I'm a former submariner – here's what you need to know about Britain's new nuclear fleet

Independent

5 days ago

During the Cold War and for a short time following the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the United Kingdom had a fleet of submarines: the Strategic Deterrent, the Hunter Killer Fleet boats and the Diesel Submarine Flotillas.
We could justly say that we could act – independently and with our allies – across the world and in any theatre of war.
Yet post Cold War, political decisions were made on the assumption that we no longer needed such capable forces; the peace had been won.
We lost all the diesel submarines with one sweep of the political pen; we reduced the number of SSNs from a combine force of 13 Swiftsure and Trafalgar Class, replacing them with highly effective but limited numbers of the Astute Class, seven in total; we whittled down the shore support that would keep the boats we had at sea for longer. We stopped investing in the shore facilities that would support our submarines and provide a decent home for our submariners.
Numbers matter – it is a stark and irrefutable fact. From early in the last decade, it has become self evident that there is a resurgent Russia. The military has known this for a considerable amount of time and submariners never believed the Cold War had stopped.
Unfortunately, most politicians have felt it unpalatable to accept the truth of the in-house briefings and the obvious facts. In reality, we have needed to make significant steps towards re-arming and increasing our fleet capability for a decade or more.
This week's announcement, therefore, that there is intent to procure 12 replacement SSNs for the Astute class is a very welcome political acknowledgement of a military reality – and may, in time, bring us back somewhere towards where we need to be to fulfil our standing obligations nationally, internationally and reactively.
Increases in capability are important – they keep you at the cutting edge of war fighting and able to stand up in the most challenging of arenas – but so are raw numbers. You can have the most capable ship in the world, but if you only have one, it is vulnerable, either to mechanical failure or to enemy action. Only with numbers do you have some sort of tactical resilience and the ability to show that you can project maritime power and influence beyond your own borders.
Over the past few years, the Royal Navy has suffered from a well-publicised lack of available Astute Class. While the reasons for this are complicated, a large part of it is the sparing strategy adopted by the MoD. Without a decent cache of spares, a routine mechanical issue becomes an operational showstopper.
A flotilla of seven SSNs provides some (but arguably nowhere near enough) strategic resilience to respond to international maritime demands. Once you remove a submarine within a long maintenance period, two within short maintenance periods, two on operational stand down periods and one with a short term defect, you very quickly run out altogether.
The permanent operational demands of having a submarine ready to protect home waters – plus one ready to deploy to protect longer distance interests and one potentially supporting carrier group operations or Nato exercises – balanced against the above availability, means there is no surge capacity or room for contingent operations.
What this new announcement must not become is a short-term political statement that fails to materialise through budgetary constraints. To give our fleet the tools to do the job to defend our nation, we must have at least 12 Hunter Killer submarines. A further discussion could then be had about strengthening our Strategic Deterrent Flotilla and the rest of the maritime, land and air defence offering.
The sledgehammer of Putin's military stance has finally cracked the UK's political nut. Let us hope that we turn this intent into a reality, sign the contracts and start the process that will re-grow our defensive capability into something that will properly deter and protect our nation from an increasingly risky maritime environment.