Countries by number of submarines

Submarines are a military vessel, quite small unit that is adopted for underwater operations. Of course it is also capable of conducting military activities on surface. Submarines are capable of immersing and ascending as well as controlled underwater swimming. What is more, the way they are created lets them fight in such environment as well as carry out other operations.

To sum it up, we can safely say that submarines are watercrafts capable of independent operation underwater. An attack submarine is a submarine specifically designed for the purpose of attacking and sinking other submarines, surface combatants and merchant vessels.

Attack submarines may be either nuclear-powered or diesel-electric powered. A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. A cruise missile submarine is a submarine that can launch cruise missiles. Many cruise missile submarines retain the capability to deploy nuclear warheads on their missile

The history of submarines begin with individual enthusiasts, who believed that the possibility to fight underwater brings a lot of opportunities. The idea was quite quickly adopted by the most powerful nations in the world, like USA and Russia. As a result of that huge military potential of submarines, a lot of vessels appeared before the start of the First World War. However, it was twenty years later, namely during World War II, that submarines played much more important role.

Nowadays it is said that submarines became one of the most popular and the most crucial warships when it comes to naval warfare throughout every single major theatre of war. Of course as a result of huge experience that researchers gained from the Second World War and of course Cold War, later submarines were nuclear powered. Besides that, the technical development also allowed modern underwater vessels to be almost undetectable when underwater.

The thing that differs submarines from other type of vessels is their size. They can so small that only two people can fit in there. Such vessels can stay underwater for only several hours. However, the biggest submarine that was ever built is so huge that it can remain submerged for more than 6 months. One of such examples is the Russian Typhoon class. Unlike any other warship, submarines are best when isolated.

The purpose of this comparison is to show you how many submarines each country has. Of course w should bear in mind that these statistics show us all types of submarines – attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, as well as cruise missile submarines. Not everyone is capable of storing and firing nuclear warheads, what is also quite important aspect when it comes to counting the effectiveness of all submarines.