Faslane welcomes Astute, the first of her kind

The massive attack submarine, Astute, 97 metres from bow to stern has completed its maiden voyage and first sea trials with its arrival at Faslane in Argyll’s Clydeside earlier today.

Astute is the first of this powerful type of submarine to be built. She has, as is the tradition, given her name to her class – which is to replace the ageing Trafalgar class. She is to be followed by three sister ships – Ambush, Artful and Audacious (with a planned eventual fleet of seven).

It is to be hoped that project management delivers them to date and to budget. Astute is 4 years overdue and has come in way over her contract price at no less than £1 billion. The other three of this first tranche will hit the same cost level.

A £150m floating jetty, two football pitches long, was installed at Faslane in May this year to provide berths for the Astutes and that too has run into trouble.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has recently been formally criticised for shambolic procurement and contract management procedures and the case of this first Astute is a an example of the foundation for such serious concerns.

Astute will not be carrying nuclear weapons but will be armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles and Spearfish torpedoes.

Her nuclear power unit will never need to be refuelled and she is capable of a full underwater circumnavigation  of the earth in 12 weeks without the need to surface. She can create oxygen and drinking water from sea water.

She can do over 25 knots without making more noise than a baby dolphin and carrying a crew of 98.

Her classified sonar would enable her to lie in the English Channel and detect ships 3,000 miles away, leaving New York harbour.

This is an awesome ship and her long awaited arrival at Faslane has caused a lot of excitement. She is now to spend the next year or so on further sea trials before being commissioned into the Royal Navy in 2010.

The Astutes are not, however, the biggest submarines.

The Vanguard class submarines carring the Trident nuclear warheads are 149 metres long to the Astutes’ 97 metres. They displace 15,980 tonnes as against the Astutes’ 7,800. They have a crew of 141 where the Astutes have 98. But there are 4 Vanguards where 7 Astutes are planned.

Astute’s arrival at Faslane coincides with a Scottish Government report that closing the Trident-armed submarine base at Faslane should be part of Scotland’s  contribution to worldwide nuclear disarmament.

There is  significant concern in Argyll at the economic impact of any closure of Faslane. This concern is understandably at its strongest in Helensburgh, the biggest by far of Argyll’s towns and dependent for its economy on the nearby MoD establishments at Faslane and Coulport.

There can be no doubt that Trident should be axed. It is an expensively outdated concept and its combination of nuclear power units and nuclear warheads – which have to be loaded at the start of each patrol, unloaded afterwards, stored and sent to AWE Burghfield in Berkshire for ‘servicing’ carries far too many serious environmental hazards.

However, the Astutes could provide the compromise to keep Faslane in business. There will be seven of them. They carry no nuclear weapons. Their nuclear power units need no refuelling – theoretically they could spend their entire service life underwater – so there will not be spent fuel to be disposed of. They have a key role to play in surveillance and intelligence gathering and, ofcourse, they can deliver cruise missiles in a land attack situation.

It is not impossible that the Astutes would be acceptable in a cross-party anti-nuclear Scotland, keeping the key strategic base of Faslane open in a scenario where the Trident system was axed.