What's the most lethal vessel in the Navy's modern arsenal?

The Converted Ohio Class with both ICBMs, Tomahawks and Torpedoes. One of those bad boys is capable to raining down a lot of death via several means.

Teamwork is my answer...why bring one bee...when we can stir up the hornets nest all at once ...triple carrier ops was I would say the most impressive thing pops in my mind that I seen...and imagine a battleship embedded

A Trident Class submarine. 24 missiles with multiple MIRV warheads. A single vessel contains more firepower than the entire world has seen in 10,000 years combined. This was built to be the game changer.

REALLY want the truth and many of you would never consider these because far,, far away from the OCEAN but without them these are just huge paperweights and tons of grease, fuel, and explosives...and trust me these are the first things that will be taken out by the enemy in WW3- bar none. Satelites in orbit

I take this to mean possessing most effective and destructive armament of afloat weapons systems (discounting nuclear). First, I'm qualifying the answer as applying the lethality to a contemporary enemy's forces/arsenal/facilities. I'm defining lethaility as the ship's weapons systems delivery death and destruction. I'm also not including factors of vulnerability (which will only support my opinion further) or international politics. So I have to go with:

1-LHx
2-LxD
3-CVN
4-DDG
5-SSGN
6-VA SSN

and so on...

Even though the carrier traditionally has the most conventional firepower, at best it can provide on the order of two hundred or so rounds of heavy ordnance a day for the enemy's consumption. Throwing some math at this, that's makes for a sustainable rate of about a 100 pounds of BOOM a minute. Also, this is all fixed-wing air coordinated since a carrier doesn't have any organic form of CAS/ground controller capabilities and our rotary wings aren't very functional in this capacity. Without CAS control, we're basically making educated guesses on where to put things. That makes CVNs rather limp against a military that doesn't follow the laws of war such as Vietnam, Preying Mantis, Gulf I, Gulf II, Balkans (all), and our various 'stan campaigns where irregular warfare is the M.O. (human shields, guerrilla/insurgent forces). Overall this makes the carrier great at facility destruction (actually the best), but it doesn't get the job done in terms of force and arsenal prosecution.

The LHD's primary weapons system, which is the only Joint weapons system in the US arsenal, can coordinate a dozen heavy barrels at a sustained rate of 2,000 pounds of boom a minute. Throw in a few weapons companies, over a hundred CAS trained troops (somewhere between experienced Ssgts to full-on JTACs) running birds overhead and a battalion of lead absorption units and you have a scalable application of force many times that of a CVN in terms of volume and accuracy.

The ~1800 embarked Marines (a MEU-minus) of an LHx have much greater mission endurance and presence once the party has started. Air delivered warheads on ISIS foreheads doesn't seem to be approaching a conclusion anytime soon since the current belligerents require the complete 1) surrender or 2) destruction of the other. Number One isn't happening on either side so that leaves Number Two. Tomahawks, JDAMs, bunker busters, iron dumb bombs, even Daisy Cutters aren't going to break the will of our oh-so honorable foes. For an enemy company sized or greater, an air campaign has poor chances of affecting annihilation (Number Two). More likely (as proven for the last two decades) an air campaign only weakens and disperses the enemy enabling them to evolve their tactics in a Darwin-istic manner.

It takes Joint Forces to approach any real certainty and for now the only ground contributors are non-US forces. I'm not advocating ground troops (probably won't either) but the question stands: What ship is the most lethal? A big deck gator is the only single afloat platform with the ability to accomplish Number Two. The LH's can also apply no small amount of air power themselves which is why the L-docks are a step down but still above the rest of the fleet. When the AV-8s are relieved by the F-35 they be even more potent. Imagine when they up-gun the MV-22s and put them on the L-docks, whoa!

I don't think there's any question here. In terms of pure potential kinetic energy deliverable, an SSBN with it's 72 - 288 independently-targeted warheads (on 24 Trident missiles -- each capable of 3-12 warheads), there can be no argument. If you restrict your options to non-nukes, well, the carrier is the frontrunner, I suppose. However, if you restrict it further to a SINGLE platform...I'd have to say the new Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001)

As a retired sub sailor I would say by far the fleet ballistic submarine closely followed by the fats attack!

Battleship!

There are two ways to answer this.. Naval engagement or land engagement...

If it is Naval Engagement ship to ship, I think the Burke or Tico class because they can also defend themselves (although I think a Virginia Class sub is a close second) where a Carrier is mainly offensive. Carriers have no real defensive systems especially against subs.

Subs have limited armament. The Burke and Tico's have a myriad of weapon systems to deal with most threats plus speed, agility and the offense AND defense punch to put down most threats.

If you are talking land based engagement, then carriers because they not only have the same punch as a sub, they can also reload and do it again... including city killer type weapons that SSBN's carry..

Subs have firepower for sure but they are one shot and done... to me that limits their capability.

The SSBN (Nuclear Ballistic Missile sub) carries the most destructive payload of any fighting vessel I'm aware of.

I read in a Tom Clancy novel that the boomers' motto is "We hide with pride," but the rest of the US Navy calls them the chicken of the sea...