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. followed in 2004 after defence cuts caused a reduction in the size of the Royal Navy submarine fleet. was decommissioned in January 2006, with following on 12 September 2006. was decommissioned on 26 September 2008. The remaining boat in the class, , was decommissioned in December 2010. The six boats of the class were not replaced, although the seven boats of the successor Trafalgar-class submarines are in the process of being replaced by seven boats of 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 hull of the Swiftsure class was a different shape and maintained its diameter for a much greater length than previous classes. "shorter with a fuller form, with the fore-planes set further forward, with one less torpedo tube and with a deeper diving depth." It is not clear why was the only one of the class not fitted with a propulsor.
|-valign=top
| | S126
| | Swiftsure
|rowspan="6" align="center" | Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering, Barrow-in-Furness.
| | 3 November 1967 (equivalent to £ million in )
|-valign=top
| | S108
| | Sovereign
| | 16 May 1969
| | 11 July 1974
| | £58,900,000
| | 26 April 1976
| | 23 November 1977
Incidents
In the early 1980s Sceptre collided with a Soviet submarine 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. This incident was disclosed when David Forghan, Sceptres former weapons officer, gave a television interview which was broadcast on 19 September 1991. The Soviet submarine involved was probably K-211 Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky of the Delta III class, which on 23 May 1981 collided with an unknown submarine, identified at the time as an unknown American .
Sovereign underwent an extensive refit in the mid-1990s and was rededicated in January 1997. Cracks were discovered in the tailshaft during post-refit sea trials and she was sent to Rosyth for 14 weeks of emergency repairs in June 1998 before returning to Faslane.
On 6 March 2000 Sceptre suffered a serious accident while inside a drydock at the Rosyth yards while undergoing trials towards the end of a major refit. The test involved flooding the drydock, and running the main engines slowly with steam supplied from the shore. However, too much steam was used and the engines over-sped. Sceptre broke her moorings and moved forward off the cradle she rested on. The steam line ruptured, scaffolding buckled, a crane was pushed forward some , and the submarine moved forward some inside the dock.
On 26 May 2008, Superb hit an underwater pinnacle in the Red Sea, south of the Suez Canal. She remained watertight, and none of the 112 crew were injured; however, she was unable to resubmerge due to damage to her sonar. After undertaking initial repairs at the Souda Bay NATO base on Crete on 10 June 2008, she passed through the Mediterranean, with a pause (at night) some miles off Gibraltar to disembark some less critical crew. Superb then continued back to the UK, arriving at HMNB Devonport on 28 June 2008.<!-- The 26 Sept 2008 BBC report supports that she went to HMNB Devonport, but does not mention the date --> After surveying the damage, the Royal Navy decided to decommission Superb slightly ahead of schedule on 26 September 2008.
In fiction
HMS Sceptre acts as a nom de guerre for the Red October in Tom Clancy's eponymous novel, as she enters the Norfolk Naval Station.
See also
- List of submarines of the Royal Navy