Britain urged to order more submarines

SSKs don’t have the endurance, payload or powerful sensors of an SSN.
An all nuclear approach is best. Unless luxurious amounts of budget available in which case 4 non nuclear SSNs might prove useful for secondary roles such as littoral warfare, insertion and recovery of special forces and supporting perisher submariner training programmes.

You don’t need an SSN to block the North Sea or Baltic. A few short duration subs (not going into power sources – changing too much) costs less, is more ‘visible’ when arriving/departing, and the sensors/armaments are what you want them to be. The North Sea, Norwegian Sea and Baltic are the choke points. Underwater pipes and cables are critical; they aren’t in the middle of the Atlantic.Why use 3Billion SSNs when the alternatives in the critical areas cost a tenth as much each?

If you want to block the North Sea or the Baltic you use mines or aircraft launched from the UK, not expensive vulnerable submarines in shallow water.

Are you seriously suggesting we mine the North Sea in peace time? The idea is still to deter. And the subs are less vulnerable than a surface option. With aircraft, weather can prove an issue. Countries like Sweden and Germany don’t seem to have an issue using submarines in the North Sea or Baltic – British subs would be North Sea and approaches to the Baltic. Some would be operating in the area between Scotland and Iceland as well.

If you blocking the North Sea or Baltic it’s not peace time is it? You can only do that in a war.

OK, so all the navies in the world save money by going to their home ports and pay off the crews until war is declared. Only then do ypu get your crews together and leave port…

Everything has to be in place before a war starts. Cable and pipe cutting will happen before the war officially starts. Submarines slip out to sea and go on station before the war starts. By the time you get your mines laid it’s too late… plus you only want to blockage enemy forces. Mines can’t tell the difference.

What does the threat of being torpedoed do that the threat of minefields being rapidly laid does not? A modern mine of the torpedo type presumably covers an area far larger than a WW2 style contact or magnetic type, and so even a single A400 flying over the North Sea could provide enough of a threat to make a break-in too risky to try.
This argument is academic anyway; in any shooting war the NATO aim should really be to hold the Russians back to the GIUK gap and North Cape by aggressively using SSNs to hunt down subs and ships with TAPS frigates using their more powerful sensors as a second line. Passively waiting for an incursion seems too much to risk especially given that a cruise missile could reach anywhere in the UK long before a sub reached shallow water.

We didn’t even really succeed in mining German access to the North Sea in two World Wars so how would you block Russian entry to the North Sea? The Baltic you might have a. Chance though you would have to somehow guarantee free access to NATO assets there while you do it. I think that would be the major effort.

If they were SSK, then yes.
I would sincerely hope our SSN would be where they were in the Cold War, in Russia’s backyard, way up north in the Barents, and as you say, in the GIUK gap.

During D-Day not one ship was lost to mines after what a 24 to 48 hour De-mining operation. Sorry not sure I have faith that mines would protect the UK, especially in light of the fact we are an island Nation that can only survive with the free access to mass shipping which means we need to de-mine shipping lanes not mine them on mass. Much of Norway is only reachable by sea indeed. Aircraft are an important tool true, but are you guaranteeing they can trace deep diving submarines at will at 100 metres or so some places much deeper over such a vast area? Surface and sub surface utilities are vital in that environment though I would suggest new drone platforms rather than smaller DE subs.

Stupid you

Something like the new German/ Norwegian or Swedish diesel subs. BMT also has some useful designs that might be more suited to UK needs and maybe could also be built in the UK.

Whatever does the job Something that could perhaps operate for 2-3 weeks away from base, patrolling along the various cables/pipes, lurking around the various choke points watching for activities by potentially hostile surface or submarine threats. It would need to be stealthy, reasonable speed, decent detection system, offensive weapons capable of neutralizing threats such as submarines or (probably) non naval surface vessels – fishing boats or cargo ships acting to dredge the sea bed…

BMT has a couple of CGI videos, they have never built a submarine.

Have they ever actually built anything? They are the equivalent of architects who use the likes of Arup to actually do the engineering and both oversee the build by the specialist constructors.

It would be a first and they’ll have to partnership with someone else to build them.

Budget dictates we only buy “Must haves” not “Nice to haves” or impulse buys. That’s across all 3 services, and we don’t have enough must haves of anything.

Simple fact is to buy and crew 2 modern SSK you lose 1 SSN 🤔
And it’s always dangerous to buy 2nd best as UK Politicians get the idea that’s all you need.
One of the biggest mistakes the RN ever made was in the 1960’s, we were supposed to get 5 Polaris Boats as that is is the optimum number required to operate a reliable and robust CASD. Under a great deal of pressure they stupidly agreed that at a pinch and if nothing goes wrong 4 were enough.

Don’t give Politicians an inch.

As for defending the Baltic and North Sea, it’s not part of our NATO tasking as we will be up North.

The Baltic is a bottled up submarine grave yard and the German, Swedish and Polish boats are perfectly adequate to take care of any Russian boats stupid enough to be stuck there. FYI although Russia builds SSK at the yards in St Petersburg the Baltic fleet only operates 1 operational SSK. I wonder why !
The North Sea is mainly far too shallow for any modern Submarine to avoid detection it’s why we don’t operate SSNs in it.

We really need 10 SSNs !

Do you always need the gold-plated solution in every situation? Our SSN fleet is tiny and yet we claim to have a Rank 2 bluewater navy, globally deployable. I doubt we could afford very many more SSNs, no matter what this Report aspires to.

Why not have some SSKs for roles where endurance, payload and sensor suite does not have to be ‘top of the range’.

Because we don’t have any roles for submarines that don’t require range and endurance.

We are very far away from the threats we face.

Jim, I bow to your greater knowledge. I would have thought we should keep an eye on the Western Approaches, Eastern Atlantic, GRIUK gap (now seemingly called the GIUK gap), Mediterranean, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden etc.

😀 I’ve only ever know it as the GIUK mate, not heard GRIUK before?

Think I might be going back 20 or 30 years there!

To be honest Graham, you don’t want an electric boat toddling around in the western Indian Ocean, it’s to far from home and to open to detection and attack…essentially they are dependent on snorkelling and have less great sensors that’s SSNs which means they are more attack scope dependent…that’s asking for Iran to drop something on it if things got nasty…they are also to slow to evade and run.

With GIUK..an electric boat is not a great sensor platform and would have no chance of intercepting an SSN or SSGN making that run.

also it’s very clear that Russia is planning to essentially protect all its SSNs and SSGNs in the northern bastions and simply use them to launch long range missile attacks on NATO infrastructure…so you need to be able to run into the bastion and hunt them down..sending an electric boat to do that would be suicide, you need an SSN.

Also our NATO colleagues on the northern flank have far more electric boats than Russian..specifically designed to play littoral tag with the northern fleets handful of electric boats..if they ever decide to come out of the bastion to die.

Just about the only time you need an electric boat is if you are defending an enclosed littoral against an enemy you know is coming for you in numbers..and to do that you need a lot of electric boats..because they are slow and are poor sensor platforms…look at china they have build 60+ electric boats simple to park a ton of them in an enclosed littoral and dare the USNs SSN fleet to enter.

for our North Sea infrastructure, we are probably better off investing in a fleet of good large underwater autonomous vessels, that can simply hang around our infrastructure in numbers.

OK. I hadn’t realised that electric boats were quite so ineffective, despite their numbers and good export sales.

Yep the lack of power is essentially crippling compared to an SSN and effects all aspects of how it’s used.

1) they have to be slim and small, which means the Aperture of the sonar is a lot smaller ( what makes the Astute so deadly is it’s very very large flank sonar arrays).
2) even their active sonars suffer being higher frequency lower power compared to SSNs.
3) because of this sensor disadvantage, electric boats are far more dependent on using their attack scopes..which means they are far more detectable by radar.
4)Strategic movement/transit for a electric boat is either Pathetic ( less than 8 knots cruise speed) or on the surface and obvious..when you think an SSN can transit close to 30knts…that’s close to 1300Kms a day for an SSN vs 370kms a day for an electric boat.
5) lack of intercept speed….an SSN can dash at high knots to get to intercept a target..so it can generally go faster than it’s target to manoeuvre into a position to ambush as well as manoeuvre to pick its attack approach in the safest way ( an SSN can pick its engagement) An electric boat at 8 knots cannot intercept a target well and will have very limited options to intercept and be forced down specific approaches.
6) tactical speed…an SSN can run away and fight another time…it can disengage swiftly, reposition and re-engage…an electric boat at 8knots is running from very little and if it does escape it cannot re-engage later.
6) before and after an engagement an electric boat will need to stick its snorkel up to charge its batteries..at that point it can be sniffed out or it’s snorkel detected by radar…
7) endurance…electric boats are small, they need to store food, potable water, fuel and have limited air. SSNs are large and only need to store food..everything else is made on the boat while submerged…an SSN can stay submerged and in deployment without outside aid for 6-8 months…electric boats need to be snorkelled every few days…with the record being set by an AIP electric boat of 14 days.

In truth they are fine for area denial for green water navel activity…just not really something for the RN as almost any conflict it will fight will not not green water.. running two fleets, one of which is very niche would just be ineffective use of the defence pound….if we were going to a Norwegian stance of only defending our littoral and nothing as well as getting rid of the at sea deterrent then we could get rid of the the nuclear boats and spending that money on a numerical larger class of electric boats would work..even Russia has only done a limited build of electric boats in the 21c ( 6) and they are all going to pottering around in the Baltic…there are lots of cost effective options for protecting our North Sea infrastructure that is not based on a costly second class of submarines that could take resources from our SSNs.

Mind you they are quieter so an advantage in some scenarios but limited I agree.

Thanks Jonathan. In the army we looked at kit differently. Not everything was gold-plated.

We had a range of equipment at various capability/complexity levels and price levels. Our infantry could be mounted in IFVs, wheeled APCs, Protected Mobility vehs, bog-standard trucks (TCVs).
Seems like the Navy don’t want to do that for S/M at least.

Still if there really is no role for an AIP SSK in the RN and if their performance is very limited, then you are right to dismiss them. Not sure everyone agrees though.

AIP is to be honest a bit of a red herring that’s simply not as good as a lot of people think it is…it does not remove the need ton snorkel simply because is so rubbish at generating power..if you consider a SSN will have well over 20MWs available power…your average diesel on an electric boat will generate around 3MWs..an AIP system will be at best generating .3MWs…that means an AIP generator is not recharging the battery of a electric boat..it’s just supplementing and elongating the length of time it will be able stay on patrol without snorkelling..but it will still need to snorkel…if it’s used it’s battery for manoeuvre it will need to snorkel….

For what the RN needs they are just not worth the high cost…if anyone thinks they are cheap and easy they are mistaken…your talking £600-650 million a pop..for it to be even worth the effort you would need a programme of 4…that’s £2.7 billion pounds..to allow you to deploy a electric boat or two into the North Sea..then you have the operational costs of crew training pipelines and logistics to keep the boats going…an A class SSN is around 1.5 billion so for a bit more you could have got yourselfs 2 more SSNs which are profoundly more potent than 4 electric boats for pottering around the North Sea….or even 8-10 more P-8s which would be far more effective at securing the North Sea than some Electric boats.

Thanks. If so, it makes you wonder why SSNs haven’t completely replaced SSKs. Why do other nations still build and/or buy SSKs?

Simply put…lack of nuclear industry..if you don’t have an up and running nuclear industry you cannot build SSNs so the only way to get them is to have a friendly nation that will sell you one ( and that’s only happened twice..India and now Australia)..

But in reality most nations that are looking to be either world or regional powers are trying to move to SSNs…but the technology is profoundly difficult…and a poor SSN from an inexperienced nation is not a great prospect.

remember the Asute class is the six generation of Uk SSN and that’s now a 30 year old design…the UK is on its 7th generation.

unless like the Australians a new entrant can get someone else’s tec ( and nuclear propulsion is not something readily shared)..they are starting pretty much at generation one…look at china for all it can build a world class electric boat it’s latest SSNs are essentially second generation and completely outclassed…due to reactor noise..

reactor noise is one of the big issues..modern western 5-7 generations have effectively managed reactor cooling noise issues and so a modern western SSN is as quite as an electric boat…but with massively better sensors and speed. Chinas SSNs and other newer entries are very noisy and so detectable…

so simple put other nations do not join the SSN game because they cannot…China and India are playing massive catch up..Brazil has been trying to build them since 1980….

the other big issue is that nuclear submarine reactors tend to use enriched uranium…which rubs up against the NPT…so Brazil specifically is looking to try and develop a reactor using low enriched uranium and the Australian purchase of UK reactors will have various safeguards to essentially isolate the management of the reactors and fuel from Australia.

Finally the reality is if your not a blue water navy or aspire to be a blue water navy you don’t need SSNs…and at present there are only 7 rank 1-3 blue water navies ( navies that operate mean fully beyond their region)…of those six only one is not an SSN operator ( Italy) and of the 3 western blue water navies that operate SSNs not a one has a single Electric boat…

Thanks Jonathan. A very useful answer. You have explained why many countries cannot move to a SSN fleet – but they choose to stick with electric boats and to modernise them, rather than give them up – so they must get some value out of them ie they must match or over-match a threat they consider to be real.

Indeed they are not completely useless, infact they are good weapons of war… just inferior in so many ways to an SSN and a lot more situational…and if you have say 2.5 billion spare and no access to SSNs but have some small areas/ enclosed sea to defend..4 electric boats is a good buy…but buying them when you could get more of a latest generation SSNs is not sensible.

Also drones are something that will probably entirely replace the need for electric boats for basic sea denial in enclosed waters…when you consider its looking like a 50ton large undersea drone will come in at 3 million pounds, not have a crew and have better endurance…it makes electric boats even more the niche purchase of a navy that cannot have access to a good latest generation SSN industry…even the U.S. who last built an electric boat in the 1950s are very focused on large autonomous undersea drones…

.I’m trying to think of an army analogy…maybe…an example would the armies long range precision fires, GMLRS as a rocket based precision fires you cannot get better..but would the army ever go..we need more mass in our rocket based artillery..let’s get some unguided multiple rocket launchers like the BM-22 220mm MRL they are cheaper than a GMLRS system but are still rockets …they would not…I suspect they would look at a different solution entirely…maybe even drones..however if you have not to access to a GMLRS and don’t have the tec base to manufacture something like it…but really do need some long range rocket based fires there is nothing wrong with using a 220mm MRL system….it’s just no one who could would go for that over a GMLRS.

Thanks. Interesting to bring in an army analogy. To turn that on its head, the British Army currently has the following indirect fire systems: 81mm mortar, 105mm Light Gun, 155mm Archer wheeled SPG, 155mm AS-90 tracked SPG and GMLRS. In other words a range of systems of varying capability and cost.

Still, as you say, the more sophisticated of the blue-water navies have given up the electric boats in favour of an all-SSN force, just that ours is a tiny SSN force.
If one SSN is protecting the CASD bomber (a supporting task which is disputed by some), then there are 6 boats left. Under the rule of 3, thats maybe just 2 boats that can readily be tasked – not much to cover the Seven Seas! In the Falklands conflict we committed 6 S/M (5 SSN, 1 SSK).

Very good explanation, but I’d strongly disavow the Dreadnought as being a U.K SSN, when you pass through “check point Charlie it was plastered with Westinghouse signs.
Valiant, Churchill, Swiftsure, Trafalgar and Astute are our 5 with SSN(A) being 6th.

As for the next generation starting with Dreadnought and Columbia, SSN(A) and SSN(X), they will be very quiet indeed. Just like an EV car compared to a Petrol one.

Norway, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands. Italy all have pretty decent SSKs. Do coastal and regional patrols, undersea infrastructure checks need to be /can done by a SSN? Seems a bit over the top. I was thinking that the Castle/MCM/T32 type motherships and UUVs could work more easily with SSKs in this role. Navy Lookout has just done a related article on this.

I doubt we use SSNs for coastal patrols (P2000 Archers do that surely) or to check undersea infrastructure.

The Japanese are currently developing a new class to compete with Chinese nuclear subs but I guess it’s mostly in and around the inner island chain which is a great equalising environment but will be interested in finding out more about them and their capabilities and new power set up.

I take it you mean the Tegai class ?

Totally agree with your take on that. A drone that can sit for weeks in dead mode is a far better use of electric platforms I reckon. Indeed doesn’t the NG Manta Ray potentially offer exactly this capability with the very aim of sitting on sea beds waiting to strike. It pretty much covers all of the major weaknesses of a manned electric sub and once fully developed much cheaper too and can be expendable in extremis.

It’s not as important as hitting the Russian Bastion way further North. Russia doesn’t have the numbers these days and daft as it sounds most days we would be 1 to 1 on Modern SSNs.

OK, thanks. I am sure I am not alone in thinking we, with our blue-water Navy, do not have enough attack subs.

Agree that the bottom line question is whether there is sufficient budget cap available to order more than 7 SSN-A, even stipulating a gradual increase of MoD budget to 2.5% of GDP. There are a significant number of programs competing for funding and the 10 year equipment plan is already projected to be multi-billion £ in the red. Truly unfortunate that HMG Treasury never credits MoD w/ any of additional revenue derived from joint venture defence programs.

Simple answer is, yes there is a budget, however the current budget won’t cover everything. We need to rescope our capabilities.

That being said once you go to the cost of having a nuclear submarine program the additional cost of extra boats is fairly marginal.

I would be more than willing to drop other capabilities at sea and on land to pay for more SSN’s if required.

Understand that reprioritization is one possible sol’n. The next UK Defence Review could prove to be interesting.

Hard to think how far our Navy has fallen – we had about 30 subs some 40 years ago. Just 7 attack subs is ridiculous.
The MoD Equipment Plan is always in the red – and so it resembles a fantasy fleet in part. Not much that can be done about it, but to hope not to waste so much in the future in poorly managed procurement programmes.

Believe the die will be cast re virtually all major programs w/ the next MoD strategic defense review. As an outsider, would not presume to forecast the results of a Labour government exercise. Results could conceivably vary anywhere from unilateral disarmament to concerted effort at rearmament. For that matter, don’t have great confidence in Uncle Sugar’s future course. Believe there is an ancient Chinese curse paraphrased as “may you live during interesting times.” 🤔😳😱🤞🙏

Huh…Mr. Google just informed me the curse is that the aforementioned curse is neither ancient nor Chinese. 🥴

One more time; “…informed me the…” 🙄

Very much all hinges on the next SDR/SDSR under Labour. Unilateral nuclear disarmament is well and truly in the past, mainly in the Kinnock era and to some extent in the Corbyn era. Labour (who first decided to build ‘the UK bomb’) have supported Trident upgrades and replacement.

I have just scanned their 136 page manifesto on Defence, but there is no indication of significant spending on rearmament. We may just get a ‘keep things as they are’ approach on spending.

In the US, Biden seems to be slightly ahead of Trump in the polls, by 2%. I think Trump’s popularity will continue to wane up to November, but slowly.

China often gets things right with their proverbs etc.

Quirk of American political system: Formal election results are the result of the Electoral College vote, which is determined on a state-by-state basis. Overall vote counts are generally positively correlated w/ Electoral College results, but there have been exceptions to the rule, including 2016. Many pundits predict that the election will hinge upon a few thousand votes in a handful of key states. Believe that election results will be in doubt until well after Election Day, and may be contested in state and federal courts for an even longer period. Hopefully, election results will be contested only in the courts, rather than by insurrection in the streets. 🤔😳🤞

Thanks. We are quite familiar with your Presidential voting system – your election and also stories about the candidates seem to get more coverage over here than our election!

Our system, being First Past the Post (FPP) gives odd results too – UKIP got 3.8m votes but only one parliamentary seat in 2015.

I also hope you don’t have another insurrection – that was all very shocking and tragic that 5 people died.

Graham engineer to engineer the price depends on volume to be produced. We built 7 Astutes on an incredibly slow, inefficient drumbeat due to Treasury staged payments, and the need to not interrupt workload. They were offered an 8th at the same overall programme cost, but opted for 7 and stretched it out.
They are still half the price of the USN Virginia class and if you set aside no VLS they are equally as capable.

The AUKUS contract adds volume to the supply chain whick lowers the cost, so yes we could get more boats if the will is there.

Hope you are correct in the assessment that larger orders and enhanced rate of production will permit acquisition of additional SSN-A. 🤞

Yep, fully understand that unit price depends on volume. Even if we had more Astute orders and its unit price could fall, then surely SSKs would still be cheaper?

I was floating the idea of a mixed SSK/SSN fleet to bring our attack submarine fleet up to more of a sensible number – ie 12-15. I can’t see that we could afford an extra 5-7 SSNs even if AUKUS brings the SSN cost down.

It’s way too dangerous to mix and match and the budget to do so can only come from fewer SSNs. Any fewer that’s it game over as industry is unsustainable, trust me it is presently at the absolute minimum to just tick over.
I am going to run a theory by you and see what you think.
IMHO most of the reason we are in a simultaneous mess trying to replace most of the Army Land Warfare kit and the RN surface fleet, submarine fleet and auxiliaries is all down one singly reason.
To fight Gulf 2 and then hold Iraq and then Afghanistan pretty well stalled the scheduled replacement programmes in both services.
CAPEX for long term programmes were sacrificed to supply UOR and Operations.
So how about turning that thought process on its head.
No 1 Priority is the sustainment of the long term equipment plan and industrial, base. Because as long as there are any tier 1 threats to the U.K. that has to be top of the pile.
Any operational requirements have to be separately funded. That goes from Peacekeeping, Firefighting, Disaster relief work right up to SF and small / medium wars.

Nice thing is it would give Politicians pause to going off on more vain glorious expeditions. Yes Prime Minister we can go and invade X but you need to go and make some cuts or put up taxes to fund it.

I suppose I am becoming a cynic 🤔

My logic for buying some SSKs was to augment the attack sub fleet which I have also always considered is far too small at 7 boats – I was not anticipating having to decommission a number of Astute class boats to do it! Money to buy SSKs would not absolutely have to come from the pot used to procure Astute boats, which must be running dry quite soon.

I have heard the supposition before, that procurement of new core equipment and upgrades to in-service equipment stalled because of ‘the sandbox wars’. That should not have been the case. HMT covers the running costs of warfighting operations and also UOR procurements, not the MoD budget. The core MoD budget was therefore (or should have been) unaffected by Op TELIC and Op HERRICK. All the procurement staff for core equipment remained at their post and were available. There was some stifling of initiatives (not procurement/upgrades) for the core programmes though. From Sep 2009 to Sep 2011, I was at Abbey Wood as a civilian contractor (my first post-army employment). I firstly worked on a core programme initiative, then on UORs then was PM for a core equipment procurement.

Op HERRICK Costs – Wiki: “The Net Additional Costs from 2001 to 2018 of Operation Herrick were £22.2 billion. This is costs above the normal running costs of the forces involved and the normal budgetary annual unexpected operations allowance, so is less than both the total costs and the marginal extra costs of the operation. The bulk of the spending was from 2006 to 2014.
According to Investment in Blood, a book by former government adviser Frank Ledwidge, the MOD estimated costs of all military operations in the Afghanistan war to 2012 at about £25 billion. Ledwidge estimated total British government costs were £37 billion ($56.5 billion) to 2012″.

Op TELIC Costs – ‘and the total cost of war stood at £9.24 billion in 2010′

Scheduling various Army core AFV programmes. The army’s land warfare equipment programmes for both upgrades and new procurements were not well timetabled to start with. Parking the upgrades issue, in a more ideal world an AFV should perhaps have a roughly 25 years life from ISD, therefore Warrior should ideally have been replaced from c. 2012, AS-90 from c.2017, CR2 from c. 2023, ….and CVR(T) from c. 1999!! Thus spacing out the various spends. None of that remotely happened.

Then Boxer was brought forward causing the front end of the programme to clash with the front ends of Ajax, WCSP, CR3 and AS-90 replacement programmes. Disaster. Beancounters and politicos demanded something had to go, so WCSP was scrapped.

In conclusion – there should not have been any loss in budget for replacement or upgrade of Core equipment due to the ‘sandbox wars’. The big question (elephant in the room) is therefore….if so, why did no tracked vehicles get procured from the TITAN/TROJAN and Terrier procurements to the procurement of Ajax and CR3, and virtually nothing got a serious upgrade – over about a 20 year period!?

We used to have SSKs to bolster the defence of the GIUK gap, where the advantages of the nuclear boats are less clear cut.

Hi Ian..we had a limited number for green water work…they would have been almost no use on the GIUK..an electric boat trying to intercept an SSN on the high seas is not happening. An electric boats sensors are inferior to an SSNs and it cannot manoeuvre to intercept…its endurance is also profoundly limited…only in enclosed seas under air cover and close to port are electric boats really much use. They are just to limited and vulnerable on the high seas.

That was because the Soviets had hundreds of submarine’s and we were massively outnumbered and looking at defending the UK coast line.

Things are very different now.

Of course our last ones are still operated by the Canadians though in the process of being replaced. Surprised they still seem likely to replace with new SSKs.

There is nothing wrong with the sensors on German or Japanese SSKs.

Hi Rob.
For me, the best assets against Russian SSN are another SSN, ours.
We need land bombardment as that is part of a blue water navy’s capability for expeditionary operations.

We don’t need to be just coastal defence, that is headed right where myself and others fear Labour will go by hamstringing our military into a Europe based defence force, with all their previous rhetoric on the Pacific and east of Suez, which, hilariously, has faded now there are operations in the Red Sea directly impacting western trade.

Withdrawing to Europe and only doing home defence does not detter China or any other state actors out in the wider world, which the west must be involved in to shape it to our, not their, advantage.
That includes the Grey Zone.

If you did not mean that, my apologies.
If you meant home defence, alongside the role if the SSN, so coastal, so we are talking CNI protection. I think the RN is going down the route of AUVs there, slowly slowly as the tech will take time to develop.

The SSK was ideal for that work, and for intelligence gathering. In an ideal world we would have both. But as we are not In
an ideal world I myself agree with concentrating on the SSN rather than dividing what money we have and having even fewer.

I’m looking at what I see to be a gap in our defences. A visible BRITISH deterrent that can be seen – yes, we have allies, but they have their own priorities. No good concentrating on the Pacific if you neglect home defence – and SSNs aren’t really the answer in that limited UK-Iceland-Norway area. They amount to overkill and there aren’t enough of them.

Russian subs rarely come down to that area. Our submarines must be able to operate in the Bearing sea which SSK’s are not well suited for, that’s why we got rid of them.

Baring Sea is a problem for the US and Canada, not the UK.

I would think Jim meant the Barents!

In which case they still have to pass through the Norwegian sea…

Yes thanks, I meant Barents Sea 😀

It was obvious lol ! The RN in the Bering straight, HMG totally lost the plot.

Except for transit missions to the Pacific, under North Pole, that would still be SSN’s?

Sure. I’m looking at European defence. Horses for courses.

Agree that in an ideal world, w/ MoD budgets comparable to those at the height of funding during CW I, 12-15 RN SSN-A would be both feasible and beneficial. In addition RN could operate a flotilla of SSK for littoral duties. Unfortunately, do not foresee that funding level, short of general war. In reality, believe that any number of RN SSN-A greater than seven, should be declared a victory. Some of the benefits of a SSK flotilla purchase could be realized by modest additional purchases of T-26 and P-8. And at some point there should be a ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting w/in NATO, re an appropriate division of labor/roles and responsibilities. Partial list of NATO allies capable of supplying SSKs: e.g., Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, etc. There are only 3 current (and future) operators of SSNs, and two of those will be primarily focused on Euro-Atlantic theater, w/ token ongoing presence in Indo-Pacific, short of general war. Each country in the alliance should be tasked w/ providing maximum feasible capabilities, but none can be tasked w/ covering the entire waterfront, not even Uncle Sugar. Rant over, preparing for incoming. 😳

Indeed. I’m expecting defence cuts once Labour are in.
I think a lot of rose tinted spectacle wearing posters are in for a bit of a shock.
Delighted if I’m wrong.

Hmmm… probably should specifically list the following additional SSK operators to avoid unduly ruffling any feathers:
Canada, Greece, Portugal and Turkey. My bad. 🤔🥴

With you Rob, a supplementary fleet of diesel subs for regional and coastal approaches and undersea infrastructure security, though this might be taken up with the T32 and MCM ships and drones. I think an additional base for ships/subs in the Edinburgh area for more direct access into the North Sea, Scandinavia and further north, so that all subs in particular aren’t just based at Faslane.

I would like to see more bases myself. As for using subs – surface vessels can be seen and avoided, drones are subject to weather and possible hacking, subs add uncertainty – except for the fact you KNOW they are there somewhere.

In reality an autonomous underwater vessel can do regional level sea denial far cheaper than getting an electric boat…

Electric boats have some very significant weaknesses not just that the speed and strategic mobility of an SSN cannot be bettered, what most people forget is that SSNs are far better sensor platforms than electric boats…the nature of electric boats require them to be smaller and have lesser diameter slimmer hull form than nuclear boats..this lack of power and lack of surface area means that electric boats cannot have the size, same sonar aperture, lower power and higher frequency acoustic sensors.. this means that they are far more attack scope dependent as well as having the need to snorkel before and after high power activities such as attacking or evading…these means they are vulnerable as hell, when chasing down targets ( which they cannot do in the same way as an SSN) or trying to penetrate defended seas.

All or this becomes a problem if you look at where the RN will fight a war and the character of that war.

1) A war with Russia will likely see its SSNs and SSGNs bastion up leading to a need to attack the Russian bastion in the Barents and Kara sea…you want SSNs for that..not electric boats.
2) A war with china will see to likely theatres of conflict:
A) Western pacific…that’s a vast ocean 20,000 miles away…you need SSNs for that
B) the India occean..another vast ocean 10,000 miles away..you need SSNs for that
3) The south Atlantic and the British Antarctic territories…we may one day have to fight in the waters of the Antarctic to maintain our claim to the British Antarctic territory…10,000miles away…in seas that would eat an electric boat.

Totally agree, I think 12 is realistic.

More agreement here. The RN should ‘never’ have dropped below 12 SSN’s, allowing for 8 Operational boats at any one time.

Sadly the current sorry number was set in stone back in the 90’s, as soon as Trafalgar batch 2 design slowly morphed into the substantially larger and vastly more expensive Astute design (thanks to PWR2), coupled with the post cold War decline in defence spending, the numbers were destined to collapse.

The RN started the century maintaining 12 boats, 7 Trafalgar and 5 Swiftsure, the sandbox wars started undermining the capability (along with anything else that wasn’t light infantry support connected) with freshly refitted Swiftsure boats being decommissioned in the name of funding 10,000 personnel fighting a pointless war in Afghanistan for years.

Yes I agree.

Agree.

Thanks for all that mate. You’re the SME industry wise here without a doubt.

Hi Jim,

I take your point, but the RN struggled with three V-boats available with one boat doing a patrol that lasted over 6 months if I remember rightly.

I think their woes were largely down to the poor state of the repair and maintenance facilities delaying refits, etc. So reliability has been poor with relieving boats being delayed on to patrol. So perhaps once Babcock have finished upgrading the facilities in Devonport it will be possible for the RN to maintain 2 boats on patrol with a force of 5.

If so then the RN and French Navy should be able to maintain 3 to 4 boats on patrol, especially if the French also build an extra SSBN.

Cheers CR

After peak efficiency is achieved I’d argue it only causes decline.

Afternoon Mickey, it’s going to be interesting to see which way Canada goes with its subs and all them 15 T26s… which will be quite a sight to see! 🇦🇺 🍁

Good Morning Quentin, interesting times indeed. The current Canadian gov is listening to defence chief a lot on many issues and subs is something that has sunk in. Pardon the pun.

4 SSNs and 8 SSKS are some of the ideas being floated around.

The T26 are on the eve of being built and an investment has been made to speed up construction of them.

Great use of irony!

Ta.

A few weeks back TPL ran a blog on SM ops during the 80s, from stuff released by records office at Kew I believe. Nothing in somuch detail, but references to mission numbers, areas and names of SM.
I even recognised some of them, which is dredging up stuff from the past. You might find it interesting if trying to collate units etc.

Mate, I was reading all his posts on that!
Fascinating reading.
Also his stuff on Challenger, and on continuity of Government, another of my side interests!
DMd him myself on a few things I thought might be of interest.
Oberon, I ask as heard a story on her and dry shelter ops. I wasn’t sure if that was even possible with the O boats, thought they needed to surface to offload sneaky boats.

Not heard that myself, but doesn’t mean they didn’t. We we ran with them we always surfaced as the kit was under the casing/fwd trench. As that was getting assembled we would have to lug the engines up from the engine room. Once fitted off they went.
All a bit different now of course.

Exactly. That was my (minimal) understanding too until Chalfont arrived on the SSNs ( and the type on, was it Spartan or Sceptre, I forget. )
The story I’d been told was that this chap had “exited Oberon while submerged” which I suspected may be an old Walter Mittey story again as I thought those boats surfaced first then the RIBs, or whatever, just float off as the boat submerges.
So I was thinking “gotcha”!

Ah yes, the fore runner to Chalfont, that will be Spartan (trials boat) with her Alamanda fit – more commonly referred to as ‘the caravan of death’ for obvious reasons….unfortunately.
It is possible to get people out whilst dived, via the escape tower, but cramped and v slow. Once out all they could really do is swim away, unless the kit was lashed to the casing. Not really a viable option.

Thanks. Jury’s out then.

Final question re this mate. Looking at photos of the O class, what is that bulbous great thing up at the stern?

On the stern? Do you mean the bow mate, then that is the housing for the main sonar system. It changed shape from the more cylindrical version to the bulbous design when they got a new sonar system. Can’t remember exactly which new system it was.

FFS….Yes, I did. Getting my Bow and Sterns mixed up.

Hi DM, I have a slightly off point but relevant suggestion. Source a copy of “Iron fist from the sea – sa recce (Saffa SAS) seaborne operations” (in the 1980s) . Lots of submarine ops blowing up stuff in Angola – Oil refineries and even Soviet Cargo ships – great reding. The author Douw Steyn was a senior operator/commander, so well written.

Cheers mate, I’ll look.
Was on Y Tube other day looking at a vid about the RM M&AW Cadre.
In the comments was a story about an OP during the Cold War near Murmansk. So within the USSR. Pretty sensational stuff and undeniable if caught.
I know our subs routinely went into Soviet waters, though not suggesting this OP, if it was real, was a sub drop off.
It tallied with another tale I was told first hand, hence my questions to Deep.

Fascinating stuff, the silent service

👍

Yes, mate. It’s fantasy.
We both don’t hold much faith with Labour defence wise. Maybe they will.