China Now Has More Warships Than the U.S.
But sometimes quantity doesn't trump quality.
By Kyle Mizokami
May 20, 2019
China now has more warships than the United States Navy. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), informally known as the Chinese Navy, recently hit a landmark number of 300 ships—thirteen more than the U.S. Navy.
Although admittedly imposing, the number doesn’t tell the whole story. America’s fleet is much larger on a ship-by-ship basis, including eleven nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and an almost equal number of amphibious assault ships.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ ChinaPower project has uploaded an analysis of the PLAN versus the navies of several other regional countries and major powers. At 300 warship hulls, the PLAN is the largest navy in the world, counting aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, submarines, and amphibious assault ships. The U.S. Navy trails at 287 hulls, Russia has 83 hulls, the U.K. 75 hulls, and Australia at 48 hulls. According to CSIS, the Chinese Navy has more ships than “Germany, India, Spain, and the United Kingdom†combined.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a27532437/china-now-has-more-warships-than-the-us/