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What are the more powerful ones? US, UK, France, Korea?, who else? Japan's SDF was still pretty neutered at the time, China didn't have a navy to speak of, I'm not sure how many other countries would have beaten them at the time. Maybe Egypt?

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Here's what I got searching country names searching the pennant list from "Janes Fighting Ships 1988-89". It's limited to "major surface ships", and notably doesn't include the USSR due to their policy of regularly changing pennant numbers. I think it's OK for ballpark purposes.

1. USA 425

2. UK 95

3. Japan 81

4. France 65

5. Taiwan 60

6. China 52

7. Indonesia 36

8. India 35

9. Italy 34

10. Germany, Federal 30

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a74zpbb556lv4mn/ships.pdf?dl=0

Interesting. I wonder what qualifies as a "major surface ship"? Presumably not 50 foot coast guard cutters?