Steel has been cut today on Warspite, the third of four new Dreadnought Class submarines, currently in build at BAE Systems’ Barrow-in-Furness site.

Warspite is the third of four Dreadnought Class ballistic missile submarines being designed and built by BAE Systems.

Due to enter service from the early 2030s, the boats will carry the UK’s nuclear deterrent and be the biggest, most powerful and technically advanced submarines ever delivered to the Royal Navy.

Construction of the first two boats, Dreadnought and Valiant, is already well underway.

An artists impression of the currently in-build Dreadnought.

Steve Timms, Managing Director of BAE Systems’ Submarines business, said:

“Today’s milestone is a really significant moment for the thousands of employees here at BAE Systems and across the submarines enterprise who are working together to deliver the Dreadnought Class. We are immensely proud of the role we play in delivering this truly national endeavour for the Royal Navy and our contribution to protecting national security.”

Attending today’s ceremony, Defence Procurement Minister Alex Chalk KC, said:

“Our nuclear deterrent protects every UK citizen from the most extreme threats, every minute of every day, and progress on the Dreadnought Class is crucial to maintaining our national security. This milestone is a significant step forward in the Dreadnought programme, supporting thousands of jobs and apprenticeships across the country, and protecting the UK and our allies for decades to come.”

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
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

99 COMMENTS

    • The X form tail is more complex and expensive to build but it reduces drag, is quieter and gives increased agility. They look cool too.

  3. The design looks great. I didn’t realise they were up to the third boat already. It’s a shame we couldn’t acquire an extra or see one of the four dreadnoughts turned into a cruise missile, drone, or special forces carrier. H I Sutton did a concept on the Vanguard class in this configuration. He made this in paint.

    • Third attempt at posting, this time without the link! (awaiting approval)

      MBDA

      NCM in details

      “During mission preparation, The flight profile of the missile (waypoint, altitude, speed etc) is optimized to make the NCM low observable (by making it fly low in valleys for example). It is typically prepared at headquarter level and then passed on to the frigate or submarine. But a dedicated workstation allows for mission preparation onboard the vessel too. Once the missile is launched however, it is not possible to update or change the flight path or the target.

      The NCM launch phase starts with the boost phase. The missile is fitted with two foldable wings (that sit on top of each other when folded). After the boost phase, the booster is jettisoned, the two wing and three rear fins deploy and the Microturbo turbojet engine kicks in. Unlike on the SCALP EG cruise missile where the air intake is fixed, the NCM air intake is retractable.

      While the air-launched SCALP EG is fitted with a dual warhead, NCM is fitted with a unitary warhead. The main fuselage is made of several plates of aluminium. The missile is 7 meters long, canister included. Regarding submarines, NCM is compatible with 21 inch NATO torpedo tube standard.

      All the sensors of the missile are fitted at the front: The IR seeker by Selex ES (looking down, behind a glass dome), the inertial reference unit, the radio altimeter and the GPS antenna. Both the FREMM and Barracuda will use the same identical missiles. The only difference resides in the launch tubes.”

          • Can fit Sylver VLS apparently which raises a few potential questions I guess. Also Is there any indication that this may be acquired and does it have any potential overlap with the Anglo-French Future Cruise/Anti-Ship which might account for the proposed optimistic time frame?

          • Found it! The Anglo-French Future Cruise/Anti-Ship missile is intended for surface fleets and air launch only, but I could be wrong.

            I have no idea if we intend to buy the MBDA NCM, but clearly an option.

    • If we got an extra one we could use 3 as SSBN and 2 as SSGN. We only need 4 so we have a spare.

      Given the dire need for any form of SSN the MOD should really look again at the proposal to life extend the Vanguards as an SSGN/Drone ship. Vanguard already had her reactor replaced which admittedly was not cheap but compared to the cost of a new submarine it was not expensive. Keeping those four Vanguards even as a strategic reserve would really increase the navy’s capability at a vital time to deter China and Russia might even allow us to lease an Astute or two to Australia and get them on to the SSN (R) program.

      • I mentioned somewhere else that Vengence should be repurposed and would be the better pick as a stopgap for the time being as a SSGN/Drone mothership. Sadly, I’m sure that is even stretching it for a cash strapped MOD.

  4. It is indeed good news that the 3rd of 4 has been laid down I just have reservations that the nuclear deterrent should have its own budget as at the moment it is taking up to a 1/3rd of the total defence budget, as was the case up until Mr Osborn decided to muddy the waters with defence spending lumping a lot of items that had there own funding streams into the defence budget just so he could cut defence spending in real terms but could still stand up in parliament and say we are spending 2%.

          • Mind you they are doing a review presently to decide whether March is presently up to the job of being so early in the year and if it should be moved back so that it can sit between July and August. All part of the UK innovation initiative to save costs apparently.

          • Read some speculative article which stated that the date was originally forecast to be March 7th, but may be postponed because the reviewers did not believe the correct conclusions had been drawn from Ukrainian conflict! ?!? Duh…Orcs bad, NATO good! Need more of…everything! Succinct executive summary, short enough even for politicians. 🙄

      • It’s not just the cost of the Dreadnought programme Sean, it also includes the AWE sites and all the work they do.
        It might not be 1\3rd of the budget, but it is substantially more than the figures you allude to. I admit I don’t know the exact figures, but the total costs do impnge on the defence budget. I’m in agreement with @SAR, the cost of building the Dreadnought class and the supporting AWE infrastructure should not be bourne from the MOD budget. Running costs, fair enough, but the rest, no. It’s not a RN asset as such, so, if the Mod needs to fund it, then they should receive some extra monies to do so.

        • The document I linked to does include AWE costs as well. Including these and all other nuclear related costs the figure rises to £6billion, 14%.

          Still less than half of the figure SAR invented.

          (BTW – I’d take nuclear out of the defence budget too, but under NATO rules, HMG is allowed to include it in the 2% spend.)

          • Fair play fella, especially as I didn’t look through your link!

            Like I say, I don’t mind if the whole lot sits within the mod budget or not, so long as there are extra funds to compensate if it does.

            Problem is the treasury won’t do that, so in reality the Mod budget is smaller because of it. Not the Navy’s fault, but you can see why the other services might be somewhat pissed by it.

          • MOD budget may be smaller but some other budgets will be bigger, the money/funding prior to it being merged must have been allocated from somewhere.

            Do France or US fund the nuclear deterrent from the respective defence budgets? Personally ive not looked into it but id be surprised if they have completely separate spending streams set up for them.

          • TBH James, I have absolutely no idea how France/USA fund there deterrent, you m ay well be correct in your assumption.

        • Good Morning Deep.
          Two things-” not a RN asset as such..”. Now here I must say that I agree with John Cleese in his famous inference in the use of the phrase” …not as such! ” What does it mean? Surely it is a Royal Navy asset or it is not? My gut feel says that it is clearly an RN asset semantics notwithstanding. The second thing-is it a Defence item? Absolutely!! So then it must come out of the Defence budget no matter what kind of linguistic acrobatics the men from the Ministry employ? Certainly if the UK chose not to build such submarines then the amount spent could be allocated to more ships or planes or whatever. Alternatively they could chose not to spend that money and the total spend on Defence would be reduced no matter how it was phrased!
          Excuse my verbosity 😉

          • Sorry…”the amount SAVED could be allocated…”. Also HMS His Majesty’s Ship Warspite complete with the White Ensign suggests it is a Royal Navy asset.

        • With all associated deterrent costs it’s about 1/3rd of the equipment budget which is around £20 billion a year. There is about another £30 billion a year spent on services mostly personnel and pension costs. This is an expensive decade for the procurement costs though and there is an £10 billion contingency that the MOD will have to pay back later. By the 2030’s annual costs will drop a lot.

      • The more bits of paper you rattle in the air the more you look like a government troll, 31 Billion is the estimated costs, so that just assume that the Dreadnought programme comes in on or around the estimate, that is 31 billion that could have been spent on conventional forces.

        As I said the Nuclear Deterrent should have it own budget stream completely outside the defence budget as was the case before Mr Osborn.

        • It’s convenient isn’t it, having someone posting the actual facts and showing everyone that you’re a liar.

          I’m no government troll, I doubt the government is even aware of the website. And I could reel off a long list of things I think the government has got wrong.
          No I’m just someone who is sick of liars, from dangerous conspiracy theorists to lazy types like you.

          It took me less than a minute to find the true costs of the nuclear deterrent, but you couldn’t be bothered to use Google, you just made up a quite frankly unbelievable figure and thought everyone one believe you’re obvious lies.

          As for overrun, well there’s a £10bn billion contingency for that – which you’d know if you’d bothered to lead the link I sent. That’s £667m per year, still way off your hilarious quote.

          This is the second time I’ve exposed your ludicrous lies. Do you think anyone is going to believe you’re future posts unless you can back them up?…

          • We as you are so up to date with the government official paperwork I would suggest you look in the rear-view mirror as the original estimates for the the new SSBN’s was 30 to 100 billion the 31 billion quoted by the government is for the build not for the equipment yet to be installed in the new boats or the upgraded missiles also to go into the new boats.

            Then there is also the matter of the Nuclear deterrent being paid for by the defence budget an not having its own budget as was the case prier to Mr Osborn.

            You seem to have a bit of a complex in that you have to go out on a limb to prove people who do not conform to your way of thinking as some kind of fool, well I still think you are a government troll or maybe just drunk on the power of your superior education or is it that you are just drunk maybe a bit of all 3.

          • You are obviously having a few problems in your life and seem to have a need to slag people off on public site like this .
            I have a thick skin you however seem to take any question of your integrity as a personal insult to your superior education.
            May be a better way would be to use you superior education in a positive and constructive way by proposing a way forward instead of ridiculing any and all alternatives.

          • You’ve been shown to invent statistics in your posts, repeatedly. You insult the both the host of this site, and everyone who contributes in these debates by fabricating facts to try and support your view.
            That you’ve been caught, so easily, on multiple occasions, shows that you’re not just a liar, but stupid too. 🤷🏻‍♂️

          • The only person who appears to be insulted is yourself and let us look at who are more comfortable with generating lies.

            Mr Putin, a highly educated person who lies to further his own agenda.
            Mr Johnson, a highly educated person who lies to further his own agenda.
            Mr Trump, a highly educated person who lies to further his own agenda.
            That is just the first 3 names that came to mind and you profess to be a highly educated person so what agenda are you pushing

            You say I’ve been caught out,! May be in your highly educated mind that dose not seem to be able to work outside of the box you seem to have put yourself into
            What say you Mr Government Troll man ?

          • So because other people; Putin, Trump, etc are habitual liars you think it’s ok to tell lies too…

            So far:
            • I’ve shown you’re a habitual liar because you post comments containing statistics that you invent and which I’ve shown – through providing links to authoritative sources – that you’re figures are not true.
            • You’ve shown yourself to be stupid by repeating to post fake facts and getting caught yet again. Actually according to Einstein he’d classify that as madness.
            • And now you’ve demonstrated that you have no conscience, believing it ok to be immoral because others are.

            Are you going to continue and expose further character defects?

          • So far what!!!
            You have shown nothing apart from the fact that you try to turn around what people say to try to make your self look good in front of your fans.

            “Authoritative Sources” you mean official government web sites well anouther official government web site is the National Audit Office (NAO) which stated at the beginning of the new SSBN saga that the actual cost for the program of 4 SSBN’s will come in at 30 to 100 Billion that is dependent of what type of equipment the boats carry and how many missiles they will carry. The build costs for the Boats is supposed to be 31 Billion at current prices but that is just the build costs is dose not include the upgraded missiles or the electronics’ that will go into the boats.

            I said on my original statement that It will cost “UPTO” a 1/3rd of the Defence budget, that is a worst case and the best case would be to come in at present costs but the MoD and the government in general has a bit of history of cost running over the HS2 comes to mind and the Ajax comes to mind.

            If you are really looking for character defects then you need to invest in a mirror and then sit down and take a good look at your self Mr Government Troll

          • You seem to have a problem in understanding, do you actually read the reply’s or just like gobbing off.

            I bet you do not get out much do you ? been filled in one to many time by squaddies that’s probably why you have a chip or 2 on your shoulder.

          • Why would I bother reading the postings of a proven liar?…

            But skimming through your latest diatribe is couple of new things have become obvious.
            • You have an inflated ego of yourself, thinking that that the government would bother to hire someone to refute your postings.
            • The homophobic slurs you throw are a classic example of latent repressed homosexuality, resulting in a self-loathing that you channel into insults. It’s 2022 Stevie boy, time for you to come out of the closet and embrace your gay identity.

          • This is becoming boring , you seem to be ranting about your self most of the time, you do not read, or cannot read a reply and then go off on a what can only be described as a drunken rant.
            You need to get a grip of your self and invest in that mirror.

          • Oh I see that last observation cut deep. Don’t worry, I won’t charge you for that psychological analysis.
            So are you going to come out of the closet now? You know deep down you’ll feel better about being honest about at least one thing in your life.

          • Then stop talking to yourself 🤷🏻‍♂️

            I know I got bored of you 3 days ago so I can relate, talking to yourself must be so much worse…

          • Oh I already have several lives with all the activities I do. Literally out every night… but while en route to different things I still have time to put the world to rights, and that includes outing liars 🤷🏻‍♂️

          • You really are a sad sack of s–t, I bet you have not set foot out side your house in years, as for liars you really need to get that mirror and take a good look as that mong looking back will be you.

          • You really are pathetic aren’t you? Because I point out you lie, you believe everything I post is a lie too.
            That attitude speaks volumes for your lack of character, and your attitude to the world. I suspect the image you’re projecting of me is probably a very accurate description of yourself… your self-loathing is pretty obvious.

          • Do your carers know you use their computer at nights, I understand now why you were not allowed to join up, Never mind you can ask them to get you some toy soldiers to play with.

          • It’s hilarious, all you have to do is stop posting lies and passing them off as facts. Do that, and I won’t embarrass you by pointing them out to everyone on here…
            But clearly your life is so empty you need to fuel a vendetta to give it meaning. You need to get out more, assuming you’re allowed out on your own…

          • The lies you make up about the defence budget, and the proportion that’s spent on the nuclear deterrent. As I have corrected you repeatedly about.

            Now I agree, spending on conventional forces should be increased. But the way to achieve that is not to invent statistics, that completely undermines the credibility of the case to increase spending. The actual facts are a sufficient argument.
            What you’re doing is hindering the cause of increasing the budget.

          • At last we seem to be making some sort of progress,
            The “lies” you refer to are based on NAO forecasts and if you would have actually read my artical I stated “up to” a 1/3rd could be spent on the Nuclear deterrent.
            With the current governments piss poor track record of budgetary matters like the HS2 which looks like it will be coming in at over 100billion just so people can save 20 minuets on the train to Manchester, and the Ajax program which the MoD has stopped publishing how much it will eventually cost you have to take the figures given out by the government with a pinch of salt.
            If this is a lie well then the whole system is one big lie.

          • • You stated 1/3 of the budget was on the nuclear deterrent.
            • HS2 is overly expensive but again you undermine the argument by saying it’s to save 20mins to Manchester. The primary reason for HS2 is the West Coast Mainline is running at capacity. Building the new line will free up rail capacity on this line, and for local services through the west coast and Wales. The primary reason why it’s over budget is that the company building it vastly underestimated the cost of acquiring property for the route.
            (And the 20min saving is to Birmingham not Machester 🤦🏻‍♂️)
            • Big public sector projects invariably run over budget because of their complexity. If you think the U.K. is bad you should read about Berlin’s Brandenburg airport or Boston’s “Big Dig”.
            • Ajax is a firm-priced contract, at £5.522bn
            https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Ajax-programme-Summary.pdf

          • It is indeed good news that the 3rd of 4 has been laid down I just have reservations that the nuclear deterrent should have its own budget as at the moment it is taking up to a 1/3rd of the total defence budget, as was the case up until Mr Osborn decided to muddy the waters with defence spending lumping a lot of items that had there own funding streams into the defence budget just so he could cut defence spending in real terms but could still stand up in parliament and say we are spending 2%

            Above is my original note, 3rd line down “Up to a 1/3rd”

            The HS2 is a fiasco from start to finish with the contractors running circles around the government, the 100Billion would have been better spent on improving the current rail infrastructure.

            Ajax, yes 5.5billion was the price but how long has this contract been going on for with just 7 vehicle delivered that are unusable due to vibration and noise problems, how much is it going to cost to 1, put right the vehicles that we are contracted to buy and 2 if we refuse to buy these vehicles how much is it going to cost getting out of this contract and then we will still have the problem and cost of finding a suitable vehicle to replace the Ajax programme.

          • I believe 12 Ajax variant vehicles have been delivered and that testing of solutions to noise and vibration began in October. But the project is years late, and the Army will have incurred costs from this, such as maintaining current old vehicles meant to be have been replaced.
            It’s difficult with regard to military projects.
            Is off-the-shelf good enough or is worth tweaking an existing solution, as happened with Ajax. The P51 Mustang fighter and Sherman tank were both American creations that were pretty mediocre… until the British replaced the engine in the Mustang with a Merlin, and replaced the Sherman’s pea-shooter with a quarter-pounder to create the Sherman Firefly. So sometimes it is worth the extra expense to create custom solutions.
            The U.K. isn’t contracted to buy any Ajaxes that are not fit for purpose. The current testing will determine if the problems have been fixed, though even if it’s the case, it will be years before it becomes operational…

            The suspicion is that to avoid cancellation before it had even begun, the contractors deliberately understated the cost of compulsory purchases. If that can be proven, then legal proceedings should be initiated. But more new rail-lines are needed, in addition to improving existing ones. Switching from ICE to electric vehicles won’t be sufficient, plus many people who can afford ICE vehicles won’t ever be able to afford electric. So demand on public transport is going to increase long-term.

            Osborne pulled a fast one by shifting CASD to the defence budget, but it’s allowed under NATO 2% rules. It was obviously a ruse to cut spending, but this was in the wake of the financial crisis which saw existential damage to the U.K. economy.
            However in the grand scheme of things, the money saved is a fraction of what the government spends every year. It also appears that the U.K. has been more concerned about cutting national debt more than other nations, as only Germany in the G7 has a lower debt to GDP ratio. So this saving on defence looks unnecessary even if Putin hadn’t kicked off.

            “Up to” is a meaningless caveat given the actual figure has been published, which is far less.

  5. Sleek. I always think, purely from an aesthetic perspective that having the bow planes on the hull rather than the conning tower looks much better. I’m sure there are better reasons than ‘it looks cool’.

    • Advantage: Faster helm response and easier to surface through Ice.
      Downside: More awkward port docking (until retractables rather than vertical folding were developed), room needed in the hull for the retracted planes and increased mechanical complexity, fair weather planes can steer X and Y without having to correct for altering the pitch of the nose which introduces Z plane movement.

    • That normally occurs after hull three, then any significant changes get backfitted at the earliest opportunity. Usually first docking or refit depending on what the changes are.

        • Can’t exactly remember why they don’t change things until after hull 3, something about consistency and building experience/costs if I recall correctly.

          Have to agree that with a small number might make more sense to wait until the end. Then again depends on what the changes are? Audacious had to have some significant changes from the first three Astutes which prolonged her build by an extra 8-10 months.

          • When building you often encounter issues that require alteration to the construction method/design/task order to fix. Cheaper to make those changes straight away on later boats than to keep using the problematic design/method and correcting later.

  9. Blimey ukdj, that’s a very old, heavily retouched header photo! That’s a ‘DOG’ class tug in the foreground, either ‘Spaniel’ or ‘Husky’, escorting a submarine through Rhu Narrows on the way to Faslane(not that submarine). They were both sold off back in about 2012 to a towage outfit somewhere in Africa I think. They were both ‘arrested’ in Newlyn in Cornwall on their way south for safety gear shortfalls but they ‘absconded’ in the dead of night, never to return.

    • Must admit when I do photoshop work of this nature the date of the base picture I might exploit as a background (apart from when crucial elements exist) doesn’t really enter the equation much when judging suitability. So it’s not necessarily any indication whether the actual mash up image itself might have been done last month, last year or somewhat earlier.

  12. At one stage not long ago just before the Trident replacement vote in parliament Nigel Farage Putin puppet and apologist was calling for the UK to abandon ballistic subs and replace them with land based Nuke Missiles I wonder who put that idea in his head .. RT news editor ? Galloway?

  13. Where is the steel being rolled to make this British boat? UK I hope. There use to be a plate mill in scunthorpe did you know.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here