HMS Astute has returned to sea, marking the end of a 100-day period with no British attack submarines at sea, since HMS Triumph, the last such submarine, was operational.
Following its own 307-day maintenance and upgrade period, HMS Astute’s return signifies a crucial step in restoring the Royal Navy’s submarine operational capacity.
As HMS Astute begins to reenter service, it is likely undertaking a series of trials and necessary tasks to bring the crew and vessel up to full operational standards. This phase is critical for ensuring that both the submarine and its crew are adequately prepared for their duties after a significant period of downtime.
This period of inactivity highlights the Royal Navy’s challenges in maintaining its submarine fleet’s operational readiness due to a maintenance backlog. HMS Anson, another Astute-class submarine, completed its post-trials operations on April 20th and was the last of the Astute-class to be at sea prior to HMS Astute’s return.
Please note, readers, that the Vanguard fleet, carrying the Continuous At Sea Deterrent, continues to meet its obligations. The Astute-class submarines are particularly vital for intelligence operations and maintaining a strategic underwater presence.
According to the data, the inactivity is largely due to ongoing maintenance and refitting operations. Efforts are underway to resolve this through projects for new floating dry docks aimed at addressing the maintenance bottleneck.
A Royal Navy spokesperson added, “To maintain operational security, we do not comment on the details of submarine operations. The Royal Navy has delivered the UK’s continuous at sea deterrent without fail for the last 55 years. British waters are always fully protected with a range of assets including warships, patrol aircraft, and submarines.”
— Sheila Weir (@SheilaLWeir) October 7, 2024
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what an appalling statistics this makes mine, and doubt everybody else’s blood boil.
To be fair Anson could have, and probably still can, put to sea at any point. Also I suspect that there is not much wrong with many of the other Astutes. If push comes to shove I suspect many of them would put to sea and manage to fullfil thie primary role.
It would be good to see the dry dock back in working order and reducing the backlog of repairs – it’s annoying but my blood is not boiling just yet.
I agree, it’s unlikely there is anything wrong with most of the boats, better having them in dock and near home with Russia kicking off and lack of maintenance facilities. The US has identical issues at the moment.
Mind you as many claim it’s their exclusive job to actually sink surface ships rather than our own surface ships then it is rather important as many as possible actually are at sea, or at least ready to.
You are joking?
This was my thought, too. If Russia kicks off a surprise Northern Fleet operation of some kind, better to have the bulk of the submarines available to start new patrols.
Russia doesn’t have anything like the resources for such an operation.
Ita good news Astute is back at sea.
Hopefully a corner has been turned and submarine availability will continue to improve.
I’ll second that!
Cheers CR
So one attack boat is back at sea. 😠
Unlike some who will deplore the situation we are. I’m just going to say welcome back Astute and our political masters for 30 years of inept, incompetent dithering that led and her Sister boats without the proper facilities to keep you maintained. However I would also point out that perhaps the RN Admirals should have paid more attention to infrastructure than just political games with the other services together more ships things might have been better. I’ve looked at the timelines and irony of irony the uplift in infrastructure investment started off in TM’s period in office and we had… Read more »
Makes a lot of sense to buy up Inchgreen especially if we plan to greatly expand the SSN fleet and have the possibility for supporting more USN vessels.
Naval Drydocks that can handle SSN seem to cost billions to build now a days and an opportunity to buy up such a facility should not be overlooked.
It seems such a no brainer mate?
Inch green can’t take QEC the cill is too high.
As for nuclear – no chance. It isn’t certified. It is massive, which is actually an issue – you don’t want a massive dock for nuclear you want a snug fit. It has no segregated sump system – so no way of storing contaminated water is something went wrong. The dock probably isn’t watertight either way. There are no facilities and no workforce. Does it even still have pumps? I’ve no idea!!
Never say never, you have to start somewhere and be a Cando nation again. I think its probably an excellent idea.
Possibility of grant of nuclear surety waiver(s)? Probably not politically feasible during peacetime, but could become feasible upon commencement of hostilities. 🤔
Good one. And if the MOD ever reads all the contributors to the SDR and not just who’ve they’ve appointed they might find some gem comments from the UKDJ and take yours and others suggestions up.
I still have one concern the dry docks. Will they or are they designed capable to take the future SSN-AUKUS. My understanding is that the future SSN-As will be a much bigger boat.
Well if you are referring to the Floating docks they are to be capable of handling a Dreadnought and an SSN(A) isn’t going to be that big. If you mean Inchgreen it was built to be able to handle a US CVN, so yep plenty big enough. Floating docks have their advantages in that they can be moved, but quite where we can build them in the UK could be an issue. To me it makes more sense to re acquire assets that we the Tax payers funded in the 1st place and are capable of far more than sitting… Read more »
Never realized before that Inchgreen was designed to be able to accommodate a USN CVN. Some bloke down at the Admiralty must have been guilty of indulging in forward planning. 🤔😳😉
Remember as well the RN will be be getting a new SSN commissioned in 2025 and then another in 2026. So even with the maintenance backlog the RN will have a lot of more give to sort out the issues with the 2 new SSNs.
A whole submarine. Wow. It’ll probably be back in a week when the crew fall out with each other.😷
I want to know how we managed to have 2/4 docks under maintenance at once. That seems like it was always going to go wrong.
Maybe the point for those who think surface threats can be dealt with by our subs, allowing a tiny escort force, is that with such a tinier sub fleet that’s just wishful thinking. 7 subs means even 3 operational is pretty good & usually less probable. 0 available for so long really underlines our weakness.