is the title of an article by AD Baker III(Former Editor of Combat Fleets) in the USNI's June Proceedings magazine.
Another issue chock full of good stuff.
Including an article discussing the relative merits of nuclear vs non-nuclear submarines.
An article discussing Russian Navy and USN cooperation and an artticle by Norman Friedman which tie in nicely with my ongoing series of posts illuminating ongoing USN and International copperation exercises.
Some articles are available free online.
Proceedings Magazine - U.S. Naval Institute
His data is as of May 1, 2007. He uses data "derived from official and authoritative unofficial sources" and includes only operational submarines ie not submarine undergoing trials or existing but long-erm laid-up vessels.
While he lists ballistic-missile, midget , very small coastal and auxilary submarines for the purposes of this post I will ignore them.
As I will the USNs SSGNs that are converted SSBNs.
Thirty-Six nations operate 353 SSN/SSGN/SS(K)(I).
Twelve nations operate 1-3 units:
Algeria, Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, portugal, S. Africa, Taiwan & Venuesuela
All non-nuclear powered.
Thirteen nations operate 4-6 units:
Austrailia, Brazil, Chile, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Singapore, Spain & Sweden
France operates 6 SSNs otherwise all the rest are non-nuclear powered.
These 25 nations operate 99 submarines.
The next tier is 8-9 units:
Greece
S. Korea
United Kingdom
All nine of the UKs vessels are nuclear-powered the other nations non-nuclear.
In the 12 -20 category we have:
Germany
India
Japan
N. Korea
Turkey
All are non-nuclear powered submarines.
These eight nations combined total is 102 units.
The last three nations operate 152 attack submarines.:
China: 58 all but three non-nuclear-powered.
Russia: 41 almost evenly divided between nuclear(22) and non-nuclear(19) powered. Russia operates the only "true" SSGNs of which nine are operational along with 13 SSN.
USN: 53 all nuclear powered.
Grand Total for all 36 navies is 353.
Again these numbers dont include those submarines on order, building, on-trials, reactivating or in long-term reserve along with the other categories omitted that were outlined at the top.
Or those that officially became operational post 1May2007.
Questions welcome.