VANGUARD CLASS BALLISTIC NUCLEAR SUBMARINES - 1992 ONWARDS
The Vanguard Class submarines are the largest, most complex. and, strategically, most important submarines ever to be built for the Royal Navy. Armed with Trident missiles, the four 149.9m 16000-tonne boats are the sole custodians of the UK's Independent Nuclear Deterrent.
Major Civil Engineering Programme
In order to build and launch Vanguard Class ballistic nuclear submarines, entirely new facilities had to be designed and built at Barrow. Work began on the Submarine Facilities Project (SFP) in April 1983, the first phase of which included a 269m x 67m x 50m high covered construction hall (Devonshire Dock Hall or DDH) with adjacent offices, workshops and services, and a rail mounted transfer system leading out to a 24000-tonnes capacity shiplift. This work was completed by 1986.
Subsequent major civil engineering development phases included a roller guidance system installed through the narrows of Michaelson Bridge, a widened entrance from Buccleuch Dock to Ramsden Dock, and a new berth for final provisioning. New dock gates and widening and deepening of the seaboard docks entrance completed the preparations to ensure that the Vanguard Class would have safe passage through the docks, over the cill and out to sea.
Vanguard Class Build Programme
Conceptual design and development of the highly complex second generation Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN) boats 05-08 began in the late 70s. Then, in 1982, a shipbuilder involvement contract for detailed design and build was placed with Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering Limited's Barrow shipyard who immediately responded to the challenge.
The original Royal Navy Polaris-armed Resolution Class Ballistic Nuclear Submarines SSBN01-04 - the design of which had been adapted from the fleet nuclear submarine Valiant - had successfully maintained their strategic deterrence patrol continuously since 1968. The build programme for the new class of SSBNs was drawn up to ensure that each of the four purpose-designed Trident ballistic missile-carrying submarines would enter service as a Resolution Class boat was decommissioned.
In the event, the original Contract ordering programme which anticipated orders placed annually over four consecutive years was stretched considerably by the MoD to around seven years. The shipyard responded to these unforeseen delays by utilising its design capability and production capacity to make a brief but successful return to merchant shipbuilding. Orders for three 4500-tonne clean products tankers were secured and production slotted in and around the Trident Build Programme in the DDH to optimise build capacity and keep allocated staff and trades gainfully employed.
HMS Vanguard
The first of class, SSBN05, was ordered on April 30th 1986 and her keel laid at Barrow by the then Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher MP on the same day that she officially opened the Devonshire Dock Hall (DDH). The submarine was rolled out of the DDH on March 4th 1992 in the presence of the Secretary of State for Defence, Tom King, and lowered by shiplift into the docks. On April 30th, HRH Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales, named the submarine Vanguard. This major new submarine was subjected to the most comprehensive and demanding set of Contractors Sea Trials from October to December 1992 which were, in the words of her Captain " a most rewarding and enjoyable experience". Princess Diana returned to Barrow on August 14th 1993 to attend the commissioning ceremony.
This most complex of all first of class submarines was completed on time and to cost as promised 6 years earlier. She features a state-of-the-art nuclear propulsion plant - the pressurized water reactor PWR2 - and a sophisticated and advanced Tactical Weapon System. Her comprehensive sonar suite incorporates Broadband, Ranging, Active, passive Intercept and Narrowband subsystems known collectively by the acronym BRAIN, in addition to dedicated specialist sonar systems. Vanguard's design incorporates many evolutionary changes from the Barrow-built Trafalgar Class, together with improvements in submarine safety, stealth, reliability and ease of operation and maintenance.
Externally, she has fixed hydroplanes and the hull and outer surfaces are clad with conformal anechoic noise reduction tiling. The large fin houses the conning tower hatch and an access door onto the casing. Optronics masts housed in the fin carry CCTV and thermal imaging cameras, superseding the traditional periscope functions and offering day/night vision even in bad visibility, although a direct-view electronic periscope is also carried.
The pressure hull forward of the reactor compartment has four decks and aft of the reactor compartment has three deck levels All command and control functions are in self-contained rooms leading off the main thoroughfares.
