Babcock has signed an initial contract with the Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA) for the comprehensive refit of HMS Victorious, the UK’s second Vanguard Class nuclear submarine.
This preliminary full-cost recovery agreement will be replaced by a full-term contract by year-end, allowing in-depth maintenance work to commence at Babcock’s Devonport facility.
HMS Victorious forms a crucial part of the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrent strategy. The upcoming refit programme is expected to sustain approximately 1,000 local jobs and further develop Babcock’s workforce for future submarine maintenance at Devonport.
Babcock’s CEO Nuclear, Dominic Kieran, highlighted the collaborative nature of the project with the SDA, saying, “The work we do to support the Vanguard Class fleet, a vital part of the UK’s defence, has never been more important.
The commercial framework we have agreed will ensure the retention of our skilled workforce, support future recruitment and enable us to focus on supporting the SDA in its drive to increase submarine availability.”
Similarly, SDA CEO Chris Gardner emphasised the strategic importance of the project. “The completion of HMS Victorious’ Deep Maintenance Period is vital to supporting Defence’s highest priority.
We look forward to working with Babcock to deliver the project on time to enable ongoing submarine availability and to continue to transform Devonport Naval Base into a Centre of Excellence for submarine deep maintenance,” he stated.
Cost: £15 billion for 4 units; £3.75 billion per unit
Built: 1986–1998
Something for Mad Vlad to contenplate.
“The boats are capable of deploying with a maximum of 192 independently targetable warheads, or MIRVs, with immediate readiness to fire.”
£15 billion in the 80’s was a lot of money, Dreadnaught is a bit of a bargain in comparison especially given it won’t need refuelling.
It certainly was and you can see, in retrospect, after swallowing that bill why the next generation of SSN was quietly shelved.
It was the wrong naval decision but that is an astronomical build cost. You couldn’t go on building subs at that cost base. It makes t look like a total bargain.
MOD procurement has got a lot better and the days when the nuclear deterrent was a bottomless pit are passing.
Back then the Treasury funded the nuclear deterrent; now it is 13% of the annual defence budget. No wonder we’re strapped for cash at every turn. We can thank Cameron and Osborne for that stroke of utter foolery!!!
But in all fairness MOD appears to have controlled costs downwards.
Totally SB, the MOD procurement process is an utter joke and only adds fuel to the fire, making the state of our Armed Forces even worse.
Rumour has it Sunak has no interest in defence but if he rolled the nuclear deterrent cost back into the Treasury, I could live with that for now. That would free up ~5-6Bn/yr or so, which would be welcomed wholeheartedly by the Armed Forces.
That might well be a good form if dressage to just return the budgets to states quo ante 2010….
Whilst we’re on the subject of budgets, Sunak very reluctantly gave Ben Wallace an extra 5Bn (over 2yrs mind) – less than half of what he was asking (11Bn). When you dig deeper – and not that much – 3Bn was for what??? – the nuclear deterrent and the remaining 2 to replace stocks given to Ukraine (even though we gave away far more than 2Bn in much less time than 2yrs). So none of the 5Bn actually impacts the defence budget in terms of new equipment, manning, housing, etc.,. The 2Bn only helps replace some of what the Armed… Read more »
The donated equipment should be covered separately under treasury rules.
Although this might be a Gordon Brown double announcement of the same money – one of his favourite tricks.
Every politician does ‘double announcements’ where possible, all those PR people like the recycling too- throw in an innovation hub reference, plus a visit to the newly ennobled ‘centre of excellence’
You missed out ‘cutting edge’…..
I’d like to see Cameron & Osborne investigated for Russian & Chinese links as they did so much to sabotage out forces, which every Tory cabinet has run with since. We know they courted Chinese investment & the Tories took Russian money.
Reminds me of “Whoops Apocalypse!”(1970’s satirical comedy about a Labour government applying for Warsaw Pact membership), but this time it’s the Tories rather than Labour selling out the country to our enemies.
Truth be told, these days there is no difference between Labour and the Tories when it comes to defence. The latter used to be known as the party of defence but they haven’t been for a long, long time. Both pay lip service only and won’t spend a single penny more than they can get away with.
Agree, defence is a non issue to either. Tax, pensions and NHS spending are the only issues.
The other side of the coin is MoD is terrible at spending the money they are given. Theres always the idea ‘waste’ doesnt matter as its ‘their’ money, and if not spent then say another service will get it next year
Wow I’ve read some nonsense on this site, but this is hilarious! Please give evidence before opening the mouth on your twisted face!
If you’ve been watching the concerns of those in the field over the last 20+ years it wouldn’t be any surprise. This recent BBC article on the parliamentary security commitee sumerises it well regarding China: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66189243 In fact it’s even worse than I thought according to their findings. Russian links to the Tories are very well documented over the last 30+ years. Bozo himself was paid simply to play tennis with a Russian admirer, but London has been a center for laundering dirty Russian money, encouraged by HMG, mostly Tory over that period but also Labour. Neither has done a… Read more »
How much is unleaded at the moment? 😂
Hi Nigel,
don’t wish to be a Party pooper mate, but, just like to point out that Mad Vlad has his own newer version to call on – Borei class, which no doubt also contain enough MIRV’s to decimate the world.
I wonder if it works as well as his other wonder weapons?
The Borei class themselves are pretty quiet SMs if the latest gen Russian SSGNs are anything to go by.
Not sure about the ICBMs they have though? Seem to remember them having some major problems with them a few years ago – Beluga missiles or something like that.
Given what we have been witnessing in UKR, it does make you wonder? Still, as they contain nuclear warheads, don’t think we would want to chance it!
Yes I recall a recent test launch of a RN trident was a disaster,100s of miles of course.
Yup!
Trident D5 remains the most reliable and accurate missile on the planet. It’s failure rate in testing is very low and far below the what the Russians have achieved.
Since the initial testing it has a 99% success rate.
Yes I am sure the UK would win a nuclear war.
Correction. No one wins a nuclear war. Tridents warheads would cause utter devastation even across a country as large as Russia. The UK is just one of NATO’S nuclear DETERRENT armed states.
We have a nuclear deterrent precisely because of individuals like Mad Vlad who can bluster and bombast as much as his pig eyed face likes. The reality is, we are armed, we stand ready and any nuclear deployment against NATO or the UK will be met with a similar response. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Your move punk.
What would Nato do if Russia used a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine?
Well said , keyboard warrior.
How often does the RN test fire a Trident missile . They dont seem to be 99% ‘adjacent’ as they have only test fired 5 since 2000.
remember the test firings that matter are the ones done from a Trident submarine, at sea and underwater.
Kursk?
Moskva?
I think in terms of recent disaster your joke military have much better recent form.
With regards a trident testified going hundreds of miles off course. Evidence please!
Also that is the purpose of test firing. To learn, improve accuracy and develop the system.
Hence, you can bet your Putin lovin derriere that Trident is now very accurate.
Borei class is still quite loud by western standards, for all Mad Vlad knows their is a Virginia, SeaWolf or Astute parked behind each one now. Trident D5 is specifically designed for a counter force strike against Russias land based weapons and their is probably three America and one British sub ready to deliver than in minutes 24/7. Russia may end up with very few weapons in the space of minutes if things kick off and the failure rate of Russian weapons may be very high, they are old and as we have seen his generals have pilfered everything along… Read more »
How do you know the acoustic signatures of nuclear submarines?
Because we do. Every time a Ruskfascist boat passes near a NATO SSN it’s acoustic signature is mapped, shared and remembered. No one on here, who is in the know, will disclose the details you want PutinBot as they are protected by the official secrets act.
Wow sir, a need to know basis eh,
All navies record and log the opposite numbers ships and subs! Come on my steel seller or whatever you said you did, it’s basic military drills to record such stuff to include comms chatter etc! Oh dear, you have no interest in the military you’re just here as one of the anti UK lip flappers! Very anti UK but not got the nads to inform other commenters on your own nationality.
Hi Jim,
‘Borei class is still loud by Western standards’ thats a bit of a relative term these days mate, given the advancements in noise reduction methods for SMs over the past few decades. As a very broad generalisation, things are considerably less noisy then they were in the 70’s onwards and have decreased every decade since.
Probably a conversation to be had in a pub over a pint, as opposed to a forum such as this, or any other come to think of it.
Indeed, so long as we don’t ever say, “If you do launch a strike at us, we’ll be very angy but will not retaliate” along the lines we(US+UK) said before Ukraine was invaded in 2022.
Russia seems free to escalate at will, unencumbered by those who are supposed to check them making credible threats.
👍It’s always good to have something as a useful deterrent.
It is argued, without nuclear weapons, the world would be a more dangerous place….whilst the war in Ukraine wages on. All seems to me is, the nuclear powers have free will to invade other countries and answer to no one (Russia Ukraine) (US UK Iraq) (China Taiwan next) etc.
US and UK certainly can invade other counties with no consequences primarily because they have moral authority granted to them from historic actions and they are democratic. If you tried to put sanctions on the US and UK you would find yourself like Iran or North Korea in 6 months, cut off from international financial system that is completely controlled by the US and UK. Also it was a much broader colaition that just UK and USA that invaded Iraq and they were backed by failure to comply with historic UN sanctions. Russia does not have this luxury as Ukraine… Read more »
Oh come on, Iraq was a Dick Cheney ego trip. Blair was the puppet.
Failure to comply with historic UN sanctions ? Thats up to the UN to decide and inspite of the big WMD roadshow by Colin Powell at the UN , they said no. The sanctions was a non issue by then and never a causus belli. the real reasons relate to support for those elderly Kings in Riyadh, always has.
Moral authority from past invasions, thats quite funny . Wasnt like that for the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion at Suez.
Trident D5 is more than a detterent, it’s primary role is as a long range precision strike system used for counterforce strike to remove Russian land based ICBM threat. If the US and UK actually wanted to launch a surprise strike on Russia and take out its nuclear weapons its entirely possible that they could do this between communications jamming, cyber attacks, trident strikes taking out land based ICBM before they can be fuelled (many are liquid fuelled) and western SSN’s taking out the two Russian SSBN’s normally at see, Russian bombers are easily intercepted by aircraft like F22 and… Read more »
Rather not take the risk thanks.
The massive amount of coordination and planning involved there is a high chance they could know before hand.
The liquid fuelled rockets can remain fuelled for years at time.
Also any of Russia’s subs can launch peer side.
If putin thought he was actually under attack he would be hitting that button like a madman on a quiz show.
Hmmm.I do not believe that a pre-emptive 1st strike to negate enough of Russia’s ICBM, IRBM, and SLBMs is possible. Enough would survive and respond, making it futile. That sounds so Ronald Reagan. MAD works both ways. On C4, I don’t believe TLAM and JASSM would harm much of their C4, which is deeply buried, possibly such as sites at Kosvinsky Mountain and Yamantau. The B2 no doubt could reach them to use a bunker buster, whether it would work and go deep enough we best not find out. They still also reportedly have the Dead Hand in operation, and… Read more »
really and all it takes is the strike to miss 1 single missile with MIRV and the UK ceases to exist.
Unfortunatly we have no way of stopping them once launched. Iraq 1 should show us that even high tech strikes and aircraft arent infallible
They also I believe have road based missiles that can move every day. We couldnt take out all the Scuds with the combined forces of the coalition with the gloves off.
Errrr, who else was going to get the contract
Nobody: as nobody else has the skills knowledge or facilities in the UK.
Rosyth did but was then put under the Defence Sword of Cuts ,SB
True but that was long ago?
What makes you say Rosyth did
Devonport did as well at the same time
And as regards the trident subs as far as i know the facility was never built at Rosyth so you would never have had the skills there in the first place
Thanks Barry, I was based up Rosyth late 80ts there was 1 polaris in refit whilst my Boat the Brecon was gearing up for Granby ,and the MOD, had just started enlarging the Bason too take on the V boats
Sorry i was wrong
No problem Barry, the MOD had plans scuppered when the Government of the day thought the cold War was done and dusted and then the cuts started I wish that I had got got a degree in Hindsight we wouldn’t be playing catch up now with less resources
I can do it with a few of my mates in the drive way. One is an ex mechanic. Learned his trade in prison. 😂😂😂😂
I was just thinking the other day could the U.K. help out the USA with sub maintenance as they have 37% of nuclear boats in or waiting for maintenance.
Short answer probably not. Long answer staff would be needed for Rosyth if it’s still up to date. Depends on the level of maintenance as well.
Victorious is the wrong name for a deterrence boat.
Yes it should be called HMS Fence
Nope, to make it harder it has to begin with a V.
HMS Vascectomy
HMS Virago , there has been one before – its a bad tempered woman
or something sweet
HMS Valentine
I would love to see phrases as ship names instead of a single word, so HMS Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold
How about the “Go on try it” Class ” Your be Sorry” Class or the less threatening “Is that the best you got” Class Simon
Vengeance etc but not a celebrity name
I believe Victorious is already in Babcock’s hands at HMNB Devonport, and as they are the one and only company with the facilities and capabilities required to complete the refit I would be somewhat surprised if they hadn’t got the contract!
Wonder if this will take 7 years of a 3 year refit to complete like Vanguard. Then return to service in a worse state than when she went in ?