Four Navies · Forty Ships

Top 10 Warships by Country

Ranked by what they did, what they symbolised, and what was lost when they were gone.

Royal Navy

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

The Royal Navy entered the war as the largest fleet in the world and ended it as the senior service of the Atlantic alliance. Its strength rested not on a single capital ship but on the breadth of its destroyers, cruisers and carriers which protected convoys from the Arctic to the South Atlantic.

01
HMS Warspite
Queen Elizabeth-class battleship
Veteran of Jutland, Narvik, Matapan and Normandy — arguably the most battle-honoured battleship of the war.
02
HMS Hood
Admiral-class battlecruiser
Pride of the Royal Navy; lost in the Denmark Strait, 1941.
03
HMS King George V
King George V-class battleship
Flagship during the pursuit of the Bismarck.
04
HMS Rodney
Nelson-class battleship
Delivered the killing blows to the Bismarck; distinctive all-forward 16-inch armament.
05
HMS Prince of Wales
King George V-class battleship
Sunk by Japanese aircraft off Malaya, December 1941.
06
HMS Ark Royal
Fleet aircraft carrier
Her Swordfish crippled the Bismarck's steering.
07
HMS Belfast
Town-class light cruiser
Battle of North Cape; D-Day bombardment; preserved today on the Thames.
08
HMS Duke of York
King George V-class battleship
Sank the Scharnhorst at North Cape, December 1943.
09
HMS Illustrious
Illustrious-class fleet carrier
Launched the Taranto raid, the first all-aircraft strike on a capital fleet.
10
HMS Ajax
Leander-class light cruiser
Battle of the River Plate, the first major surface action of the war.

United States Navy

🇺🇸 United States

Beginning with the catastrophe of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy grew within three years into the most powerful instrument of naval power ever put to sea, centred on its fast carrier task forces and a submarine arm that strangled the Japanese merchant marine.

01
USS Enterprise (CV-6)
Yorktown-class fleet carrier
"The Big E" — the most decorated U.S. ship of the war; fought from Midway to Okinawa.
02
USS Missouri (BB-63)
Iowa-class battleship
Site of the Japanese surrender, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945.
03
USS Iowa (BB-61)
Iowa-class battleship
Fastest battleship ever built; escorted FDR across the Atlantic.
04
USS Yorktown (CV-5)
Yorktown-class fleet carrier
Critical at Coral Sea and Midway; sunk after Midway.
05
USS Hornet (CV-8)
Yorktown-class fleet carrier
Launched the Doolittle Raid and fought at Midway.
06
USS Arizona (BB-39)
Pennsylvania-class battleship
Lost at Pearl Harbor; her memorial marks the entry of the United States into the war.
07
USS New Jersey (BB-62)
Iowa-class battleship
Flagship of Admiral Halsey in the Pacific.
08
USS North Carolina (BB-55)
North Carolina-class battleship
First of the new fast battleships; fought throughout the Pacific.
09
USS Essex (CV-9)
Essex-class fleet carrier
Name-ship of the class that won the carrier war in the Pacific.
10
USS Washington (BB-56)
North Carolina-class battleship
Sank the Japanese battleship Kirishima off Guadalcanal.

Imperial Japanese Navy

🇯🇵 Japan

At the start of the Pacific War the Imperial Japanese Navy was the most formidable carrier force afloat. Within four years, almost every major unit had been sent to the bottom. The fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor was, by 1945, a memory.

01
Yamato
Yamato-class battleship
Largest battleship ever built; lost on her final one-way sortie toward Okinawa, April 1945.
02
Musashi
Yamato-class battleship
Sister to Yamato; sunk at Leyte Gulf by overwhelming air attack.
03
Akagi
Fleet carrier
Flagship of the Pearl Harbor strike force; lost at Midway.
04
Kaga
Fleet carrier
Part of the First Air Fleet; also lost at Midway.
05
Sōryū
Fleet carrier
Fast, modern carrier; lost at Midway.
06
Hiryū
Fleet carrier
Struck the killing blows on USS Yorktown before being sunk herself at Midway.
07
Shōkaku
Shōkaku-class carrier
Fought at Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz; lost at the Philippine Sea.
08
Zuikaku
Shōkaku-class carrier
The last survivor of the six Pearl Harbor carriers; sunk at Cape Engaño, 1944.
09
Nagato
Nagato-class battleship
Admiral Yamamoto's flagship in the early war; survived to be used as an atomic bomb test target.
10
Shinano
Conversion carrier (Yamato hull)
Largest carrier of the war; torpedoed by USS Archerfish ten days after commissioning.

Kriegsmarine

🇩🇪 Germany

Denied a surface fleet of comparable size to Britain's, Germany's navy relied on a handful of powerful capital ships for raiding, and on its U-boats for a submarine war that came closest of any theatre to severing the Atlantic lifeline.

01
Bismarck
Bismarck-class battleship
Sank HMS Hood in minutes; hunted down and destroyed eight days later.
02
Tirpitz
Bismarck-class battleship
The "Lonely Queen of the North" — tied down Royal Navy units until sunk by Tallboy bombs in 1944.
03
Scharnhorst
Scharnhorst-class battleship
Sank the carrier HMS Glorious; destroyed at the Battle of North Cape, 1943.
04
Gneisenau
Scharnhorst-class battleship
Partner to Scharnhorst in commerce raiding; crippled and never re-entered service.
05
Admiral Graf Spee
Deutschland-class panzerschiff
Scuttled off Montevideo after the Battle of the River Plate.
06
Prinz Eugen
Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser
Accompanied Bismarck in the Atlantic; one of very few German capital ships to survive the war.
07
Admiral Hipper
Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser
Arctic convoy raider; heavily damaged in the Battle of the Barents Sea.
08
Admiral Scheer
Deutschland-class panzerschiff
Most successful German surface raider of the war; sunk at Kiel, 1945.
09
U-47
Type VIIB U-boat (Prien)
Penetrated Scapa Flow to sink HMS Royal Oak, October 1939.
10
U-995
Type VIIC/41 U-boat
The only surviving Type VII U-boat, preserved at Laboe, Kiel.