Navies need both quality and quantity, but peacetime budgets make that balance especially difficult. Governments can fund only a small number of first-line ships while other public priorities compete for resources. Those ships may have to hold the line until new first-line, second-line, and third-line vessels enter service during a major conflict. Emergency planning should therefore identify ships that can be built rapidly, rather than concentrating exclusively on the best platform technically possible.
Chapter · 49:47-51:33
Peacetime quality must leave a path to wartime mass
The central procurement lesson is that a small first-line peacetime fleet must survive long enough for rapidly buildable second-line and replacement ships to arrive.