I could see them building 8 nuclear submarines per year but 18 seems excessive.
With the end of the Cold War the major powers limited the amount of nuclear submarines they operate.
Russia's nuclear submarine fleet is bound to shrink further in numbers of the next decade and may only recover after that.
Both Russia and the US are operating older submarines way beyond their originally expected design lifetimes.
You also have to remember that nuclear submarines today are much larger and have larger displacements. So one single submarine has a lot more firepower available to it than older types. This is similar to what happens in aviation where with each generation each aircraft grows more capable and total acquisition in terms of number of aircraft tends to decline. Some people call this Augustine's Law after Norman Augustine who used to head Lockheed Martin.
With the end of the Cold War the major powers limited the amount of nuclear submarines they operate.
Russia's nuclear submarine fleet is bound to shrink further in numbers of the next decade and may only recover after that.
Both Russia and the US are operating older submarines way beyond their originally expected design lifetimes.
You also have to remember that nuclear submarines today are much larger and have larger displacements. So one single submarine has a lot more firepower available to it than older types. This is similar to what happens in aviation where with each generation each aircraft grows more capable and total acquisition in terms of number of aircraft tends to decline. Some people call this Augustine's Law after Norman Augustine who used to head Lockheed Martin.