I am sure Mitt said what he said for a reason. I don't buy Kim Geiger's bullcrap.
And by the way, the most memorable quip for me was when Romney said “We Don’t Dictate To Nations, We Free Nations From Dictators.”
NPR confirms Romney’s statement
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/22/163419358/what-does-the-navys-size-tells-about-u-s-power
John Lehman is advising Romney- he was a good Secretary of The Navy
The composition of those ‘ships’ was predicated on supply and transportation tasks and the ships the Army had were not intended or prepared to fight naval battles.
Comparing Army ‘ships’ to Navy ‘Ships’ strictly based upon quantity is worthless because of the different nature of their assigned tasks.
Another consideration worth mentioning is that many of the Navy ships then as now perform mostly as protection for the large ‘Capital’ ships and not as assault ships.
The Capital ships of WW II were the Battleships along with the many Aircraft Carriers while today's Navy no longer has Battleships to escort and protect and the number of carriers of various types has been drastically reduced.
The WWII carrier classifications in include 3 CVS (46,000 tons), 21 cvs (30,000) tons &, 9 CVL (30,000) tons, and 90 CVE (small escort carriers) aka “Combustible, Vulnerable and Expendable,” .
The actual number of carriers during WWII varied depend on status (Built, commissioned, Lent to GB, sunk, or decommissioned).
For further info on the CVE or “jeep” carriers, see: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=3
For further info on the other carrier types see: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/carriers.asp I find the info on the CVEs or "Jeep Carriers" fascinating and perhaps still a very useful concept because they would allow the larger and much more expensive CVN carriers of today to concentrate primarily on "force projection" by taking on the tasks of "force protection" at a much lower cost per ship.
The CVEs also served as aircraft transports being able to carry many more aircraft than the CVNs alone to immediately make up for aircraft lost or damage in a battle.
Depending on how the CVE is configured, they can contribute to fleet defense or go on assault missions not far from the fleet. Basically, the CVEs can be an example of Romney's philosophy of more smaller ships rather than much fewer very expensive ships.