soviets, HST made a point of sending the ambassador's body home with honors ..... aboard the battleship Missouri, which proceeded to swing at anchor in the Golden Horn for several weeks, as a message to the Russians.