Royal Navy: HMS Astute to undergo mid-life upgrade

The Royal Navy’s hunter-killer submarine, HMS Astute, has arrived in Devonport, where it will be handed over to the team at Babcock for its multi-million-pound mid-life re-validation period (MLRP).

Astute – and the entire A-boat class (five in service, No.6 HMS Agamemnon due to commission this autumn and HMS Achilles in the later stages of construction in Barrow) – are based on the Clyde.

Underlining the national endeavor supporting the entire submarine program, however, major maintenance and upgrade work is carried out at the facilities in Devonport, where refits of the Vanguard class of strategic deterrent boats are also carried out.

HMS Astute, the lead boat of its class, was laid down in January 2001, 100 years to the day after the keel was laid down for the Royal Navy’s first submarine Holland 1. The boat was launched in 2007 and commissioned in 2010. The Royal Navy declared HMS Astute to be fully operational in May 2014, some 13 years after being laid down.

As the first of its class, Astute has a string of firsts to its name: first A-boat to visit Australia (supporting HMS Queen Elizabeth’s carrier group deployment and the AUKUS partnership with Washington and Canberra); first A-boat through the Suez Canal; first A-boat to visit the USA (for extensive weapons/sonar trials).

At 97 meters long and weighing 7,400 tonnes, the Astute-class submarines are said to be the first nuclear-powered submarines to be designed entirely in a three-dimensional, computer-aided environment.

They can manufacture their own oxygen and fresh water from the ocean and are said to be able to circumnavigate the globe without surfacing. The submarines carry both Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles (TLAM) and Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes.

Five Astute-class submarines, Anson, Astute, Ambush, Artful, and Audacious, are already in service, while work is also well underway in Barrow on the sixth and the seventh unit.

The sixth vessel in this class, HMS Agamemnon, was formally launched at BAE Systems’ facility in Barrow last year.