U.S. Fleet versus Chinese Fleet

This subject has been addressed in a few cases in our past posts. Let’s dredge up a few:

From January 2020:

The Size of Fleets in the South China Sea, Part 1 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Size of Fleets around the South China Sea, Part 2 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

U.S. Navy Compared to Russian Navy | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

From August 2016:

Chinese Carriers | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Chinese Carriers II | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

To summarize:

………………………….US…China…Size

Aircraft Carriers………..11……………..100,000-106,300 tons

Small Carriers……………0…….2………..54,500-58,600

LHA/LHD (Carriers !)……9 * ……………..41,150-45,693

Cruisers…………………..22………………….9,800

Destroyers……………….69………………….8,315-9,800

Destroyers……………………….36………….3,670-12,000

LCS……………………….20………………….3,104-3,900

Frigates……………………0…….52………….2,000-4,200

Corvettes…………………0…….42…………..1,400

Missile boats……………………109…………..170-520

Submarine chasers…………….94

Gunboats………………………..17

 

LPD…………………………11..,…6……………25,000-25,300

LSD…………………………12…………………..15,939-16,100

LST…………………………..0…..32…………….4,170-4,800

LSM………………………………..31…………….800-2,000

Mobile Landing Platform………….1

Special-purpose……………7……………………895 – 23,000

MCM………………………..11…..20

PC…………………………..13

 

SSBN………………………14………………….18,750

SSBN………………………………..7……………8,000-11,500

SSGN……………………….4…………………..18,750

SSN………………………..48…………………….6,927-12,139

SSN…………………………………12……………5,500-7,000

SSK…………………………………55……………2,110-4,000

 

 

*This excludes the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), which is still on the rolls but because of the fire of 12 July 2020 is clearly never returning to duty.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

2 Comments

  1. Another comparison (by way of the British Naval Defence Act 1889) would be a 2 power comparison.

    It isn’t as if the United States can completely ignore the Russian navy. So adding in the Russian fleet (particularly it’s subs) goes along way toward showing what the United States can actually afford to send after China.

    If the focus is China/Taiwan, you probably wouldn’t want to add Russian coastal types as they don’t offer an offensive threat.

    • Well we do have the Russian listed is the third link in this post. Their surface fleets is 1 carrier, 2 battlecruisers, 3 cruisers and 11 destroyers and 10 frigates. Suspect most of that will stay in the west. The last time they sent the Baltic Fleet to the Pacific, it did not go well (in 1905).

      Subs is a little more serious concern. They have 8 SSGNs and 15 SSNs. Not sure of the readiness of them.

      But, if the U.S. fleet did an “all-power comparison” instead of just a “2-power comparison”, they would still have more carriers (20) then the rest of the world combined.

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