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Tour [British] navy's £1.2bn super sub
By TOM NEWTON DUNN
Defence Editor
MAY 09, 2007
MEAN, menacing and devastating, this is the first of the Navy’s 21st Century super subs – and The Sun has been on an exclusive tour.
With a design more complex than the Space Shuttle, HMS Astute’s awesome abilities will take underwater warfare to a new level.
Incredibly, the £1.2billion, 7,675-ton beast could stay submerged for an astonishing 25 YEARS without running out of fuel thanks to power coming from a nuclear reactor.
While under water hi-tech gadgets purify sea water and manufacture oxygen and get rid of dangerous waste gasses.
The only performance limitation is the 98-man CREW because the stores will run out of food after three months — long enough for one-and-a-half trips around the world.
Then there is the Astute’s astonishingly quiet sonar signature, making the vessel almost undetectable under the waves.
As Britain’s first stealth sub, she gives off less noise than a baby dolphin thanks to her extraordinary amount of sound proofing — despite weighing as much as 975 double-decker buses.
Older subs’ noisier propellers have been replaced by a multi-bladed “propulsorâ€, and the rest of the vessel has been lined with special rubber tiles that mute all internal noise such as TVs and radios.
Meanwhile, Astute’s own top-secret sonar system — the subs’ jumbo-sized ears — is the best in the world.
If water conditions are right, operators could pick up the QE2 cruise ship leaving New York harbour while sitting thousands of miles away in the English Channel.
Astute has devastating firepower and is the biggest attack sub ever built for the Royal Navy.
She can carry 38 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of 1,240 miles each.
A vital weapon in the War On Terror, Astute can use them to blast land targets with pinpoint accuracy in North Africa from off the coast of Plymouth, in Devon.
She can also fire Spearfish torpedoes in ship-hunting missions.
Navy bosses allowed The Sun an exclusive sneak preview as workers put the finishing touches to HMS Astute in BAE Systems’ massive Devonshire Dock Hall in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Painted jet black, she towers a total of 12 storeys from keel to the top of the conning tower.
With a length of 106 yards and width of 12 yards, she is as much as 30 per cent bigger than her predecessors — seven Trafalgar Class subs — under the seas today.
With her revolutionary technology, the Astute Class packs double the punch of the current hunter-killer fleet too. On top of the two traditional roles of land attack and ship-killing, HMS Astute will also be a massive reconnaissance asset.
There she can listen in to enemy transmissions and secretly land Special Forces teams.
In fact, her only downfall might be that she is TOO quiet.
Her position could possibly be given away because the normal sound of the ocean is louder, and her presence could be betrayed on a sharp-eyed enemy’s sonar screen as a black hole of nothingness.
Astute is the first sub ever to be built without a periscope. Instead she has an optical mast topped by an ultra-sharp TV camera equipped with long range thermal and infra-red lenses beamed to the captain by fibre-optic cable.
Sea phew ... awesome power
The mast is raised above surface level for a three-second, 360-degree rotation to tell him everything he wants to know.
The Navy has asked for four Astute Class subs at £1.2billion each.
HMS Astute — the first — is launched next month for a year of sea trials before being handed over to the Navy’s Silent Service in August 2008. She will enter frontline service in January 2009.
HMS Ambush, Artful and Audacious will follow.
The Astute programme has come in for heavy criticism for being three years late and a whopping £750million over budget.
But Navy submarine boss Captain Mike Davis-Marks said last night: “The Astute class of submarines will quite simply be unbeatable worldwide for many years to come.
“Astute will have a capability that will keep us right at the top of the Premiership of the world’s navies — the Manchester United of submarine nations. With our proud heritage, Britain deserves nothing less.â€
Tour [British] navy's £1.2bn super sub
By TOM NEWTON DUNN
Defence Editor
MAY 09, 2007
MEAN, menacing and devastating, this is the first of the Navy’s 21st Century super subs – and The Sun has been on an exclusive tour.
With a design more complex than the Space Shuttle, HMS Astute’s awesome abilities will take underwater warfare to a new level.
Incredibly, the £1.2billion, 7,675-ton beast could stay submerged for an astonishing 25 YEARS without running out of fuel thanks to power coming from a nuclear reactor.
While under water hi-tech gadgets purify sea water and manufacture oxygen and get rid of dangerous waste gasses.
The only performance limitation is the 98-man CREW because the stores will run out of food after three months — long enough for one-and-a-half trips around the world.
Then there is the Astute’s astonishingly quiet sonar signature, making the vessel almost undetectable under the waves.
As Britain’s first stealth sub, she gives off less noise than a baby dolphin thanks to her extraordinary amount of sound proofing — despite weighing as much as 975 double-decker buses.
Older subs’ noisier propellers have been replaced by a multi-bladed “propulsorâ€, and the rest of the vessel has been lined with special rubber tiles that mute all internal noise such as TVs and radios.
Meanwhile, Astute’s own top-secret sonar system — the subs’ jumbo-sized ears — is the best in the world.
If water conditions are right, operators could pick up the QE2 cruise ship leaving New York harbour while sitting thousands of miles away in the English Channel.
Astute has devastating firepower and is the biggest attack sub ever built for the Royal Navy.
She can carry 38 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of 1,240 miles each.
A vital weapon in the War On Terror, Astute can use them to blast land targets with pinpoint accuracy in North Africa from off the coast of Plymouth, in Devon.
She can also fire Spearfish torpedoes in ship-hunting missions.
Navy bosses allowed The Sun an exclusive sneak preview as workers put the finishing touches to HMS Astute in BAE Systems’ massive Devonshire Dock Hall in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Painted jet black, she towers a total of 12 storeys from keel to the top of the conning tower.
With a length of 106 yards and width of 12 yards, she is as much as 30 per cent bigger than her predecessors — seven Trafalgar Class subs — under the seas today.
With her revolutionary technology, the Astute Class packs double the punch of the current hunter-killer fleet too. On top of the two traditional roles of land attack and ship-killing, HMS Astute will also be a massive reconnaissance asset.
There she can listen in to enemy transmissions and secretly land Special Forces teams.
In fact, her only downfall might be that she is TOO quiet.
Her position could possibly be given away because the normal sound of the ocean is louder, and her presence could be betrayed on a sharp-eyed enemy’s sonar screen as a black hole of nothingness.
Astute is the first sub ever to be built without a periscope. Instead she has an optical mast topped by an ultra-sharp TV camera equipped with long range thermal and infra-red lenses beamed to the captain by fibre-optic cable.
Sea phew ... awesome power
The mast is raised above surface level for a three-second, 360-degree rotation to tell him everything he wants to know.
The Navy has asked for four Astute Class subs at £1.2billion each.
HMS Astute — the first — is launched next month for a year of sea trials before being handed over to the Navy’s Silent Service in August 2008. She will enter frontline service in January 2009.
HMS Ambush, Artful and Audacious will follow.
The Astute programme has come in for heavy criticism for being three years late and a whopping £750million over budget.
But Navy submarine boss Captain Mike Davis-Marks said last night: “The Astute class of submarines will quite simply be unbeatable worldwide for many years to come.
“Astute will have a capability that will keep us right at the top of the Premiership of the world’s navies — the Manchester United of submarine nations. With our proud heritage, Britain deserves nothing less.â€