Bertin's proposal emphasized commerce interdiction, while the completed Sfax kept equipment for presence, landing, and fleet duties. The worked example contrasts a 400-ship fleet divided into 150 anti-submarine, 150 air-defence, and 100 land-attack specialists with a 40-ship fleet divided 15, 15, and 10 the same way. Normal availability cycles still leave the larger navy enough specialists for balanced groups, while the smaller force may have only five, five, and three hulls ready. General-purpose ships can form more flexible groups because every hull contributes across several missions. Their missile capacity and helicopter complements still set hard limits on what those percentages mean in practice. Sfax fits the middle category: strong in commerce warfare while remaining useful for presence, landing, and fleet tasks.
Chapter · 15:29-23:10
Sfax between commerce raider and general-purpose cruiser
Use Sfax to compare specialist warships with general-purpose ships, then see how fleet size and maintenance cycles determine which approach can produce usable task groups.