HMS Agamemnon emerged from the Devonshire Dock Hall at Barrow today, marking the transition from the construction phase to the test and commissioning phase.
Following the roll out from the DDH, she will be lowered into the water on the shiplift and moved to the test and commissioning quay where her reactor will go critical for the first time.
She is also the 6th boat of the much-delayed Astute class and she will probably now commission next year, likely in the shipyard, well ahead of beginning sea trials, as was the case with HMS Anson. It is important to note that the rollout frees up space needed in the DDH to begin the assembly of HMS Dreadnought, first of the much larger SSBNs that is due to be commissioned in the early 2030s.
The Sixth Royal Navy vessel to bear this memorable name, Agamemnon was an ancient king in Greek mythology who commanded the Achaeans during the Trojan War.
Good news I suppose in terms of freeing up the workforce and build space for the Dreadnoughts but are we any closer to seeing any of the existing Astute fleet back at sea and on operations?
I know Navy lookout wrote an article on this in August but have there been any developments since then?
I was thinking exactly the same, night be worth delaying the conduction of more while they get the existing once back sorted.
“conduction”
Once built and they sail off, They never return to this shipyard, It only builds subs, There’s no options to service and maintain them here, So halting construction would do nothing except delay the delivery of the 7th astute and the Vanguard replacement the Dreadnought class.
The refurbishment of the SSBN maintenance drydock No.9 at Devonport finished a few weeks ago so hopefully they can begin tackling the backlog.
Is there anything special about a submarine dry dock? Could they shift Bulwark out of drydock and use that one as well?
Yes.
Once a nuclear reactor has gone live it needs an absolutely secure source of cooling water and electrical power. Guaranteeing these things amongst other items is part of what needs to be done to “nuclear certify” a dock.
Makes sense. Thank you.
Also
– earthquake resistant – you know all the ones the UK is famous for!
– containment of liquids and other contaminants so that if you have a nuclear leak and a fire there is a segregated system for holding contaminated water;
– general security of the dock;
– etc, etc…
British Geological Survey –
A magnitude 4 earthquake happens in Britain roughly every two years. We experience a magnitude 5 roughly every 10–20 years. Research suggests that the largest possible earthquake in the UK is around magnitude 6.5.
No point in not accounting for bad s**t to happen.
Is there any news on the progress of the Additional Fleet Time Docking Capability (AFTDC) programme to acquire two floating docks?
I suspect it fell into the “election stoppage”. Even if it was on the top of the minister’s sign off pile I suspect the design, contracting, build and nuclear certification of a floating dock is a 6/7 year project at best. There is also the issue of finding a yard with the engineering/project management skills to do this sort of work that isn’t already fully committed. The new government is unlikely to allow the work to go overseas.
The design could well have been progressed and it could also be costed with departmental funds. The HMT bit would be the build sign off.
It could be that the ship lift(s) are part of AUKUS planning?
The big question here is: Are the biggest Dickheads in (a) Parliament (b) The MOD (c) The Treasury or (d) The Home Office.?……Police Service destroyed,Armed Services destroyed.
The word you are looking for is austerity. The foolish policy which promotes cutting budgets to promote ‘efficiency’. What the idiots who promote this forget is that efficiency is worthless if total output collapses.
To give an example, if your soldiers are 50% better than they used to be, but you also only have half as many, then that is actually a 25% reduction in combat potential.
It is no coincidence that this flawed policy is mainly promoted by the penny-pinching sort in the Treasury.
If you read some Marx it would all make sense. But that would collide with your laughable nationalism. As you were!
Austerity wasn’t introduced to promote efficiency, it was a direct result of HMG having to bail out the U.K. banking sector to avoid a complete collapse of the economy.
That said, the cuts made were excessive and short-sighted with regards to defence.
COVID as well as the banking crisis. All that furlough & those business continuity loans were paid out of additional borrowing/ quantitative easing (aka printing money).
That money now has to be taken out of circulation to control inflation
The Tory Government made the policy decision to pay back the borrowing for both those events faster than needed. Rather than paying off bonds as they matured, they sought to buy them back before they matured, removing money from circulation at a faster rate
Labour claimed that there was a £20b “black hole” in the accounts. (We all know that they created £11b of that in the first few weeks in office by caving on to public sector pay demand). Two weeks ago, the BoE stated that it would be happy to revert to only redeeming bonds as they matured, immediately creating c. £30b of headroom in the current budget.
Note that the current Government no longer calls itself New Labour, just Labour, so we will, of course, still get tax rises, because that’s what Labour (New Labour didn’t really count as a “Labour” administration) has always done. It’s in their DNA.
There’s definitely nothing New Labour about this government. From what I’ve seen, they’re dead set on returning to the 1970s and ignoring every piece of economic sense.
The only thing they seem to share with Blair is dodgy self-interest.
I’d love to know how France manages to sustain significantly higher spending as a % of GDP while having a lower income tax burden.
They must tax the life out of property to compensate for it.
France has one of the highest tax and mandatory contributions in the world
Tax to GDP is highest in OECD. Your claim doesnt make any sense
FRA is 46% while GBR is 35%
https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/topics/policy-sub-issues/global-tax-revenues/revenue-statistics-france.pdf
Norway is way up there too
Australia does a fiddle as excludes its VAT as a ‘tax’ because its passed onto the state governments – who have their own other taxes as well.
US states and even cities can levy sales and income taxes separately which makes their numbers lower
“We all know that they created £11b of that in the first few weeks in office by caving on to public sector pay demand”
They didn’t cave in…it was the Pay Review Body’s recommendation.
They could have ignored it and carried on losing staff as they can earn more elsewhere…and that would cost more in the long run…
An example of not following PRB recommendations can be seen right now in the RFA…
You want a decent days work….you better pay a decent days wage…
Yet we found money for the largest foreign aid budget in Europe. Government is all about choices and the Eton boys thought virtue-signalling made them feel better.
The Foreign Office is the problem. Full of clever if stupid liberal and marxist minded virtue signalers. I hope they get a thorough overhaul in a few years time.
You have been mislead by the Tories
28% of the ‘foreign aid ‘ is spent in UK by Home office for the migrant housing. For unknown reasons the spending offshore for development is combined with the home office spending
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/apr/10/spending-foreign-aid-budget-on-refugees-in-uk-wreaking-havoc
You forgot Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street. Both MOD and the Treasury need a shake up, but ultimately they do as they are told. Backbenchers are getting the whip removed for disagreeing with their front benches, and the front benches are all bound by collective cabinet responsibility. Increasingly power is centralised in Downing Street and decisions are taken there that should be way below their paygrade.
You can see the strategic imperative of keeping Ukraine ticking along. Russans will cut corners …they have to
Great news, agree we will probably see a commissioning ceremony sometime in Q3 next year. With IOC sometime in 2026.
Let us all hope it does not take 150 months to complete the last of the Astute class.
Really good to see her rolled out and in the water asap. We need these boats so badly, it’s appalling that none of her sisters are currently active.
Why are they commissioned in the dock now prior to leaving? I remember commissioning as happening well after sea trials. I am sure that was the case in regards to Vanguard. Princess Diana named her and then came back for the commissioning ceremony the next year. I am aware that the Astutes can’t return to Barrow once they have left the dock, but I would have at least thought that the commissioning would take place after it has been shown that the boat is ready or nearly ready for deployment. Are they also given the title HMS after naming now? It used to be the case used to be that they known as boat, 1, 2, 3 etc whilst in build, they were named at their launch and then given the title HMS at commissioning.
I believe with the kind of complex ships and specialist training required now the crews are formed and begin training for their ship well before the boat starts their trials, indeed a small command crew including the future captain will often even be supervising the later stages of construction even before it reaches the slipway. Most commissioning of systems happens dock side then they go to the acoustic range in the Loch for acoustic testing.
I saw a rather interesting plate before with the dates for HMS Vanguard. Ordered 30/04/86, keel laid 03/09/86, launched 04/93/92; named 30/04/92; sea trials 30/10/92 – 23/01/93, commissioned 14/08/93 and accepted into service September 93. A very different way of doing things back then. This new way doesn’t make much sense to me.
Vanguard was recommissioned at Devonport something like July 2023, left May 2024 and has finally probably just started her 1st patrol. Commissioning in the yard does somewhat confuse the media as to the state of the vessel! .
It confuses me too. These ceremonies seem to happen on arbitrary days that have no connection to the build of the boat.
Because they are just PR stunts. The RN and HMG will organise them for best PR benefit. An example is Anson being commissioned in Barrow to coincide with the visit of an Australian minister.
Who decided on the name Agamemnon ? I thought the original A class named included Ajax , a continuing name over the decades
The previous HMS Agamemnon was a requisitioned Blue funnel Line refrigerated cargo ship used as an auxiliary mine layer in WW2
Ajax like Agamemnon fought at Trafalgar
I always assumed the name was ditched once the army decided to call it’s new vehicle Ajax (for some weird reason).
Plus side we got HMS Agincourt instead!
Ajax was supposed to be Boat 7 – changed to Agincourt.
I presume that was due AUKUS, the latest victory against the French!
Hate to tell you but the Aussie are even more fickle . Once they get Virginias they arent going let them go.
Agamemnon was Nelson’s favourite ship; meaning also the ships company who manned her. Its not generally realised that Nelson virtually invented Combined Ops and reinvented raiding and striking from the sea. Brilliant and Brave leadership example to this present day.
Every country says one of their Generals/Admirals invented combined operations and they adjust the time to suit and add on the latest service such as tanks instead of cavalry for instance. Its tribal thing
Napoleon had smaller units with their own infantry cavalry and artillery
So Australian general invented combined Ops in Ww1
Some american general invented combined Ops in WWW2
We should be thankful we got No7. It was by no means certain. Following on quickly just 2 years behind.
Could have been 8 for the same cost if successive governments and the treasury in particular had any sense of the long term rather than trying to balance this years spreadsheet.
Will such a vessel find a crew as I gather the uptake into naval service Is at an all time low and life as a submariner isn’t what I call a dream job.
Especially if you happen to be female!
If I am reading the infographic correctly then the last boat is going to be delivered some 30+ months quicker than the previous boats. This is a huge overhead saving and if true supports the logic that 8 boats would have actually been cheaper as advised by BAE but the MOD/Treasury couldn’t afford to pay the year on year capital expenditure so paid more to slow delivery.
Admittedly there would have been just another boat tied to a wall awaiting maintenance but it shows the potential in the yard as it is before expansion. At the very least you would like to think we could get one extra AUKUS boat in the future, which would be great news. Dare I dream of say 10 boats!
HMT don’t do long term value for money they do short term book balancing! They think in electoral cycles which is why all investment is pushed to the right.
Really investment should be intended in separate budgets so that when there is a squeeze it is day to day spending that is squeezed. The problem with that is accepting that the benefits/health/social care bill needs a hard cap on it. Good luck with that one.
No more Astutes. Too difficult to go back to building PWR-2 reactors for a start. Why would you want to if SSN-A is being built as quickly as possible? Many of the new tricks developed for the Dreadnoughts will transfer to SSN-A, I’m sure: turbo-electric drive, X-shaped tail, maybe the outer stealth hull and so on.
I don’t think you actually read my post.
You are right. I had to read it two more times before I actually read the right words. It’s funny how sometimes the eye sees what the brain is expecting.
I think we all do it from time to time.
I thought the build hall could take three subs. I’m sure I’ve seen pictures. If so, why does Agamemnon roll out make space for Dreadnought? Is the 1.5m wider beam for Dreadnought really that big a change?
At a guess, its not the wider beam that’s the issue. Dreadnought is going to be nearly 60m longer than Astute, so there will be far less space in the building overall, and that may well restrict the ability to move hull sections or entire boats around during the SSBN build.
On a side note, I wonder if we’ll ever stop calling submarines the size of pre-dreadnought battleships “boats”…
Jon and Callum
Devonshire Hall was orginally designed way back in the mid/late 1970’s: so approx. half a century ago.
That was back in an long-forgotten era when all of our nuclear-powered boats (both SSN’s and SSBN’s) were all much smaller and – crucially – much lighter than any of the today’s modern RN boats.
What orginally really “put the cat amougst the pigeons” was that the main build hall was designed, and also partially constructed, before the “concept” design of the orginal four Trident “V” boats was finalised.
Often forgotten today is that those four V boats “went large” to accomodate the longer-ranged missiles that the USN suddenly decided they wanted. The UK wanted (and needed) commonality and and interoperability and inter-changeability with all of those US missiles and warheads: so it was a case of “follow the US bear” – and bear the consquences. That one key decision on the USN missile type made those four RN submarines considerable larger than the Polaris boats……
Thus the main build hall at Barrow has always been, right from Day One, too small and too cramped.
Then we also need to factor in that it was “plonked” – to use the correct technical term -into one of the very few pieces of vacent land that Vickers happened to own at the time.
The very big rush to get the big hall built ASAFP was to stop Russian spy satelites looking down on Barrow’s finest having their tea-break – and thus concurrently looking deep inside the subs inards (Note: the very same key reason as to why the frigate refit complex was, almost concurrently, being built in a tearing hurry inside Devonport Dockyard).
However whether, or not Russian orbiting TV cameras of the 1970’s and 1980’s were ever good enough to look through perpetual cloud cover over the Lake District was always something of a “moot point”..
Thus the whole layout of Barrow today can, quite-easily, be traced straight back to the Victorian Era
Today it must be the only shipyard anywhere in the world that produces nuclear boats where the general public can get a really good look at the fleet’s finest new Gucci kit by – yes, you have guessed right – casually walking over public road bridge that runs through the very middle of the BAe site…..
Cruicially the key issue today is quite-simply the one I touched on above. The quite-old fixed overhead cranage still inside Devonshire Hall is simply too puny to lift the really big modules / hull sections that any really modern shipyard would ideally want to use when assembling a boat as big as the new Dreadnought
Added to that set of woes……….., the greatest issue with the “run-down” town of Barrow is that both road and rail access to the town is frankly appalling – and then it gets much worse when the tourist season arrives.
Thus both the shipyard at Barrow and also the Sellafield nuclear plant (found just a bit further along he local cart track) have always suffered from being simply unable to entice anybody who is not already living locally to actually want to move to go to live and work there….
So, not having a big pool of “biological intelligence” within a sensible daily travelling distance thus puts a further “downer” on overall yard productivity.
If the MOD had started off our 100 billion pound Trident / Dreadnough replacement programme properly (i.e. from day one: when it was conceived nearly two decades ago) …then by now we would be assembling the new Dreadnought class inside a new purpose built hall: one that was properly equiped with all of the essential working space; modern plant and especially plenty of big yellow cranes.
Furthermore that workforce would be travelling in and out of the town of Barrow on modern roads and/or in fast trains
Thus, as it stands today, the Devonshire Hall at Barrow is yet another prize example of the long tradition of Great British shipbuilding practice …called “Carry On Making Do”
That is why our submarines each take so long to build: and why each one costs the RN so much money.
Regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
PS I am waiting for Navy Lookout to report a serious accident inside the build hall: one involving the aforementioned “puny cranage”. Watch this space….
Dreadnought had already started its hull sections build, more likely space for Valiant and or Warspite
How long will the fuel last in HMS Astute? Given how long it has taken to build this class, it seems prudent that they may want to run them beyond the ’25 year lifespan’ that is often talked about. Can they be refuelled if necessary?
I think it very unlikely that Astute’s reactors can be refuelled; the Core H reactors were designed never to need it. It took 7 years to refuel Vanguard and Rolls Royce’s subsequent switch over to building PWR-3 will make it all but impossible to do it again.
OK so we are only 10 years away from Astute having to decommission then, so we may end up short yet again given the lead times to build the successor class.
Depends. Think of the nuclear fuel like a tank of diesel. She’ll burn less alongside than she will at sea. When at sea the longer she spends above her best economy speed the quicker she’ll burn through it.
Who ever named the ship needs an absolute pay rise
Why an ancient Greek king no ones heard of .
What about , you know , ALFRED
It is a great name for a RN boat as it is one that represented a ship of the line. RN Fleet subs are the modern day equivalent. The class have a mix of names from both battleship’s and the post war A class boats, which given it is only a class of 7 admittedly do not read too well together.
A ship of the line ? Last Agamemnon was a former Blue funnel Line auxiliary mine layer.
Ajax had all of that history and more but seemed to have been on the list and dropped for some reason.
Ajax was replaced with Agincourt in what I assumed at the time was a post-Brexit jab at the French.
I do not disagree with you about how prestigious the name Ajax is but just because you personally don’t like Agamemnon doesn’t make it any less a great name. The Ajax that is remembered is of course from WW2 but the later Leander class frigate bearing the name had a typical life for the class and didn’t serve in the Falklands. That does not detract from the history of the name.
Ironically the two names were sister ships in the late 19th century as pre Dreadnought battleships.
Both names as well Achilles and the rest of the Leander class were of course all from Greek mythology
The sad thing is that the Astute class was not a larger class because there are a few names definitely including Ajax that could have been used.
I hope I am around long enough to see another Ajax, Achilles, Exeter, Ark Royal, Eagle, Hermes, Cossack, Leander, Starling, Oberon and many other great names.
SJB1968
Having just been listening to the lunchtime news – and hearing that the Middle East is rapidly going from “very bad” to “even worse” = I reckon that the UK will be needing some of these “great names for submarines “rather soon”
regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
All we need are some submarines and a big Letroset transfer?
Supportive Bloke
regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
PS
Unfortunately I am also that age: so I know exactly what a Letroset is!
An edumacation is a good thing. Try it.
Alfred the Great, yet another migrant family from overseas that did well.
I do wonder about the ‘hybrid’ Chinese sub that sank on the wall.
I’m suspecting that this was a prototype with nuclear batteries. Just enough to run the environmental systems and trickle charge the batteries. Maybe to move at 1-2kts.
Basically something that can lurk for prolonged periods of time near silent and us cheap enough to make in numbers.
This would be very useful for near home deployment Taiwan and useless for blue water deployment.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nuclear-battery-betavolt-atomic-china-b2476979.html
400V requires 133 coin sized 3V batteries and produces 13W – but that is 13W of silent continuous power for 50 years.
To do anything I reckon you need 25+kW which is 1923 cells stacks. That is about 1m3 – ignoring mechanical support and cooling.
Thoughts?
No such thing as nuclear batteries. The power output from the small reactor could be 500kW or more
The Agamemnon like all Astutes has 600kW diesel generator backup
I think you need a A level physics lesson.
There is such a thing as nuclear batteries – look it up. They have been known about for a long time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery
Invented/discovered by Henry Mosley who was killed at Gallipoli.
Supportive Bloke
Nothing to wonder about at all….
So, after one severe biological leak and one serious nuclear leak ….one can only hope (and pray) that their parents are not letting the Wuhan workforce play with any nasty chemicals….
regards Peer (Irate Taxpayer)
PS Misleadingly called, at that time, the “China Virus” by the US president with orange hair.
My point was that a low(ish) output power source could support a submarine to lurk silently in a location and maybe trickle charge Lithium-Ion batteries.
What do you really need to run?
LED lights
Environmental systems
A few PC’s worth of stuff.
Passive sonar
Reverse Osmosis of condensate for potable and washing.
Headphones and screens to prevent the crew getting bored
Cooking
Trickle charge the main batteries that will have been charged up before the sub submerged and ran silent to location at very low speed.
Modern electronics doesn’t consume much till you go active.
If you are lurking with say a 7kW trickle charge that is over a week more than 1MWh – obvs you can have a bigger isotope battery but that rather depends on creating the volumes of nickel isotopes that are needed, refining them and packaging them and getting rid of the heat…