Fleet problem was the term used by the United States Navy to describe each of 21 large-scale naval exercises conducted between 1923 and 1940. They are labeled with roman numerals, from Fleet Problem I through Fleet Problem XXI. A 22nd Fleet Problem exercise, scheduled for 1941, was canceled because of World War II.
The fleet problems were usually once a year exercises in which U.S. naval forces would engage in mock battles. One or more of the forces would play the part of a European or Asian navy. They were the culmination of the Navy's annual training maneuvers.
Famous quotes containing the words fleet and/or problem:
“On the middle of that quiet floor
sits a fleet of small black ships,
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burned matchsticks.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“The great problem of American life [is] the riddle of authority: the difficulty of finding a way, within a liberal and individualistic social order, of living in harmonious and consecrated submission to something larger than oneself.... A yearning for self-transcendence and submission to authority [is] as deeply rooted as the lure of individual liberation.”
—Wilfred M. McClay, educator, author. The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, p. 4, University of North Carolina Press (1994)