The Royal Navy’s sixth Astute-class attack submarine, HMS Agamemnon, is in the final stages of commissioning and is expected to depart Barrow-in-Furness to begin sea trials by the end of 2026, the Ministry of Defence stated in a written answer to a parliamentary question.
Liberal Democrat MP James MacCleary had asked the Secretary of State for Defence when HMS Agamemnon was expected to be fully operational.
Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard replied: “HMS Agamemnon is in the final stages of commissioning, and we continue to work closely with industry partners to deliver the submarine by the end of 2026, at which point she is expected to depart Barrow and commence sea trials.” He continued: “For security reasons, we do not disclose specific timelines for full operational capability, which will be dependent on the successful completion of these trials.”
The reluctance to set out a date for full operational capability is consistent with longstanding MoD practice on the submarine fleet. The dates at which individual boats achieve operational status, the work-up patterns that precede them and the patrol patterns that follow are treated as classified information across the Royal Navy’s underwater enterprise.
Pollard’s answer confirms only the broad sequencing from commissioning through departure to sea trials, leaving the period between trials and front-line tasking unstated.
HMS Agamemnon is the sixth of seven Astute class submarines being built by BAE Systems at Barrow-in-Furness for the Royal Navy. The class, designed and built to replace the Trafalgar class boats, provides the Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine capability and is configured to carry Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. The first five boats, HMS Astute, HMS Ambush, HMS Artful, HMS Audacious and HMS Anson, are now in service, with HMS Achilles, the seventh and final boat of the class, in build behind HMS Agamemnon.
HMS Agamemnon was launched at Barrow in October 2024. The boat’s transition from build through commissioning to sea trials will, on the timeline set out in Pollard’s answer, see it leave the Devonshire Dock Hall by the end of 2026 to begin the long process of trials and work-up that traditionally precedes acceptance into front-line service. For previous boats of the class that process has taken several years.
The Astute class, alongside the four Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines, constitutes the totality of the Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine force. The boats operate from HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane, alongside the Vanguard force, and are tasked across roles ranging from the protection of the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent to intelligence collection, strike operations and maritime interdiction.
“In service”? Yeah right….
She was originally due to depart Barrow and commence sea trials etc at the end of March, and ready to join the fleet early 27. So she will be approx 1 year late when she does join the fleet.
Of course, much will depend on how all the trials and work up goes, perhaps time can be saved between the different stages of her trials/work up package given that this is a fairly extensive and known period of time.
Did the fire at Barrow delay things?
Thats always a possibility, but dont believe so.
AFAIK HMS Agamemnon wasn’t affected by the Fire, Ajax/Agincourt/Achilles or whatever it’s called today was seriously damaged ( allegedly).
Let’s be honest. These subs are ***currently*** an utter waste of resources. They are all endlessly stuck in port waiting for maintenance. If something does happen they will be immediately destroyed.
Is the problem with the ship design. If so stop building them.
Is the problem with maco of repair facilities. If so, stop build subs until the problem is rectified.
Is the problem with a lack of sailors? Stop building them and until that is resolved.
It seems we are endlessly planning and building something that doesn’t provide an adequate return on the portion of the defence budget.
The problem is lack of maintenance facilities not the subs which hopefully will be solved by project Euston but not for several years. The build of the boats is so slow they couldn’t really stop anymore than they already have , the 6th and 7th boats are far to complete to stop even if you wanted too.
If you stop building them, it’s incredibly tough to start again.
So, you propose that, instead of having completed submarines waiting for crew/maintainance, we cease work and leave them sitting in the building halls partially complete, while continuing to pay for the expertise and skilled workers needed to construct them?
What precisely is that intended to achieve? Why on earth would we wait to ensure that we have another full crew complement before constructing the submarine? If push comes to shove in a time of war, we can train people up – we cannot build more subs in that timeframe.
Why are we developing SSN AUKUS when Astute is still (one of) the best SSNs out there? I know RR are no longer making the reactor for Astute and are working on the reactor for SSNA, but so often the UK designs something decent and then has a very short production run that doesn’t maximise economies of scale or allow lessons learnt on batch 1 systems to be applied on a batch 2 and 3. (I post from a taxpayer perspective with no military background)
One of the reasons the Astute program has had so much issues was the gap in design and production from the last class, so keeping the design and manufacturing teams busy.
Astute is by many accounts a nightmare to work with. PWR2 is also suspicious.
Hear Say but the Crews are not keen on them either,much prefer the Trafalgars.
Given how little sea time the crews are getting it’s not hard to see why they don’t like the boats. All of them are back alongside again and who knows when one of them will be operational again.
The proposed AUKUS has a couple of advantages over Astute including a vertical launch system for cruise missiles and an improved reactor.
One of the big advantages of the reactor will be the ability to power itself while in port which will reduce the dependence on port infrastructure.
How old do you think HMS Astute is? She was commissioned in 2010, thats 16 years ago. The AUKUS program looks at the moment it could be a nice replacement timeline for HMS Astute. The absolute last thing you want to do is stop or delay the build schedule. You don’t need to look far to see the results of what happens when you introduce long gaps in submarine orders/building.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. What I was advocating for was to continue building Astute class. The SDR mentioned ‘up to 12’ SSNAs, If we carried on building Astutes new boats would be ready when HMS Astute needs to be retired. So I suppose the key question is whether SSN Aukus is so much of an improvement it justifies the expense of developing something new rather than we just carry on with the Astute production line with incremental improvements in the next batch. I know this is theoretical at this stage, but it just seems to be a principle of Navy procurement that we have something that works but then stop building it.
The Astute production is at an end… it can’t be restarted as the Dreadnaught’s are now started to progress. The Astutes were designed round the reactor designed by Rolls Royce… its now finished/obsolete/out of production and replaced by the PW3 reactor design, so to restart the Astutes you would need to redesign them for the new reactor…so basically a new sub design utilising technology that’s maybe superseded by several generations…. I would not want to send submariners out to sea in a sub that you could not guarantee that was at the front of the pack in terms of lethality and stealth.. AUKUS is the next generation, hopefully arriving on time and in sufficient numbers to make a difference.
“Commissioned” nearly a year ago and never been to sea, even on trials. That effectively summarizes the state of the smoke and mirrors Royal Navy.
Shocking
None are at sea and are all tied up either with on going planned maintenance or unable to get into the only dry docks available for them cos they are occupied by the rest of the SSN class
No one in Government seems to give a toss and no one in the RN hierarchy does either because this should be shouted from the rooftops and someone should be accountable. The Government and MOD takes us for fools!
The way things are going, by the time Agamemnon is fully operational (end 2027?) she will be in need of a docking period and will then be stuck alongside at Faslane or Devonport for two+ years waiting for this to begin!
As for Achilles, she officially was “just” damaged by smoke during the DDH fire on 30 October 2024. But repair work has apparently been delayed by the need to prioritise Dreadnought given the state of the Vanguard’s. Assuming that she is finally rolled out late 2027, she should become operational in 2030. Given that Barrow has just one submarine fitting out and commissioning berth, in the event of any further delays there is a worse case scenario of the construction of Achilles being suspended to make way for one or more Dreadnought’s, possibly never to resume as AUKUS ramps up.
Achillies will come out, eventually, personally believe that she won’t come out until late 29, not be operational until late 31, possibly early 32. Thats just my guess, we may even see Dreadnought out before.her, depending on how the stars align I imagine.
This submarine availability farce makes it incredibly difficult to go cap in hand to the government and demand a military budget increase. The current government has many different spending priorities so the military, MOD and RN need to get the boats back at sea and demonstrate what they are capable of.
One positive with these subs being laid up is that there should be a couple of crews available for Agemenon ready to go!
*Agamemnon