Swiftsure-class submarine
HMS Spartan in 1993
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Swiftsure class |
| Builders: | Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd |
| Operators: |
 Royal Navy
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| Preceded by: | Churchill class |
| Succeeded by: | Trafalgar class |
| In commission: | 17 April 1973 – 10 December 2010 |
| Completed: | 6 |
| Retired: | 6 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Submarine |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 82.9 m (272 ft) |
| Beam: | 9.8 m (32 ft) |
| Draught: | 8.5 m (28 ft) |
| Installed power: | nuclear |
| Speed: | In excess of 28 knots (52 km/h) when dived |
| Range: | Unlimited (nuclear) |
| Complement: | 116 (13 officers) |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
Bow, flank, active intercept, and towed array sonar, periscopes (attack and search), collision avoidance radar |
| Armament: |
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The Swiftsure class was a class of nuclear-powered fleet submarines in service with the Royal Navy from the early 1970s until 2010.
Six boats were built and commissioned. Swiftsure was decommissioned in 1992 due to damage suffered to her pressure hull during trials. Splendid followed in 2004 after defence cuts caused a reduction in the size of the Royal Navy submarine fleet. Spartan was decommissioned in January 2006, with Sovereign following on 12 September 2006. Superb was decommissioned on 26 September 2008. The remaining boat in the class, Sceptre, was decommissioned in December 2010. They are being replaced by the Astute-class submarines.
A few were upgraded with the capability to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles in addition to their original armaments of torpedoes, mines and anti-ship missiles. They were also the first class of Royal Navy submarines to be built with shrouded pump-jet propulsors.
The Dreadnought, Valiant and Churchill classes all had a "whale-shaped hull", of "near-perfect streamlining giving maximum underwater efficiency". The hulls were of British design, "based on the pioneering work of the US Navy in Skipjack and Albacore." The hull of the Swiftsure class was a different shape and maintained its diameter for a much greater length than previous classes. Compared with the Valiants the Swiftsures were 13 ft (4.0 m) "shorter with a fuller form, with the fore-planes set further forward, with one less torpedo tube and with a deeper diving depth."
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Wikipedia