Destroyer USS Arleigh Burke and submarine USS New Hampshire have arrived at Faslane near Glasgow, Scotland.

With the arrival of these vessels this morning, at least half a dozen American submarine and warship visits have happened at Faslane since the start of July.

While visits themselves are common, this frequency of visits is not. Neither is it common for visits to be publicised by the U.S. Navy or Royal Navy unlike the visit of the USS Rhode Island, a Trident-armed nuclear submarine, that arrived (and departed) in July.

The USS New Hampshire (SSN-778) is a Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine and the first of the Virginia-class Block-II submarines to enter service. The USS Arleigh Burke, named for Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, is the lead ship of the prolific Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers. She was laid down by the Bath Iron Works company at Bath, Maine, on 6 December 1988, launched on 16 September 1989 and commissioned on 4 July 1991.

A few days ago, the USS Georgia (equipped with an underwater launch system for special forces) visited Faslane naval base. The USS Georgia is an Ohio-class submarine. Unlike Rhode Island, however, she was converted to a cruise missile submarine from a ballistic missile submarine.

The U.S. Navy said that this port visit to Faslane reflects the United States’ “commitment to our allies and partners in the region and complements the many exercises, training, operations, and other military cooperation activities conducted by Strategic Forces to ensure they are available and ready to safely and effectively operate around the globe at any time”.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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53 COMMENTS

  1. Am I correct in thinking that bath Iron Works and HII are still churning out Arleigh Burkes? That’s a 31 year old ship and showing it’s age ( to my land lubber Army eyes).

    • That’s correct. Several of the class (including the Arleigh Burke herself) have been upgraded to modern versions of AEGIS Baseline 9 though, she can intercept missiles in space, shoot down airplanes and engage incoming anti-ship missiles simultaneously.

    • By the time the last one is finished it will have had a run of 89 ships!

      the Zumwalt class was meant to replace them but that’s been cancelled… so now they have to wait for DDG-X

      • No originally they had a replacement cruiser design but it got canceled and the zumwalt was going to replace the Burkes, then when they realised the cost they came up with it replacing the Iowa’s in providing fire support and now they are just trying to find something for it to do so matches the latest buzz word “hypersonic”

      • Yes, US can build ABs with its ‘eyes closed’
        In contrast, I was surprised at the ‘degree of ambition’ shown with the new Constitution Class frigate concept. They selected a proven FREMM, but then set about very significant dimension and upperworks alteration, of course. Do wish them good luck with that approach, though the potential pitfalls of such a plan will not have escaped Ian, I’m sure.

        • I think after having their fingers burnt with the last three designs for the Zum and the two Littorals they were after something a bit more belt and braces in design… I just hope their own demands aren’t too much for the base structure

  2. You invite one American vessel for a brief port call, and w/in months we are moving in! 😁. Didn’t your forefathers have an expression from WW II era: (Nothing wrong w/) Yanks (except)–overpaid, oversexed and over here? 🤔😁

    • Do you want holy loch back😂😂😂. Great to have our American brothers visiting. Extra bonus if it gives them more time on station.
      Expecting a rise in new births with American names in 9 months time in the surrounding area🙈
      What will be great will be RN, USN and RAN all having subs and using each other’s bases all around the world.

    • Only if they also burn the contents of the British Library in retaliation for the burning of the books at the Library of Congress.

    • 🤣😂😁. £22 Billion?!? Perhaps Million? Americans really don’t remember or blame you blokes for the first instance of urban renewal in the US, but I mentioned on another post that some would appreciate an in kind repayment for the two frigates and single sloop lost during the campaign. Please feel obligated to turn over two T-26s at your earliest convenience after commissioning. 😁

          • It’s vast, but that’s the upper end of the estimate for work expected to take up to 76 years. Call it £150m-£300m a year, ongoing, to restore, enhance and stop it falling to pieces again. Does that sound a bit better?

            It’s a Grade 1 listed building, famous the world over, with 1100 rooms and covering as much ground as the flight deck of an aircraft carrier (or whatever that is in Olympic swimming pools). Yes it’s expensive — the Lords want their Pugin wallpaper — but that’s also the cost of decades of neglect.

            They won’t pick that option anyway. They’ll all decamp somewhere else for twenty years, and it’ll still cost £10 billion.

          • Is the palace open for public tours? If so, ticket prices should be increased immediately and MASSIVELY! 🤔 🤣😂😁

      • Gladly. If you’re ever in Wickham, Hampshire over here. Pop into the Chesapeake Mill and take back whatever they’re prepared to return to US ownership!

      • May have to compete w/ Puerto Rico and probably a raft of others. 😁

        An old movie, believe entitled “The Mouse That Roared” presented the case of a small European Duchy that decided to solve their budget problem’s by declaring war on US, surrendering quickly, and requesting foreign aid/Marshall Plan aid.
        However, they inadvertently win, foiling their well-laid plan. Surprised more countries haven’t considered this. Think anyone at MioD is developing a contingency plan for increased funding? 🤔😁

    • Perhaps somewhat analogous to the Cliff Swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano? 😁 (Sorry, Friday afternoon levity.) Please forgive our noise (and smoke); always understood it was the sound of freedom.

      • They are a spectacular and always a welcome sight. Thankful for your support. Both our countries are suffering the consequences of division. The world cannot afford the American people to be divided. When I see division I always ask who is doing the divide and conquer trick.

        • “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (Abraham Lincoln, paraphrasing Mathew 12:25) US has traveled this road before.

  5. Slightly off topic but I read in the Times today that UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, suggested the future of naval warfare might be better served by having more submarines and less surface ships. Ships could be located and destroyed before bringing an effect to the war; whilst subs can transit undetected, to fire their weapons from a great distance.
    He also said that only USN and RN subs were able to enter littoral waters undetected and either fire weapons or offload Special Forces.
    Wallace appears to be favourite to remain as Defence Secretary in Liz Truss’s cabinet.

    • Any increase in subs would always be welcome, but not at the cost of fewer of our scarce surface ships. When you’re already fielding just 3 or 4 players in a 5-a-side tournament, losing any more players is demented.

    • Carry On Mr Wallace! Having a strong sub/uuv fleet plus a sizeable RFA fleet to keep the rest of the fleet going and keeping international shipping lanes and trade routes open is all good and healthy. Especially with the likes of Russia and China having very sizeable sub fleets already. Same sense of vulnerability could be said for land targets. UK GBAD should be expedited IMHO. And whatever the West does others will copy or are already doing it and we’re copying them…lol.

    • Hm, well. The patter is, ”Persuade public to forgo surface combatants for subs; then don’t build the subs”. Granted, that axiom may have a limited lifespan nowadays, by all that’s sane, complements of the Raz & Zi Bros comedy duo.

  6. One somewhat off-topic question, and one off-the-wall proposal that would never find an appropriate forum:

    1.) If Ms. Truss becomes PM, will she enjoy the freedom of action to meaningfully increase MoD budget? Virtually all issues discussed on this site, affecting all service branches, would probably be ameliorated w/ increased funding.

    2.) Now to the proposal: Radically enhance and enable the utilization of the existing NATO armaments procurement office to level the playing field between governments w/ varying budget constraints and top tier defense contractors on a routine basis. All parties pay the same price, regardless of country of development/manufacture. May reduce rate of inflation in armaments.

    • UK government works differently to US in that as Truss has an inbuilt majority in parliament she can basically pass any budget she pleases with the support of her cabinet. However the UK differs from the US in that we have an a-political professional civil service. As the civil service are able to perform basic functions such as the ability to understand accounts and even find there way out of a room unassisted it will be the civil service blocking any attempts to increase the defence budget. This will largely be on the basis of us being broke and not so willing to pay for spending on the Credit card as the US does.

      Also Liz Truss is a populist and a liar non of this will happen. Her defence spending “pledges” were costed today at having to increase income tax by 5%. At the moment she is playing to her political base but even they would much rather have a tax cut than an increase in defence spending. At most Liz truss will be in office for 18 months and it typically takes 2 years to alter any budgets in a major way.

      On point 2 this is virtually what happens with the F35 as most if not all countries enter in to batch productions with the USA and it’s the USA calling the price. It certainly has reduced purchase prices. However the US refuses to purchase any weapon from abroad ever even in instances as with Brimestone and Meteor there was a clear need and want from the US military. Even in instances of domestic production as with the A330 EH101 the nature of US politics largely prevents foreign players participating in anything other than providing components (BAE and RR). European NATO members won’t open up their arms industry without reciprocal from the US. As bad as France is for protectionism the USA is actually way worse.

    • As Martin says point 1 is mostly a matter of timing. To fulfil her pledge what she’ll probably do is increase the funding in stages of say 0.1% of GDP. So it will go from 2.2% in 2022/3 and 2023/4 up to 2.3% in ’24/5 and 2.4% in ’25/6, with a whopping 0.2% in 2030 to bring it up to 3.0% by the end of the decade.

      Except the next general election must be before January 2025. Given the Fixed Term Parliament Act is gone, and elections are traditionally held in May, I’d expect to see an election in May 2024. So all she really has to do is increase it to 2.3% and let her successor (who never promised us a rose garden) let it drop back to 2.2% after a major review of defence spending in 2025. Possibly an emergency budget would see even the rise to 2.3% cancelled. Nevertheless, in UK political terms she will have been seen to fulfil her pledge.

      If we get a rise to 2.5% without another war, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

      • Given the state of our finances and the complete collapse of our only near by threat, I think 2.5% is reasonable and affordable. With European nato tooling up on land we should focus those funds on the sea as well as ISTAR and key enablers. We could get a lot more bang for £5-£10 billion a year more like that, rather than spreading it across the usual cap-badges and sacred cows.

        • Wary of any reference to % of GDP., as you’re aware, Martin. GDP only has to fall significantly and you achieve your objective even if defence expenditure falls. Prefer Rishi’s phrasiology, therefore. May not end up any different but is more honest (Honest? Politics?).
          What we spend will depend on the Duo. Not by choice; unless Hobson’s….😐

      • Thanks for the mini-tutorial on the mechanics of UK politics and budgeting…hmmm, this issue may prove to be a more difficult proposition to resolve than originally envisioned. 🤔😱

  7. What are you thinking George, come up with any theories as to the reason for the considerable increase in these publicised visits beyond the obvious?

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