First Astute Class Submarine sailed today

[S7Paul]

For anyone that may be interested, the first of the Astute Class submarines left Barrow in Furness earlier today, en route to Faslane for Sea Trials.

Local newspaper article here:

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/home/astute_leaves_barrow...

Some photos already up on the web:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbb/sets/721576226...

http://s954.photobucket.com/albums/ae21/cfeddie/As...

[Defcon5]

Look good. Are they capable of turning Moscow into a pile of rubble?

[shouldbworking]

Defcon5 said:

Look good. Are they capable of turning Moscow into a pile of rubble?

Nope, they'll leave that to the vanguard class

[dr_gn]

Fantastic!

Did some work on a couple of pressure hull components for that. Seems like a hell of a long time ago though, must have been about 2003.

[Defcon5]

Are these there to sink ships and other subs then?

[Oily Nails]

Defcon5 said:

Are these there to sink ships and other subs then?

Yup, Hunter/Killer Attack Boats. Designed to find, track and destroy the enemy.

Theoretically their primary (day to day) mission is to keep tabs on other countries Submersible vessels which have the capability to launch long range attacks (Cruise/Ballistic/Nuclear Missiles) against shore targets (i.e. the UK).

In the Cold-war that meant finding and tailing Soviet Ballistic Missile Submarines like the Typhoon class, and I guess that is still basically the case ( especially since the Ruskies are back on the Bloc these days )

[ErnestM]

IIRC Astute carry Tomahawks so they have some land attack capability. That's a nice looking boat.

[S7Paul]

Spearfish for seaborne targets, Tomahawk for land based targets, plus various countermeasures, surveillance and other (more classified) capability.

[B1G GK]

Still cant beat the old Diesel Electrics sneaking round on folk, no point being all soooper doooper if you prime to be spotted

[Defcon5]

S7Paul said:

and other (more classified) capability.

Care to speculate on what?

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

Defcon5 said:

Care to speculate on what?

Sub Harpoon.

Passive Towed Array.

[dr_gn]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Defcon5 said:

Care to speculate on what?

Sub Harpoon.

Passive Towed Array.

Hardly classified: they're listed as being features of Astute on Wikipedia and/or the Royal Navy website...

[Papoo]

dr_gn said:

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Defcon5 said:

Care to speculate on what?

Sub Harpoon.

Passive Towed Array.

Hardly classified: they're listed as being features of Astute on Wikipedia and/or the Royal Navy website...

My thoughts exactly. Passive towed array sonar is not exactltly classified and/or new technology. Our subs have carried them for donkeys. Same for sub harpoon.

[anonymous-user]

It might have an SF delivery capability I suppose........

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

Papoo said:

Hardly classified: they're listed as being features of Astute on Wikipedia and/or the Royal Navy website...

Thanks for your 'sarcasm' - it does you SO proud.

I take it you are an expert in sub ops?

I probably should have posted extended range sub harpoon and improved passive arrays.

Firstly the increase in littoral ops has meant that, despite the lack of a diesel sub replacement for the 'O' boats, where a diesel sub is better placed than a nuclear boat, nuc's are forced to work inshore where a longer range land attack missile becomes of benefit.


Secondly I am guessing you have neither been a submariner nor sub hunter.

Subs with towed arrays, or, indeed, 'Tail Ships' (such as certain Type 22s and Type 23s) have been historically been good at broadband tracking but poor at 'fixing' a target. The upshot being they could get a target bearing but not a 'fix', hence the 'Air-Sub' or 'Air-Tail ship' tactics.

Indeed, from an air point of view the NATO systems have historically concentrated on 'noisy' Soviet boats - the best systems being the passive 'BARRA' buoy (Australian) or CAMBS buoy (UK) in its passive role which far out-performed the (US) DIFAR buoy.

Whereas the Soviets, because they were forced to hunt quiet targets such as the RN T boats or US 688 boats were much better at narrowband tracking.

I am guessing that any towed array fitted to the Astute class subs will have taken advantage of these 'improvements'.

Edited by Ginetta G15 Girl on Wednesday 18th November 02:52

[Mr.Jimbo]

Any pictures? or has it been too far down for any yet?

Edited by Mr.Jimbo on Wednesday 18th November 03:11

[dr_gn]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Papoo said:

Hardly classified: they're listed as being features of Astute on Wikipedia and/or the Royal Navy website...

Thanks for your 'sarcasm' - it does you SO proud.

I take it you are an expert in sub ops?

I probably should have posted extended range sub harpoon and improved passive arrays.

If you look at any literature or website on Astute, you'll see that, unsurprisingly, virtually every *SPECIFIED* part of the weapons or sensor systems are either "new", "advanced" "evolved", "upgraded" or "uprated".

The question, I believe, was asking what un-specified systems were fitted.

[Papoo]

Ginetta G15 Girl said:

Papoo said:

Hardly classified: they're listed as being features of Astute on Wikipedia and/or the Royal Navy website...

Thanks for your 'sarcasm' - it does you SO proud.

I take it you are an expert in sub ops?

I probably should have posted extended range sub harpoon and improved passive arrays.

Firstly the increase in littoral ops has meant that, despite the lack of a diesel sub replacement for the 'O' boats, where a diesel sub is better placed than a nuclear boat, nuc's are forced to work inshore where a longer range land attack missile becomes of benefit.


Secondly I am guessing you have neither been a submariner nor sub hunter.

Subs with towed arrays, or, indeed, 'Tail Ships' (such as certain Type 22s and Type 23s) have been historically been good at broadband tracking but poor at 'fixing' a target. The upshot being they could get a target bearing but not a 'fix', hence the 'Air-Sub' or 'Air-Tail ship' tactics.

Indeed, from an air point of view the NATO systems have historically concentrated on 'noisy' Soviet boats - the best systems being the passive 'BARRA' buoy (Australian) or CAMBS buoy (UK) in its passive role which far out-performed the (US) DIFAR buoy.

Whereas the Soviets, because they were forced to hunt quiet targets such as the RN T boats or US 688 boats were much better at narrowband tracking.

I am guessing that any towed array fitted to the Astute class subs will have taken advantage of these 'improvements'.

I think 20+ years as an Officer in the RN qualifies me as reasonably 'astute' (see what I did there?) with submarine operations. Not to mention 12 of those specifically as a sub hunter, but thank you kindly for your concern.

Basically, it's exactly the same but new and improved. Well done for pointing that out. We'd have had a really hard time guessing that would be the case.

Don't take my word for it, yours is gospel, Sweetcheeks.

ETA; Ginetta, if you look really closely, you'll notice (hopefully) one or two (out of a maximum of two) things:
1) When you quoted me, I didn't say that.
2) There is no sarcasm in my previous message. Nor in the message posted by the chap you decided to quote.

Carry on.

Edited by Papoo on Wednesday 18th November 22:26

[Mr_B]

So for the £1.2bn cost, have we got the very best, no comprimise, world class most kick arse sub out there ?

[SMAK]

So for the £1.2bn cost, have we got the very best, no comprimise, world class most kick arse sub out there ?



Probably , well mayby , well they should work , well at least until the next round of defence cuts , then we sell them to the Canadians for a couple of $$$ to keep our old U boats company. :-(