Six hulls might normally sustain about three available ships, while seven gives a stronger guarantee and eight provides more resilience. At least one vessel may be in long-term refit while others cycle through maintenance and preparation. A hull in deep refit still counts in the inventory even though it cannot satisfy an immediate operational requirement. Fleet inventory therefore cannot be equated with deployable strength.
Notable Point · 3:56:36-3:57:37
Why three available ships may require seven or eight hulls
A brief force-planning calculation explains why maintenance, refit, and training cycles make the number of owned ships much larger than the number continuously available for operations.