Tag Archives: Astute

Over budget attack submarine HMS Astute now not due into service for at least another year

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We reported recently on the steep rise above budget of the production costs of the Astute class submarines, forcing the MOD to consider its options on a further four of the ships in addition to the three already commissioned. The contractor, BAE Systems, is, however, not only over budget but behind time.

HMS Astute had been due to enter service at Faslane in Argyll late this summer. She has been undergoing initial sea trials which have included a dive and simulated weapons testing. After this she has been lifted back into BAE Systems’ Devonshire Dock Hall at Barrow-in-Furness where she will be completed. She is now slated to enter service in 2009 but this timescale may not hold, with the demands of final sea trials.

The Astute class will not carry nuclear warheads but will have a much greater firepower than previous attack submarines, firing 38 Tomahawk cruise missiles and Spearfish torpedoes. They won’t have the traditional periscopes but will have thermal imaging and low light cameras on the conning towers. They have the capacity to remain submerged for 25 years, the life of their nuclear reactors, and with their unique life support system converting seawater into oxygen and drinking water. But it’s not just about power, air and water. Astutes will need to surface every three months to renew food supplies – but in this time their silent running propulsion units (undetectable by radar) can take them around the world.

HMS Exeter mothballed in cost cuts as BAE’s costs for first Astute subs for Faslane rise to £3.8 billion

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HMS Exeter in the Thames in London. Public domain image The Royal Navy is taking HMS Exeter out of service. This will save money in fuel and maintenance and will free trained crew for duties elsewhere. The Type 42 – or Sheffield class – destroyer will be placed in ‘extended readiness’ a year before her replacement, the type 45 destroyer HMS Daring, comes into full service. Daring – as we reported earlier, is currently engaged in extensive final sea trials.

This action means that of the fleet’s 24 active destroyers and frigates, including HMS Argyll, five are now in states of operational readiness classified as ‘low’ or ‘very low’. It takes from 6 – 18 months to get a ship in a ‘very low’ state of readiness prepared for combat.

At the same time, the cost of the first three Astute class attack submarine submarines built or under construction at the BAE Systems yard at Barrow-in-Furness and to be based at Faslane in Argyll, has leapt to £3.8 billion – from costs agreed in 2002 at £750 million per ship, a total of £2.25 billion. The current cost commitment has led to an internal review at the Ministry of Defence (MOD), now considering its options for four more of the subs. Since – to cover a £2 billion funding gap in the next three years, the Treasury had already imposed a reduction on the orders for the Astute class from the originally proposed 12 to 7, there are concerns in the service that the fleet will be left severely overstretched in attempting to defend the UK’s shipping lanes and in normal escort work.

The House of Commons’ Defence Committee has announced that it is shortly to begin an enquiry into military readiness.

The photograph above – of HMS Exeter in the Thames at Limehouse in London – is in the Public Domain.