Firefly has addressed concerns by some fleet officials that the DDS fleet will struggle with the commitment to the DMZ Patrol Pool. He said that reworked patrol routes had reduced the minimum ships needed from 40 to 38 without a loss of operational coverage. He also said the Dinos had agreed to up their allocation of ships to 15. The Starbotians had also agreed to provide 2 ships. With the Aritan ships this has reduced the DDS commitment to 19 though the DDS will provide a reserve of 2 ships. With an estimate of around 10 ships at any one time either on their way to the pool or on their way out this should reduce the DDS commitment from 40 to 30-31 ships.
"It is still a tough ask." Firefly said, "But the DDS can manage these levels. We will also soon have an extra 2 Rome class corvettes on stream plus another Velocity and Arafura class frigate before the end of the year." He also added that full patrol operations would not begin until early next year anyway when the DDS fleet would have completed it's regeneration after the war and would have extra hulls.
