HMS Triumph sailed from Faslane today for the final time, heading to Devonport where she will decommission.
HMS Triumph was laid down at Barrow Shipyard in February 1987 and commissioned less than 5 years later in October 1991, the last of the seven Trafalgar class submarines constructed for the RN. The highly successful T-boat programme delivered 7 boats over an 8-year period. She represents the zenith of UK submarine design and construction efficiency, driven by the need to face down the Soviet submarine fleet. The T-boats, widely acknowledged as the best SSN design of the Cold War, were still proving effective well into the 2020s.
Triumph’s construction bridged the period that saw the end of the Soviet Union and the subsequent ‘peace dividend’, which was exploited to excess by generations of politicians which has resulted in the diminished state of the RN today. Among the most toxic legacies of post-Cold-War mismanagement was the failure to order new submarines when the construction of the Vanguard class concluded in the late 1990s. Without work, the specialist submarine designers and constructors with skills and experience acquired over decades rapidly dispersed. The lack of skilled people was the root cause of the problems and delays that have plagued the Astute class programme and continue to impact SSN availability today.
There is limited information about Triumph’s service to the nation in the public domain for obvious reasons but she has been deployed across the globe. In the 1990s this involved tracking the much-reduced Russian submarine fleet in the High North and North Atlantic but as time went on, RN submarines were increasingly sent further afield, particularly to the Middle East. In 1998 the Tomahawk Land Attack missile entered service with the RN and for many years, at least one T or S-class boat was kept deployed East of Suez as the ‘duty TLAM boat’, ready to respond to events in the region.
Triumph has fired Tomahawk missiles in anger on at least 3 occasions, each time flying the Jolly Roger flag to mark a successful combat patrol on her return home. In 2001 she participated in Operation Veritas, launching strikes against terrorist targets in Afghanistan. In 2011 she conducted two separate patrols as part of Operation Ellamy, firing TLAM against targets in Libya in March and again in June.
Between 2005-10 Triumph underwent a £300 million nuclear refuel and mid-life refit in Devonport which included the fitting of the world-renowned sonar 2076 system. In December 2022 HMS Triumph completed a refit that lasted more than 4 years (technically a Revalidation and Assisted Maintenance Period – RAMP). Although prolonged by COVID, the unknown £multi-million cost and effort expended to get just 2 years more service out of the boat looks somewhat desperate. In a familiar story, the RN has little choice but to keep old vessels going due to delays to their replacements (and the exceptionally high value of even just one old SSN).
Once the reactor has become life-expired there is no option but to decommission the boat. Life extension is not realistic as nuclear refuelling a submarine more than 30 years old would not be a sensible use of funds, even if there was the industrial capacity available to support such a massive project
She will be formally decommissioned at a ceremony in early 2025 before spending up to 2 years with a skeleton crew being prepared for long-term storage afloat. She will then join the fleet of boats in 3 Basin at Devonport to await disposal. At the current rate of progress, it will be well into the 2040s before she is recycled.
The RN SSN fleet will become an all-Astute class force which will simplify support and training. Numbers will go back down to an ‘on-paper’ strength of 5 boats with HMS Agamemnon in the engineering test and commissioning phase at Barrow but a long way off becoming an operational submarine. Output has improved in the latter part of 2024 with HMS Astute and Anson at sea at the time of writing, HMS Artful is likely to regenerate next year. HMS Ambush is at very low readiness having been store-robbed to maintain the others, an indictment of the failure to make better through-life support provision for the class. HMS Audacious was supposed to have entered dry dock in Devonport by now.
The story of HMS Triumph is ultimately about the people who served in her, many of the stories can’t be told but you can be sure they made a significant contribution to the security of the nation from 1991-2024.
HMS Triumph and HMS Talent have a close and personal experience to me (let’s leave it at that!) .. It’s sad that the T Boats are coming to an end but like everything else nothing last forever. We have to move forward. The UK Government have shown they have no consideration or respect for The RN, surface or otherwise.
The Astute’s are in MAJOR need of refits and upgrades and the majority are lying alongside in need or repair, or replacements of parts that are no longer available without a dry dock, the only dry dock available is Davenport – and even such there is a huge delay because these dry docks are NOT available, due to them being “upgraded” or what ever excuse The UK Government decide to choose on that particular day!
Granted The Astute’s are amongst the greatest submarines in the world today, however they do need the care and upgrades required to do this, the upgrades are there, the facilities are NOT, this is all down to the UK Government ant heir lack of support!!
Audacious has been alongside for quite a considerable amount of time and as of today (10/12/24) she has not entered a dry dock.
Our once proud Silent Service is now crying out with embarrassment, currently 3 SSN’s (1 headed to pay off) and 1 SSBN at sea is hugely cringeworthly – The SSN’s only recently gone to sea – 1 on farewell tour, 1 on a mission to Gib, and the other on a sneaky, its such a shame that The UK Government are slowly destroying our once proud RN!! Sunak and Starmer only care about their pockets bulging!!
Its dammed disgrace what they have done to not just The RN, but the entire UK Armed Forces!!!
Agreed
A great post which I agree with although every recent Prime Minister from Blair should be on your list of shame. It was Blair who started the rot by cutting the Navy because he decided to fight two significant conflicts on a peacetime defence budget. He was fine sending guys to fight and die but lacked the spine to make his Chancellor fund the cost of his wars.
Wasnt a ‘peace time’ budget. The Treasury contingency funded most of it – and that wasnt for the RN!
So over TWO governments
““The total cost of British military operations in Afghanistan since 2001 (up to and including financial year 2019-20) was £22.7 billion.” HoL reply to question
Thats around £ 1.2 bill pa.
Iraq war was extra again,
War in Ukraine is also contingency funded by Treasury
The contingency budget paid for direct costs. Things like equipment wearing out quicker were not covered. Gordon Brown had to apologise for lying to a Select Committee by saying that defence spending had increased in real terms during these conflicts when in some years it had been cut.
The Blair/Brown government’s sold three frigates and reduced the destroyer force by six vessels so they most definitely take a share of the blame for the state of todays navy.
And failed to order and new frigates at all given they knew the 18 years lifespan was ticking past.
Unfortunately those with lots of gold braid and medal ribbons didn’t appreciate that the 18 year thing was real and that even 25 years was a stretch. So if you search for it you will find one 1SL who said something along the lines of ‘The T23s are young ships and have not been worked particularly hard so I am comfortable with being able to extend them past their formal OOS dates.’
Problem is that then RN doesn’t advocate for that RN really needs RN doesn’t get what it really needs.
This is an absolute disgrace, our armed forces used to be revered by our allies and feared by our foes. Now they are a laughing stock. The politicians over the past 50 years or so have neglected the Defence of this country. It is no wonder that the world now consider us a 3rd world country. God help us all if WW3 ever breaks out.
Great post, agree absolutely. The government both Labour and Conservative are a disgrace. God forbid if we ever needed to go to war. In the meantime let’s give the public sector a big pay rise and why not a a four day working week…
Ian,
Newbury west Berkshire
At one time we had squadrons of nuclear boats , I still remember Splendid being along side Spartan superb and sceptre with the others at sea, I feel old knowing the last T boat is due to be decommissioned, I was part of Tireless commissioning crew , happy days
Wow I served on tireless from 2008-2013
Seems very possible that at least HMS Astute (maybe one or two others?) could go in the defence review as well. You avoid the costly refit and get around the sad fact that manning is a serious problem. Australia will have major problems in building-up its SSN force and maybe a few comms lines about “working with our partners to strengthen security in the Indo-Pacific region” could cover the cut. … in any case, one should probably brace oneself that seven SSNs could soon be five or six. It’s where things stand today in any case.
As bad as things are, that is simply just silly. We will not be getting rid of any Astutes, be reasonable.
Hopefully not … but brace yourself nevertheless. Anything is possible in the world of UK defence.
When it comes to the chopping block SSN’s and the CASD are at the back of the queue.
What happened to the floating docks for intermediate refits. And Devonport has the only graving docks when Rosyth also used to major refit SSBNs and SSNs? …unbelievable!
Absolutely. The politicians of this country should hang their heads in shame. The whole reason of the resurgence in Russia and the rise of Iran ect, is solely down to the constant equipment and budget cuts of the last 30 years. They know basicly they can do what ever pleases them because their is Jack s**t we can do about it. I remember a rather large defence spending and equipment cut in 1981. We were even going to sell The then brand new Invincible to the Australians, and then what happend? I have to ask myself do they never learn ?
The only people who will get a kick out of articles like this is Putin and his entourage, for the rest of us it is quit depressing.
I just wonder if our political elite read these articles, if they do do they hang their heads in shame.
A very very sad day these boats were great and I loved my time in Trenchant. A true world beater!
Excellent article. I am still bewildered by former government incompetence. We are told that MP’s. Have such large salaries because we need the best and brightest. it seems to me this strategy has failed.
MPs salaries are really not large, that is why, in part, we get many useless MPs as those who can earn aren’t interested in the low pay of an MP or even a minister.
Independently wealthy people are also drawn to the life of an MP of course… And that’s not always a good thing either.
The talent pool willing to put up with low paid parliamentary jobs is quite small.
Goodness gracious, if only all those NCO’s and Other Ranks hadn’t voted to slice 5% off UK GDP each year – and some £40billion plus per annum (and rising) into HM Treasury – by voting for the single most epic act of economic self-harm in recorded history: Brexsh*t.
But “you knew just what you were voting for…”
Now suck on the consequences for the UK’s Armed Forces of this idiocy. Actions have consequences.
Nonsense
So by your logic, Commissioned Officers were falling over themselves to continue funding Brussels for perpetuity? At least your brand of trolling is unintentionally amusing Shipmate 😂
if your going to respond, at least have the decency to know what your talking about!!
Brexit has nothing to do with the running of the Armed forces and their budget and no I am not a brexiteer!
Technically if you accept that the growth of gdp of the UK has been negatively impacted by the choice of Brexit then yes the budget for the Armed Forces has been impacted. Though given this article is covering the decade’s long combination of poor decisions in regards to the RN Submarine capability its even more of a stretch to blame Brexit.
No the GDP hasnt been impacted by Brexit – that you can measure.
Project Fear was all nonsense
So much has happened since then. Covid, Inflation, Ukraine war all part of Global disruption
But look at Europe, Germanys and Frances governments have fallen in last 2 months !
Whos the stable one ? France failed to get its 2025 budget passed by Presidential decree which was 5.5% of GDP deficit… far in excess of Euro zone maximum of 3% – of course EU rules never apply to France
“When Britain left the EU in 2020 its GDP was USD $2.7 trillion, while France was $2.65 trillion.
Four years later in 2024 Britain’s GDP is $3.5 trillion, while France is $3.1 trillion.
The IMF is forecasting that by 2029 Britain’s GDP will be nearly $4.65 trillion while France will be $3.65 trillion, so over 9 years a $1 trillion gap[in Britains favour] has opened up between them.
The impact of Brexit on our trade with the EU and France’s projected performance are clearly two very different things; but if you wish to link these two things, the obvious conclusion is that we would be doing even better vs. France if we’d said in the EU. It would be weird if the tariff and non-tariff trade barriers put up after Brexit didn’t have an impact on our economic performance. Otherwise, they would be no point in anyone signing trade deals to reduce these barriers to trade!
Back to the point of this thread though: our submarine fleet is definitely in a parlous state. I served on Triumph back in the 90s and so it feels very odd to see it finally go. Austerity has decimated so many of our public services, and our Armed Forces are no exception to this. We’ll likely look back at the 2009-2024 period as a very low point in our history.
Absolute bulls**t, the decline of our Armed Forces has been going on long before brexit by incompetent Government’s of both parties over several decades.
Sounds like the same problem here in Canada! We’re still using retired RN boats that were dysfunctional when the Feds bought them because they were cheap. We’ve since spent a billion trying to maintain them and only one or two can be operational at a time. There’s talk of buying 12 new boats but who will man them? Recruiting is a BIG problem!
The government just doesn’t understand the perilous time we are in!
They werent disfunction boats when transferred .
It was the RCN crew that was dysfunctional, the CO had the sail hatch open in rough seas.
Having 2 out 4 subs operational at a time is a great achievement as the rule of thumb is 1 out 3 operational
I am anti Brexit for a million reasons, all of which are not relevant for a military site like this. You’ve basically trolled this site with an absolute pointless comment that added zero to this debate. And as much as Brexit was a ball and chain to our economy, it has nothing to do with the sorry state of affairs with our subs, the damage goes way back even before the 2010 SDSR, in fact the article explains it very well, try reading it, pious lecture boy.
So you disagree about the IMF prediction that UK GDP will grow much faster than France over a 10 year period from 2019 . An extra $1 trillion, but whos counting
Thats fine to hang onto project Fear stuff from 2016
As I posted above, the fact that we are projected to grow faster than France in the future doesn’t preclude the fact that the Brexit related trade barriers have been a significant drag on our economy. This is all pretty obvious if you think about it logically. If you make trade more difficult, you get less of it! I haven’t seen the IMF forecast but I suspect a large driver for our outsized performance would have been higher levels of immigration which I doubt would be popular with many Brexit supporters.
Thank you.
I read your nonsensical drivel and feel very much better about myself.
What Blair and Brown who were not only incompetent for what they done to the Armed forces as a whole, but especially the RN.
Both Blair and Brown should have faced war crime charges, not only for sending us to 2 phoney wars but sending our Armed Forces I’ll equipped to fight them.
To HMS Triumph and all the Thank you for your duty in keeping us safe.
HMS Trafalgar
Thank you for your long service. Just hope some of your recycled metal ends up been reused in future ships.
I missed off Class after Trafalgar
Definitely not recycled for high strength warship or submarine hulls. needs high quality control
Well, I can remember the 4 SSBNs, the Do’nut, Valiant, Churchill, Conqueror, Courageous, Warspite, and eventually Swiftsure, plus our US cousins around the corner. Conventional boats at SM1, SM2, and SM7. How times change!
All the more reason to have a force of SSKs, between 5 to 7 bought of the Shelf from either Germany, Japan or Sweeden More important than a second batch of T31.
They are cheaper to run snd dispose of, could be based at Plymouth, therefore a second submarine base. 7 Astutes plus 5 SSKs a credible submarine force
We can’t even staff our current submarine fleet, let alone a whole separate type.
That’s before considering that no one will go for foreign built SSKs
I didn’t ‘Serve’ in the traditional sense but I had admiration for S.E.Fs having worked alongside those operating Dolphins, SSNs and SSBNs, for their dogged service. My respect was borne from both my dad and grandad being RN ex-servicemen, Man boy.
So, to see our political elite dispensing with this country’s fleets as so much flotsam, pulls more than a few heartstrings.
I just love the look of the acoustic tile quilt-work.
Honestly…I live on the Clyde & the lack of anything defensive to deter a near peer adversary is worse than alarming! If a Victor Class SSN K306 can sally up the Narrow Clyde & park up in 1974 with all the cold war equipment NATO had Nimrods ,Shackleton’s,Gannets ,Orion’s & SONUS .then no wonder Putin is smug . Now ..swap out the Victor for a modern Russian Poseidon type weapon & What if the Russians already know of our 1 SSBN on station & location.? ..then there is no big stick ! Pride Runs deep in the Nay & as kids watching the the USN & UK boomers on the surface cruising past ominously like massive whales …. destination unknown?….Task ? Preserve our freedoms ..I doubt we can even match France in a conflict! What has become of us
In 1975 Britain spent 5.34% of GDP on Defence and a lot of that equipment came from early 60s when it was 7%
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/united-kingdom/military-spending-defense-budget
It was 2.65% at end of last Labour government 2009 , but has fallen every year since
I like Rachael Reeves, she’s a top bloke, she’ll soon have this country’s house in order and get defence spending back to where it should be.
“Victor Class SSN K306 can sally up the Narrow Clyde & park up in 1974″
Thats just Youtube complete nonsense , surely even you can see through the tissue of lies
https://youtu.be/Ck3IVzdTUxw
I agree with Norman. HMS Triumph BZ!!
The uk should keep.all it’s subs and build more ready for world war three
We have kept them all, ready and waiting to go back to sea. Most are in Devonport whilst a few more are in Faslane.
90 percent are well beyond useable and waiting disposal
T class were good however one Astute can do the job of three of them now, the AUKUS program should add at least another seven SSN,s to the RN making it more than a match for Russia and China.
Can do everything that 3 T class submarines can do… apart from being in three places at once.
I simply don’t understand how our submarine fleet has devolved into a fleet of sitting ducks parked up in Devonport as a ripe target for Putin to aim one of his hypersonic IBCM,s at.The result would make pearl harbour look like a small part.What is wrong with all the clever people from our finest universities who have all the best well paid jobs for life and can’t do diddly squat to justify their existence?Why hasn’t the device I spent a fair part of my life building and commission been used? Plenty of dry docks left, some on the river Tyne!!! Oh! That’s a taboo name ,Maybe Trump will scare the sheet out of these morons and we can get our boats back to sea where they belong.
I miss all my mate lots on Plymouth,loved being there it was time well spent at the end of my career and the fishing was brilliant.
Probably the best reception/ cocktail party I ever went to was inside HMS TRIUMPH in 1993 in Singapore, as a young SLt pilot on holdover. She was as impressive as ever when I flew over her yesterday, proudly steaming surfaced on her final voyage!
7 boats in 8 years. It’s been double that time for 6 of 7 Astute!!!
For those who know, how do the T-class compare with the USN Los Angeles-class SSNs, and what’s the feedback on Astute vs Virginia these days?
Da Saint
Feedback from the late 1980’s
Overall, in my own humble opinion, it was pretty much “Even Stephens” (note 1)
However, back in the days of the Cold War One being fought under the North Atlantic and Arctic, the RN boats definitely benefited from two non-technical factors:
I felt those two factors, just quite-probably, gave the RN a “a very slight edge“ over the USN when one was making any all-round comparision on a “boat for boat” basis
However, let us not forget that – mainly due to Rickover’s very astute leadership (note 2) – the USN always had many more boats out at sea and also that he was the true master of driving technological innovation and development in submarine’s…..
Feedback 2024
No contest.
= the UK SSN Astute Boats only rarely leave the quayside…...
Hence why this website used to be called “Save the Royal Navy” (note 4) and also why I 100% agree with Jeff (posting above); who has just, quite correctly, called the Astute’s “Sitting Ducks”
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)