Along with the French Navy, the Royal Navy is the only European navy to operate nuclear-powered submarines. Today, it has a fleet of 10 ships, including four Vanguard-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, as well as 6 nuclear attack submarines, or SSN according to the acronym. NATO, in this case, a Trafalgar-class ship, HMS Triumph, which entered service in 1991, and 5 of the 7 planned Astute-class submarines, which entered service between 2010 (HMS Astute) and 2022 (HMS Anson).
It is the latter who, today, are causing concern across the Channel. Indeed, like barely a year ago, despite a fleet of 6 ships, which should logically allow two submarines to be kept at sea simultaneously, the Royal Navy has no longer had an SSN on patrol for 47 days today. . Worse still, the Royal Navy's five Astute, its most recent and modern submarines, and among its most essential ships, have all been docked for 121 days, one of them, HMS Ambush, for over two years now.
While international tensions are now reaching peaks for thirty years or more, this glaring lack of availability is worrying, because it deprives the Royal Navy, through transitivity, of great freedom of action in the deployment of its fleet, and comes even threaten the effectiveness of its deterrence.
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No Royal Navy nuclear attack submarines at sea for a month and a half
The subject, which is starting to make a lot of noise in the United Kingdom, was revealed by an open source intelligence specialist on. This, in fact, took into account the British SSNs docked in the Clyde and Devonport arsenals. And the data revealed is edifying.
Thus, since the return from mission of HMS Triumph, the last representative of the Trafalgar class, a month and a half ago, the entire British SSN fleet has been docked, depriving the Royal Navy of one of its most essential components. , because it conditions the effectiveness of certain other decisive components, including deterrence and the ability to use its two new aircraft carriers.
However, with a fleet of 6 SSNs, the Royal Navy should be able to maintain, at all times, two ships on patrol or on mission, with a third on alert. The last three ships, for their part, should be in training or undergoing maintenance.
This is not the first time that the Royal Navy has found itself in such a situation. Just a year ago, she faced a similar problem, with its 6 SSNs at the dock simultaneously.
However, where certain mitigating circumstances could be put forward last year to qualify this situation as exceptional and temporary, it turns out, today, to be much more the consequence of structural problems linked to the planning of the maintenance of ships, by the Royal Navy, perhaps even, to technical problems on board the ships themselves,
The five Astute class SSNs at the dock for four to twenty-four months
It is therefore remarkable to note that the last ship to have reached the dock is the HMS Triumph, the oldest of its submarines, and the only one belonging to the Trafalgar class. Indeed, the seven Trafalgar class SSNs, which entered service from 1983 to 1991, showed satisfactory availability and reliability throughout their operational life, even if they were replaced more quickly than the French Rubis or the American Los Angeles, after only 26 to 27 years of service, compared to 35 to 39 years for French ships, and more than 35 years, on average, for the Los Angeles.
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Hello, we're not going to shoot the ambulance, that's not happening, but the Australians have gotten themselves into trouble with their Aukus program. Well we won't pity them, they just had to honor their commitments made with the naval group.