Monday, December 22, 2025

Navy Flag Officer Numbers

According the Navy’s web page, the service has 305 admirals[1] and 290 ships of all types[2].  That’s more than one admiral per ship. 
 
If the useless ships, such as the LCS and others are excluded, the ship count is much, much less.
 
How many admirals is the Navy allowed to have?  This is set by law with the controlling legislation being Title 10, Section 526 of the U.S. Code. The limit is supposedly set to 150 admirals.  Here’s the initial text of the legislation.
 
 
10, §526. Authorized strength: general officers and flag officers on active duty
(a) Limitations.-The number of general officers on active duty in the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force, and the number of flag officers on active duty in the Navy, may not exceed the number specified for the armed force concerned as follows:

(1) For the Army, 219.
(2) For the Navy, 150.
(3) For the Air Force, 171.
(4) For the Marine Corps, 64
(5) For the Space Force, 21
 

Unfortunately, the legislation goes on to carve out many, many exceptions and waivers, chief among them being joint duty exceptions, which explains why the Navy has 305 admirals while only authorized to have 150.
 
If you skim through the titles of the 305 admirals, as listed on the Navy website[1], you can’t help but laugh at many/most of them.  Talk about make-work and busy work!
 
This is yet another area where SecDef Hegseth should be taking aggressive action to reduce the flag officer ranks and yet he is not.  He continues to disappoint.


 
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3 comments:

  1. G2milDecember 22, 2025 at 6:12 PM

    There are lots of Navy SES, or civilian equivalents to Admirals. Hundreds as I recall. Some are former Admirals so the Navy pays them full retirement salary and a full civilian salary.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BA 1959December 22, 2025 at 6:40 PM

    I would think that a limitation in this regard is different than a speed limit - there isn't an absolute requirement even for 150 admirals.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousDecember 22, 2025 at 7:57 PM

    At least on the Army side, we are overstaffed with officers and NCOs at all levels in order to provide leadership for a mass expansion of the army for The Big One. Platoon leaders will step up to become company commanders, company commanders will step up to become battalion commanders, battalion commanders will become regimental commanders, and so on so forth.

    The Army has systems and procedures in place to rapidly grow the force with a draft in time of total war. Does the Navy have anything like that in place?

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