HMS Artful, one of the new nuclear attack submarines destined for the Royal Navy, has started her sea trials stated the BAE Systems Submarines, on Aug 13.
The class sets a new standard for the Royal Navy in terms of weapons load, communication facilities and stealth. The boats are being constructed by BAE Systems Maritime – Submarines at Barrow-in-Furness Seven boats will be constructed. The first of class, Astute, was launched in 2007 and commissioned in 2010, and the second, Ambush, was launched on 6 January 2011, and commissioned on 1 March 2013. Astute was declared fully operational in May 2014, while both she and Ambush have sailed for their maiden deployments.
HMS artful slowly emerged from the Shadow of the docks at BAE's Barrow-in-furness for it's first sea trials before it joins her sister ships Astute and Ambush for deployments. The Astute class submarines are armed with Tomahawk missiles and spearfish torpedoes are bound to replace the old Traflagar class and Swiftsure class submarines in service with the Royal Navy.
HMS Audacious is the next submarine set to be completed at the BAE yard, which is also gearing up to build Britain’s next generation of ballistic missile submarines, with the first metal cut planned for 2016. BAE expects to launch Audacious in the fourth quarter of 2016 and the submarine is scheduled to exit the yard the following year.
Some aspects of the later Astute-class submarines will be
different from boats 1-3 mostly related to the combat system—primarily the command, navigation and sonar systems.Audacious is the first Royal Navy submarine to use a shared computer environment for the different systems, common consoles and cabinets, and commercial "off-the-shelf" hardware and software, to reduce costs and improve maintainability. These changes have been back-fitted to boat 3, Artful; the eventual aim is to back-fit the "Common Combat System" to Astute and Ambush, and progressively to the rest of the Royal Navy submarine fleet.
HMS artful slowly emerged from the Shadow of the docks at BAE's Barrow-in-furness for it's first sea trials before it joins her sister ships Astute and Ambush for deployments. The Astute class submarines are armed with Tomahawk missiles and spearfish torpedoes are bound to replace the old Traflagar class and Swiftsure class submarines in service with the Royal Navy.
HMS Audacious is the next submarine set to be completed at the BAE yard, which is also gearing up to build Britain’s next generation of ballistic missile submarines, with the first metal cut planned for 2016. BAE expects to launch Audacious in the fourth quarter of 2016 and the submarine is scheduled to exit the yard the following year.
Some aspects of the later Astute-class submarines will be
different from boats 1-3 mostly related to the combat system—primarily the command, navigation and sonar systems.Audacious is the first Royal Navy submarine to use a shared computer environment for the different systems, common consoles and cabinets, and commercial "off-the-shelf" hardware and software, to reduce costs and improve maintainability. These changes have been back-fitted to boat 3, Artful; the eventual aim is to back-fit the "Common Combat System" to Astute and Ambush, and progressively to the rest of the Royal Navy submarine fleet.