"For nearly seven decades the Royal Thai Navy has maintained an active submarine division despite the fact it has no submarines. Last year it completed a state-of-the-art, THB540-million base to serve as the home for all of the submarines it doesn’t have.
That joke may soon lose its punchline, as the Royal Thai Navy has formally requested something it should have a long time ago, the purchase of some submarines.
In an attempt to strengthen the armed forces, prove his submarine division is not merely for show and not be outdone by the likes of Thailand’s sub-possessing neighbors, Adm. Kraisorn Chansuvanich said he’s hopeful the cabinet will approve his request.
"Neighboring countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore have had submarines in their arsenals for many years," Kraisorn said in a Khaosod English report. "Now that I am here, I think it is a part of the strategy to improve our armed forces. It's my duty to submit the request to the government for consideration. Whether the government will approve it or not is up to them."
Kraisorn might be modest in his assessment, given the current government is somewhat military-friendly.
The request comes a week after Navy brass said thanks-but-no-thanks to buying Chinese-made subs, dissent the admiral played down. He said that he’s cool with whoever makes them, so long as they meet Thailand’s needs and the navy has the same toys as its neighbors.
Should the request be approved, putting them in service would likely take five or six years due to outfitting them and training personnel to use them, meaning for now the submarine division can only dream of doing actual submarine division stuff.
Thailand’s fleet once did include submarines. They were decommissioned in 1951 along with most naval assets after the navy lost a power struggle against the army. In the so-called Manhattan Rebellion, naval officers attempted a counter-coup to seize power from the army which had early seized power. The army-led government therefore emasculated the branch by taking away its submarines, planes and armaments, leaving the Royal Thai Navy a crippled shell of its former self." LINK: http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/04/24/t ... y-get-subs

When I first visited Thailand I was introduced to and made friends with a man that was an ex-Thai Navy Admiral(I didn't know it at the time, he never pushed the subject of what he was, but I learned years later his position in the government. I just thought he was well connected in the government.) He said that he talked the Thai government years ago into buying Jap subs and they rusted so fast and badly they were useless and he caught hell for it.

A couple years ago I visited the Thai Navel Museum in Bangkok and outside the museum is the top part of one of the subs and inside among everything else is pictures of my friend when he was younger and in uniform.

I recommend a visit to the Thai Naval Museum. The day we were there we were the only people in the vast museum. Lots of interesting/historical stuff if your into military history, uniforms, weapons, ship models, etc.

Will Cambodia be next on the list of countries to get sub's. I wonder if a ''Lexus '' model is produced by China that we can '' buy '', as we need much better equipment that the stuff Thailand and Vietnam have.

No, the museum is in Bangkok near the river and in the south part of the city.

Address: Sukhumvit Road, Tambon Pakham, Thesaban Nakhon Sumut Prakan, Chang Sumut Prakan 10270

http://www.oneweirdglobe has a write up on it and directions. Well worth an afternoon if you like navel military stuff.

Ships, boats, subs, that sort of stuff. Not really an amusing question.

This reminds me - wasn't there a foreign journalist (Bangkok Post?)who got the sack/deported for reporting a few years ago that the sub base actually had no subs ?
Big loss of face for those concerned.

(I would check but I have to go cook now.)

Ok, found it. Justin Heifetz was writing for the Bangkok Post at the time. Recently he published an article in the Columbia Journalism Review about his (negative) experiences while working for the BP. The article he wrote on the sub base was just one example of the problems he faced while reporting in Thailand.

http://www.cjr.org/criticism/thailand_bangkok_post.php

In February, a month after I set out to debunk the promise of X-ray body armor, I reported on the opening of a new submarine base with no submarines. The piece was meant to be fun fluff: The Thai navy got ahead of itself, and opened the country’s first sub station at its naval base at Sattahip in Chon Buri, without procuring any submarines. Under the then-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the military was very much an armed bureaucracy, and Yingluck, also the defense minister, kept it happy with some strange maneuvers.

The article wasn’t serious or hard-hitting enough to expose weaknesses in Thai national security, but criticism from experts and analysts made the navy look somewhat silly. I drew on an earlier piece that quoted a rear admiral interviewed by the Post’s military reporter—and also a public figure—Wassana Nanuam. My article contained quotes he had given her in that article, which had been published earlier, in October. He had told the newspaper that having a submarine base was a matter of territorial integrity.

When my article was published in February, the rear admiral was incensed. He called Wassana the next day. Apparently, this was the first time he’d read these quotations. When he asked Wassana why she had quoted him, Wassana simply denied that she had. Their interview had been on the record, but her refusal to acknowledge the quotes left me vulnerable. The rear admiral threatened to sue me for defamation.

The paper’s then-deputy editor forced me to apologize to the rear admiral by phone; when I asked her why, she said she didn’t have the time to read my article, and that it must be done. When I called the rear admiral with my section editor, the admiral said that I could never understand what I had done wrong, because I was a foreigner.

The article in question:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/print/394026/

The Thai Military has more than 2000 men at the General - Admiral rank. A good % of them have nothing to do and end up either playing a lot of golf, running their own businesses, or causing mischief of one kind or another.