Offiziere.ch: Navy Thinker Calls for Bigger U.S. Navy with Smaller Ships

"U.S. Navy Commander Jerry Hendrix really rocked the boat in April 2009, when he proposed a radical change in the kinds of ships the world’s largest sea service buys and how it organizes them. Hendrix’s article, “Buy Ford, Not Ferrari,” published the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine, advocated replacing a portion of the Navy’s high-end aircraft carriers and destroyers (“Ferraris”) with a much larger number of inexpensive vessels (“Fords”) organized into what Hendrix calls “Influence Squadrons.” The new squadrons would deploy across the globe, to the waters off developing countries whose governments struggle against increasingly bold and more numerous smugglers, pirates and insurgents.

Now Hendrix has expanded on his vision. In a follow-on article for the same publication entitled, “More Henderson, Less Bonds,” the officer argues more forcefully for a Navy that can have a wider, more persistent presence across the globe, even at the expense of firepower. Hendrix compares today’s 9,000-ton destroyers and 100,000-ton aircraft carriers to American baseball player Barry Bonds, a homerun-hitter who commanded a multi-million-dollar salary. Smaller, more numerous ships he likens to Ricky Henderson, a less famous baseball player who quietly and reliably scored runs through less dramatic hits that earned him a high on-base percentage.

Bonds is impressive to watch, Hendrix argues, but Henderson wins games. “What if presence, the naval version of [Henderson's] oft-neglected on-base percentage, was actually the most critical naval mission?”"
War is Boring