The Influence of History

HMS Spey , the latest addition to the Royal Navy. While often underappreciated, offeshore patrol vessels like her are critical to projecting naval power at home and around the world. World Navies in the New Year For a much-delayed first post of the new year, we have the official Influence of History  2021 World Navy Rankings. As always, this ranking system attempts to provide an overview of the relative naval power of the world's nations by listing their naval inventories and providing a somewhat relative points value. Because of the contentious nature of warship classification, I have resorted to my own fairly simplistic, but universal, system that classifies ships based on size and type. Points are determined based on the number and type of ships. While my system does attempt to capture total national naval power by including coast guard ships and other government vessels, it does not count coastal craft outside of missile boats and minesweepers. The points system has remained fa...

The 052-series destroyers have represented the cutting edge of Chinese naval technology in the post-Cold War period. The original Type 052 destroyer joined the fleet in 1994 and, although its capabilities were limited, it is considered China’s first modern warship. The basic design proved solid and went through several variations, each dramatically improving its combat systems and missile armament. In its latest iteration as the Type 052D, it forms the backbone of the Chinese surface fleet and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Type 052 The original Type 052 was a basic 155 meter multipurpose destroyer with an emphasis on antisurface warfare. The two members of the class incorporated many foreign technologies and were more experimental platforms than serious warships. The offensive missile battery consisted of an impressive 16 YJ-83 antiship missiles in canister launchers amidship. With a range of 200 kilometers and a 420-pound warhead, these missiles gave the Type 05...