Panzer said:
It might pay to restrict this to combatant vessels only.
Ok guys combatant vessels only.
Also what about China??
India??
you need to consider the capability of those vessels,
eg Russian still nominally has a large fleet, except that up to 2/3rds of it is sitting in one of the 12 ports in the north west rusting away - absolutely useless - but their penant numbers are still active.
China - to all intents and purposes has a Littoral Fleet, and a significant number of her frigate sized vessels are considered to be obsolete - in fact Japans Navy is more than capable of destroying if not containing the chinese navy - as it currently stands.
I'd argue that at a surface combatant level, India has a more powerful fleet than China, but at the submarine level, I would say that China is more powerful.
See how difficult this is?
If you change the rules and then measure it by an issue of throw weight, then its
USA
Russia
UK (as they have MIRVS on their Tridents)
France
China
Israel (as they have developed nukes to be capped onto their sub launched cruise missiles)
India doesn't have any boomers, and the Yakhont/Brahmos is not nuke capable (yet)