I'm pretty much done with cataloging the world's main navies, adding up their anti-ship missiles and basically calculating who has the most firepower.
The firepower rating basically works by adding up all the anti-ship missiles that could be fired without reloads. It is far from perfect, and in itself lacks context, but it is useful all the same. It includes shore batteries, aircraft launched and submarine launched.
Each missile type is scored on criteria of:
Max range: 1 point per km
Warhead: ½ point per kg
Max speed: 1 point per m/s
Sophistication: 0~1000, with Harpoon (Block I) as a benchmark at 850.
I have had to make estimations and assumptions – it is not feasible to find out how many of a certain missile a particular country has in stock so I’ve had to assume that every missile tube would be full and there’s enough missiles to load every plane with its normal fit etc. In some instances I’ve been able to use more specific info on delivered numbers etc, but in general this results in EXAGERATED firepower in ALL navies.
I considered CURRENT capabilities not future ones.
The results:
As you can see, Russia wins by a substantial margin. Both the US and Russia's figures are probably exaggerated to similar extents – in general Russian anti-ship missiles have a longer range, bigger warhead and travel MUCH faster than the American Harpoon family. I’ve over-counted Harpoons by assuming that carrier air wings carry enough rounds to load every Hornet with two, and also that the attack subs carry four each when in fact they are rarely deployed.
But the general indication, that the Russian Navy has more readily available anti-ship missile firepower is very fair. Anti-ship warfare seems not to be the USNs priority, whereas Russia is still, at least in procurement terms, more concerned with having the ability to counter the US’s huge advantage in carriers.
Surprise results
Aside from US coming in second, despite Russia’s declining fleet, there were several results I wasn’t expecting:
China rising; the Chinese fleet is increasingly modernized, with most destroyers now carrying a whopping sixteen anti-ship missiles compared to the more typical four or eight. India is following this trend also. The sixteen-missile punch allows saturation attacks with several missiles being launched in place of one – somewhat making up for the slightly lesser technology of the mainstream Chinese missiles. The later YJ-8 series (YJ-82, JY-83) have good ranges which is a contributory factor.
Taiwan gets its high score mostly by its vast fleet of small missile boats each with two not-so-impressive Hsiung Feng I missiles. Combined with the Ching Kuo’s stated ability to carry 3 (I’ve counted 2 as normal) Hsiung Feng II missiles, which I’ve had to assume Taiwan has sufficient stocks of, is another contributory factor.
UK still OK. OK, so the Royal Navy is no longer ruler of the waves, but with the retirement of the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile which equipped to Tornado GR.4 squadrons, I expected the UK to come out worse than they did.
Australia Does so well mainly because of the large number of Harpoon equipped air force (RAAF) Hornets, F-111 and Orion aircraft. The RAN itself provides a puny anti-ship punch without the RAAF.
France, home of the Exocet, does so poorly because it has hardly updated its missile stocks. The basic MM-38/40 Exocet is comparatively short ranged and less sophisticated than the Harpoon. Whilst there are more up to date turbo-jet versions, the actual Exocets in French service are still MM-38 (10 ships), MM-40 (14 Ships) and the equivalent SM-39 submarine launched and AS-39 air launched versions. As far as I am aware the super-sonic replacement (ANS?) has been shelved. The French habit of carrying only 4 Exocets on many combatants also eats into their firepower rating.
Other highly regarded navies like Italy, Spain and Netherlands have clearly felt the post-cold-war bite and sunk low. Chile, a country which pioneered the use of torpedoes in the 1900s is now somewhat toothless, as is Brazil despite their 35,000ton aircraft carrier.
Talking of carrier operators, here’s an interesting observation:
Imagine that, most countries that operate aircraft carriers don’t equip their carrier fighters with anti-ship missiles(!).
The firepower rating basically works by adding up all the anti-ship missiles that could be fired without reloads. It is far from perfect, and in itself lacks context, but it is useful all the same. It includes shore batteries, aircraft launched and submarine launched.
Each missile type is scored on criteria of:
Max range: 1 point per km
Warhead: ½ point per kg
Max speed: 1 point per m/s
Sophistication: 0~1000, with Harpoon (Block I) as a benchmark at 850.
I have had to make estimations and assumptions – it is not feasible to find out how many of a certain missile a particular country has in stock so I’ve had to assume that every missile tube would be full and there’s enough missiles to load every plane with its normal fit etc. In some instances I’ve been able to use more specific info on delivered numbers etc, but in general this results in EXAGERATED firepower in ALL navies.
I considered CURRENT capabilities not future ones.
The results:
As you can see, Russia wins by a substantial margin. Both the US and Russia's figures are probably exaggerated to similar extents – in general Russian anti-ship missiles have a longer range, bigger warhead and travel MUCH faster than the American Harpoon family. I’ve over-counted Harpoons by assuming that carrier air wings carry enough rounds to load every Hornet with two, and also that the attack subs carry four each when in fact they are rarely deployed.
But the general indication, that the Russian Navy has more readily available anti-ship missile firepower is very fair. Anti-ship warfare seems not to be the USNs priority, whereas Russia is still, at least in procurement terms, more concerned with having the ability to counter the US’s huge advantage in carriers.
Surprise results
Aside from US coming in second, despite Russia’s declining fleet, there were several results I wasn’t expecting:
China rising; the Chinese fleet is increasingly modernized, with most destroyers now carrying a whopping sixteen anti-ship missiles compared to the more typical four or eight. India is following this trend also. The sixteen-missile punch allows saturation attacks with several missiles being launched in place of one – somewhat making up for the slightly lesser technology of the mainstream Chinese missiles. The later YJ-8 series (YJ-82, JY-83) have good ranges which is a contributory factor.
Taiwan gets its high score mostly by its vast fleet of small missile boats each with two not-so-impressive Hsiung Feng I missiles. Combined with the Ching Kuo’s stated ability to carry 3 (I’ve counted 2 as normal) Hsiung Feng II missiles, which I’ve had to assume Taiwan has sufficient stocks of, is another contributory factor.
UK still OK. OK, so the Royal Navy is no longer ruler of the waves, but with the retirement of the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile which equipped to Tornado GR.4 squadrons, I expected the UK to come out worse than they did.
Australia Does so well mainly because of the large number of Harpoon equipped air force (RAAF) Hornets, F-111 and Orion aircraft. The RAN itself provides a puny anti-ship punch without the RAAF.
France, home of the Exocet, does so poorly because it has hardly updated its missile stocks. The basic MM-38/40 Exocet is comparatively short ranged and less sophisticated than the Harpoon. Whilst there are more up to date turbo-jet versions, the actual Exocets in French service are still MM-38 (10 ships), MM-40 (14 Ships) and the equivalent SM-39 submarine launched and AS-39 air launched versions. As far as I am aware the super-sonic replacement (ANS?) has been shelved. The French habit of carrying only 4 Exocets on many combatants also eats into their firepower rating.
Other highly regarded navies like Italy, Spain and Netherlands have clearly felt the post-cold-war bite and sunk low. Chile, a country which pioneered the use of torpedoes in the 1900s is now somewhat toothless, as is Brazil despite their 35,000ton aircraft carrier.
Talking of carrier operators, here’s an interesting observation:
Imagine that, most countries that operate aircraft carriers don’t equip their carrier fighters with anti-ship missiles(!).
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Plus if you look at how many surface units are currently active in the Pacific and Northern Fleets of Russia, they don't have many deploying. Like I said, they can't put even half of the firepower the USN can. Right now, the USN outranges every other navy by a minimum of at least 3 times in the ASuW spectrum.