HMS Sceptre (S104)
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom
|
|
| Name: | HMS Sceptre |
| Operator: | Royal Navy |
| Ordered: | 1 November 1971 |
| Builder: | Vickers |
| Laid down: | 19 February 1974 |
| Launched: | 20 November 1976 |
| Sponsored by: | Lady Audrey White |
| Commissioned: | 14 February 1978 |
| Decommissioned: | 10 December 2010 at Devonport |
| Homeport: | Faslane |
| Motto: | Honour With Authority |
| Status: | Decommissioned |
| Badge: |  |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Swiftsure-class submarine |
| Displacement: | 4,900 tonnes (dived) |
| Length: | 82.9 metres |
| Beam: | 9.8 metres |
| Draught: | 8.5 metres |
| Propulsion: | One Rolls-Royce pressurised water nuclear reactor (PWR1) |
| Speed: | In excess of 20 knots, dived |
| Complement: | 116 officers and men |
| Armament: |
|
The fifth HMS Sceptre is a Swiftsure-class submarine built by Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness. She was launched in 1976, with a bottle of cider against her hull. She was commissioned on 14 February 1978, by Lady Audrey White. She was the tenth nuclear fleet submarine to enter service with the Royal Navy. She was decommissioned on 10 December 2010, at which time she was the oldest commissioned vessel in the Royal Navy still available for service. In theory she is replaced by the first Astute-class submarine in service, HMS Astute.
Sceptre has suffered several severe accidents in her career. On 23 May 1981 she collided with a Russian submarine (K-211) and her reactor's protection systems would have performed an automatic emergency shutdown (scrammed the reactor), but her captain ordered the safety mechanisms overridden (battleshort enabled). The crew were told to say that they had hit an iceberg. Much of Sceptre's forward outer casing was torn away; there was damage to the fin with the bridge no longer there; and the propeller of the Russian boat had cut into the pressure hull. This incident was disclosed when David Forghan, Sceptre's former weapons officer, gave a television interview which was broadcast on 19 September 1991. The Soviet submarine collided with was K-211 of the Delta-III class, which on 23 May 1981 collided with an unknown submarine, identified at the time as an unknown Sturgeon-class American submarine.
In 1987 Sceptre was fitted with an improved reactor core (Core Z). In March 1990, there was a coolant leak while Sceptre was at Devonport. On 20 October 1991, there was a fire onboard while the boat was moored at Faslane. In August 1995 Sceptre was forced to abort her patrol and return to Faslane after suffering, in the words of the Ministry of Defence, "an unspecified fault in the propulsion system." A defect in Sceptre's reactor was discovered in 1998, though its seriousness was not appreciated until after the investigation of another serious accident.
...
Wikipedia