Historically, the French always seem to have had an inferiority complex toward the British. There were a few points in history where the French navy's individual ships and training were superior, yet they lost or came to a draw b/c they never broke out of the defensive tactics they had developed when the RN was dominant. The aggressive RN captains always made use of this.

Fair point, I was simply comparing the two airforces,

Britain has a better navy. However russia doesn't really need a proper navy. It's a land power. The russian navy is always going to be worst off when it comes to funding. But 30 Backfires would be enough to give the RN a good thrashing. the RN has no carrier based AWACS! D'oh! All that russia would really need is a good brown water navy to stop Tomahawk carrying submarines. Thats the only thing the UK (or anwone else apart from the US) has that can reach those russian airfields. The RN is still better than the russian navy though.

"However russia doesn't really need a proper navy. It's a land power. The russian navy is always going to be worst off when it comes to funding." I thought RN had got Sea Kings equipped with Searchwater radars for working as AWACS. Doesn't RN keep them?. But 30 Backfires would be enough to give the RN a good thrashing. the RN has no carrier based AWACS!

Oops!, I made a mistake in my last post, it should be like this: "But 30 Backfires would be enough to give the RN a good thrashing. the RN has no carrier based AWACS!" I thought RN had got Sea Kings equipped with Searchwater radars for working as AWACS. Doesn't RN keep them?.

Yes, they do. However, it will obviously have significantly less range than an E-2 as it's a smaller radar on a lower flying platform.

Personally I think the Royal Navy is the second Navy in the work after all the russian fleet is falling to pieces, and with the new type 45 destroyers new carriers operating the JSF and possible larger aircraft (designed to be future upgraded)and new trimeran(sp) coming into service in a few years the Royal Navy is becoming a better fighting force than is is now. Also the Royal Navy has a lot of recent experience in warfare with constant deployment around the world and the best traning.

Take the questiona at a simple level and the RN is actually larger than the active Russian navy in terms of numbers. Indeed, counting vessels of frigate size and larger, the RN is the world's second navy in terms of numbers.

Although the Royal Navy has been a powerful force for literally hundreds of years & the Brits have proved to be real scrappy fighters and a force to be reckoned with, the real question is can the Royal Navy stop Russian Sovremenny Destroyers equipped with SS-N-22 Moskit/Sunburn Missiles/Shkval (Squall) Missiles? Moreover, Russian Naval Air, specifically Su Flankers, outclasses the British Harrier jets.

"Russian Naval Air"? And where does that squadron or two of FLANKERS fly from? I'll go with aircraft, no matter what type of aircraft they are, flying off aircraft carriers that can actually set sail over aircraft, no matter how good they are, that are stuck back at Archangelsk or maybe still down in the Crimea, or wherever they base from since they don't have an aircraft carrier they can risk staying afloat in open water. And the way to deal with the Sovremenyy's that can sortie without sinking, and attack subs that don't blow themselves up trying to launch their weapons, is to find them with your superior subs and put good old Tigerfish (or whatever the latest *deployed* and *operational* torpedoes are on RN subs) into them. Displacedjim