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Canada’s fleet size is matched with Bangladesh and Spain

The Bangladeshi fleet contains roughly the same number of big, grey, oceangoing vessels as Canada, in addition to dozens of armed speedboat-y type things. The Armada Espanola, meanwhile, is roughly a facsimile of the Canadian fleet in terms of frigates, subs and patrol vessels. Now again; it’s somewhat misleading to simply “count hulls,” as the lingo goes. Bangladesh lags behind Canada on training and technology, and Spain does a lot of its navy stuff in sheltered Mediterranean waters far from the storms that Canada has to deal with. But it’s not entirely pointless to rank fleet sizes.As Stanley Weeks told the National Post, “a ship can only be in one place at a time.”

The Pacific Fleet is outmatched by Singapore

Canada is unique among most countries on this list in that its navy is split in two and permanently kept 4,000 kilometres apart. Half in Halifax, half in Esquimalt, B.C. and a long journey through the Panama Canal if one end of Canada suddenly needs more ships than the other side. It’s akin to if Germany had to keep half its navy in the Baltic Sea, and the other half anchored off Saudi Arabia. Given this limitation, the tiny nation of Singapore easily trounces the part of the Canadian navy that it is closest to; more and faster ships in each category, and even some missile corvettes for good measure.

Canada’s east coast, meanwhile, has as many warships as a landlocked country

This entire entry is admittedly a bit of a stretch, but on the Atlantic Coast Canada only has 15 warships, at least several of which are inactive at any time for whatever reason. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has no ocean access but a fleet of 15 warships in the Caspian Sea. Of course, Azerbaijan doesn’t have missiles and electronics and all the other expensive things on Canada’s Atlantic fleet — so Halifax can take heart that it could still sink them if it came to it.