Submarine Classes

Harbor Defense, Coastal Defense, and Concept Development Submarines

What the U.S. Navy wanted in a submarine changed rapidly and often during the 1900-1933 years. These boats filled several different roles while the Navy developed and refined the strategic and tactical concepts of submarine operations. All of these boats contributed something to this effort, although not all were successful.

Most of these boats are the direct legacy of the father of the "modern" submarine, John Philip Holland. It should be noted that Holland had been forced out of the company that he founded, the Electric Boat Company, through a series of rather Machiavellian business moves, by March of 1904. The last submarine design that he had any influence over was the B-class. Despite this, so profound was his legacy that many of these boats were known as "Holland types" long after his death in 1914.

In the period covered by PigBoats.COM, the U.S. Navy changed the convention that they used for naming and designating their submarines several times. Because of this, many of the pigboats have had more than one name, potentially leading to confusion. We have done our best to sort out this potentially bewildering situation, and we highly recommend that you read through the short article at this link.

See the latest updates to the site at this link!

Holland	A-class	B-class	C-class	D-class	E-class	F-class	G-class
H-class	K-class	L-class	M-class	N-class	O-class	R-class	S-class
			T-class	V-class

Later Fleet Submarine Classes

By 1933 the Navy had benefited from rapidly improving technology and in its own refinement of submarine operational doctrine. The result was the Fleet Submarine era, a fortuitous convergence of events that would greatly contribute to eventual victory in World War II. These boats were rugged, long-ranged, heavily armed, and among the best built by any nation in any era. The time of the Pigboats essentially ended in 1940, so we will not be covering the Gato, Balao, and Tench-classes. A handful of the Gar-class boats were commissioned after 1940, but we included them here for continuity purposes.

Porpoise Class	Salmon/Sargo Class	Tambor/Gar Class	Mackerel Class

Page created by:
Ric Hedman & David Johnston
1999 - 2023 - PigBoats.COM^©
Mountlake Terrace, WA, Norfolk, VA
webmaster at pigboats dot com