No country is better at naming their boats than the Brits. The Astute Class - and forthcoming Dreadnought Class of SSBNs - are epic. Well done, Royal Navy.
I had the opportunity to look inside the Astute when we did SCC OPS with her in pcan. They're neat boats, super jealous that the sailors got to keep their beards year-round.
There are a lot more secrets to these boats of course that are not mentioned particularly on the three last boats that I worked on that have massively improved the inability to detect them from all aspects as well as silence. I am a retired (at 70)subject matter expert on stealth, sonar and propulsion. These new innovations will feed forward onto the Dreadnought class of boomers and also to future attack boats that we worked on. Kind Regards
@@sadams12345678 Yes and No. BAE started out as the consolidation of three aerospace companies in the 1960s Since then they have branched out into almost every field of military hardware that the UK operates. Building our aircraft like the Eurofighter Typhoon, They produce the upgrade packages for our tanks like the Challenger 2 and also produce our warships. The Astute class are produced in a huge factory in Barrow In Furnace. The factory has all the facilities to assemble and float up to three subs at a time. I have personally seen Anson there undergoing final fitting before handover to the RN. It's a huge building you can't miss with the words BAE clearly on the side. There is an entire TV documentary showing them building the subs there and shows the launch of HMS Astute back in 2007. BAE also built both our carriers. It was intended to be a joint project with another UK company that had to pull out mid design leading to compatibility issues with the drawings and parts that BAE had to resolve themselves.
Great video, thank you. I am a land lover military veteran. I learn so much from your videos. Honestly, submarines scare me to death. Their capabilities are enormous.
Great job to our British brothers! England always has the best ship names lol. Good to see our closest allies staying strong and America and England sharing tech to keep the nations safe
@krashd most Americans use them both because we hear people like you get worked up if you don't use the correct one. I've literally heard Brits say you're supposed to call them English, not British. Can't win with you I guess
Very good and succinct summary of this UK Sub Aaron !! It's no surprise in some ways that Australia have selected the SSN(R) as their AUKUS Sub. There are many reasons for this I'm sure, (and the US Subs are equally good), but I suspect the fact that manning levels on UK Subs vis-a-vie US Subs are lower was a factor in their decision (i.e. Astute 98 sailors, Virgina 135 sailors).
Reduced manning on a boat always looks great on paper...... Until the scut-work...... Having an all-hands work-party for a 90 day loadout is arduous enough with 120 guys. Take away one-fifth of that number and guess how much longer that evolution takes.
Production capacity is another large factor in that decision. The US shipyards that can produce SSNs are already at max capacity and will be for years, possibly even a decade or more, as the Virginias are expected to be desperately needed in a potential war with the PRC. Any orders from Australia would likely not start production soon enough for Australia’s needs
I remember the day I earned my fish, July 3rd 2007. My wife asked me this last weekend how is submarines fighting submarines. I said in the words of my favorite skipper. " We are two blind men with perfect hearing in a knife fight ". She didn't get it, I just smiled.
HMS Astute, HMS Ambush, HMS Artful and HMS Audacious are in service. HMS Anson is the next boat to enter service. FYI - The Royal Navy's newest City Class Type 26 frigate (HMS Glasgow) has made its first journey down the River Clyde, carried by a giant barge.
The Block 1 Spearfish has been put into service. It has a fibre optic wire. Upgraded sonar and computer and safer fule and insensitive warhead. The speed is officially 7o kts but it is significantly faster.
I've been to Barrow-in-Furness (The location you called Furness) a few times. Nice place. I did a big charity event there called the Keswick to Barrow, which is a 40 mile walk/run over all kinds of terrain. Iirc, it's commonly called Barrow, not Furness.
Yes. Should have ordered 8 Astutes and kept the programme going. The Virginias may or may not be delivered and they will be 2nd hand anyway. Much faster than waiting 20 years for the first Astute2.
I wish Adelaide were already building the Suffren class SSNs. Unlike the current AUKUS pillar 1 arrangements, Australia would end up with 12 capable subs, increased national sovereignty (less dependence on the US) and have zero issues re.nuclear non-proliferation treaty. UNFORTUNATELY, political conservatives and the DoD have an irrational fear of abandonment of this nation by its major ally and are unwilling to dial back some of the very close defence arrangements with the US in pursuit of increased national sovereignty. Pine Gap, North West Cape & Tindal support for B2/B52s are already a sufficient contribution to the US alliance and would make them targets already.
Thanks! I kept waiting for him to pronounce “Thalis”, knowing how the River “Thames” is pronounced. And the German word “thaler”, whence our word, “dollar” comes from. But I still missed him pronouncing it. I came to the comments section specifically to find that out. I know. I don’t have a life.
Yes. It is the French way of pronouncing the name. Typical French. As there is also an English AND a Greek way to pronounce the word. It is the name of a Greek, Thales of Miletus. He was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher. Th-als in English. Ta-lis in French. Th-a-leez in Greek.
@ I would have expected him having been a god, or someone in Greek mythology, such as Poseidon (missile), or Nimrod (aircraft). But, thanks! I’m into both trivia and correct pronunciations.
@@perrybonney9090 Its one those "marketing did not due diligence" and look at other languages problem. According to the wiki, its actually worse. "Previously known as Thomson-CSF since its foundation in 1968, the group was rebranded Thales (named after the Greek philosopher Thales [talɛs], pronounced as in French) in 2000 after a communication audit highlighted Thomson-CSF's image deficit, particularly among the young French graduates it sought to recruit. The new name was thus meant to liven up its image and to better embody the company's global expansion since the 1990s." So the French chose a Greek philosopher's name to appeal to French graduates. This is mainly an electronic's company. Graduates who know who the Greek guy was, will not be applying to the company. Rather headscratching.
It is interesting to see the evolution of heavy torpedoes. The spearfish, developed in the 80s', still uses a special fuel and hydroxylammonium perchlorate as oxidiser for propellant. This provides a lot of energy (hence the great speed of the torpedo) but can be potentially dangerous and needs to be handled with extreme care inside the sub,. It is also noisy (and thus detected as soon as fired). Furthermore, guidance is still via a copper wire, which has limited transmission capacity. The more recent Italian Black Shark, and even most recent French F21 torpedoes use aluminum-silver oxide (Al-AgO) batteries for propulsion, which are extremely silent and do not suffer a decrease in efficiency at depth (there is no exhaust system), and which are completely safe (the battery gets "primed" when entering water). Guidance is by optical fiber, which allow far more information to be transmitted, and hence enables the torpedo to better operate in complex and noisy environment. It would be interesting to see if those new technologies are being considered for the upgraded spearfish.
Liked the video. one thing you failed to consider or mention is something that BAE Systems are famous for and American shipyards do as well. Any problems identified during the building and testing of the lead vessel will be noted and improvements / changes made to the next in production. So given the build time and the advance in technology by the time the seventh vessel is launched it will be an Astute in name and probably shape only as improvements will have been made during construction making it completely different system wise to the first in class.😉🐬🐬.
Special forces would be my guess, looks like our version of the dry-well thing the US uses to deploy NAVY seals from their subs. A rescue vehicle would likely not be black.
It’s the Chalfont dry deck shelter, as above special forces use. Can carry a SDV as well as being a lockout chamber for mass diving operations and launching/recovering RIBs. As you can see the Astute has it nicely integrated into the fin whereas a lot of other vessels have their DDS bolted to the back with fairly clunky access.
They can't. Torpedo's are complex weapons and need to be be integrated into the Combat Management Systems in order to be fired and guided. Neither the RN or USN has integrated the other nations Heavyweight Torpedo's. It would take years to do as well...not an overnight job. Astute will fire Tomahawk however, which is a US weapon. But...even then its different to the USN now as the Tomahawk version is fired from the Torpedo Tubes in an encapsulated container. The USN used to use these as well on earlier block Los Angeles Class and Seawolf Class but has now removed it from service and only uses the vertical launch Tomahawk variant. In fact I believe the USN sold the UK the last of its TTL (Torpedo Tube Launch) units for Tomahawk. Which also means that, unheralded, the USN's Seawolf Class no longer have a missile available as they do not have VL tubes like the later Los Angeles or Virginia Class.
Great information. Can you do an update on the Zumwalt replacing the 155 mm guns with the Hypersonic CPS missile? The Navy trying to turn a disaster into a win.
I live on Walney Island next to Barrow and can see the building from Walney. As a matter of interest while on my walk I noticed a flash in the sky above the building and took four quick shots though I could see nothing . On my return home I noticed a reflective doughnut shape object high in the top left of the photo and a dark cylinder object closer to the building .I have some experience of seeing what is commonly known as U.F.O.s as well as other daylight photos taken 12 years earlier. I have good knowledge of conventional aircraft and know what they were not.
Here's a secret about the Astute class: The sail house is suppose to mimic a beluga whale sticking it's head out the water. (Don't tell anyone though it's a secret, if our adversaries find out they will know how to spot our new subs when they surface so ssssshhhhh!! ) Good video by the way thanks.
Some of these were probably actually secret until we started on the Dreadnoughts. I’m shocked we are still working on 2 more of those when the Dreads are Inc. Maybe some for Australia.
@@paulkirkland3263 The reactor was originally designed for the larger Vanguard class bombers. The Astute’s unusual hull shape is a bit of a compromise to allow the larger reactor to fit into the smaller attack sub.
Actually, the Astute Class was originally supposed to replace the Swiftsure Class, but with delays the government decided to let the Swiftshure class decommission without replacement to save money. this one move cut the UK SSN fleet in half.
Sounds like we have a very potent sub here. I am not familiar with the ordinance you mentioned, but it will be a force multiplier if those torpedo tubes can shoot some surface to surface tactical nuke tip missiles. Such as what the Israeli Dolphin mk.2 subs can do.
UK has no nuclear weapons other than the Trident missile system fitted to the Vanguard class SSBNs. They did have, but all were decommissioned at the end of the cold war.
I don’t think we (uk) ever had nukes for sub launched cruise missiles. We did have carrier based nuclear bombers, and we still have nuclear ballistic missiles on subs.
@@DanielsPolitics1 No, I am pretty sure we did not. In fact, I don't believe we ever had any nuclear weapons for our submarines (other than the SSBNs).
In theory the nuclear warhead armed Tomahawks could be brought out of storage and refurbished. But they were removed for good reasons, mainly to prevent adversaries from treating a conventional warhead Tomahawk launch as a nuke and responding with a nuke.
Okay is it me, or is Babcock taking an exceptionally long time to complete the production? And do they do that on purpose? Is it a slow steady pace to assure the shipyard is busy and open for the entire ~25-30 until they start producing the new SSBM and/or SSN class's?
@@jonathanbair523 Unfortunately not. We have to wait for Astute 2 design. It will larger with VLSsilos instead of tube launched missiles. But it will be 20 years before the first one is commissioned for the RAN.
I would be interested to hear how the Astute compares to the Suffren. They basically have the same purpose, and both come from a failed partnership between the British and the French.
No they don't. Astute is a 'cheap' development of the cancelled W-class wrapped around a Vanguard reactor compartment.....only a lot if W-class concepts became affordable through gestation of the design.
There has never been a partnership between the UK and France in regards to nuclear submarines, either failed or successful. France was years behind the US and UK in terms of nuclear submarines as she started late and her requirements were very different. They have made up some ground but only to a degree, in recent years. The reason for this is that the French are only on their 2nd generation of SSN, with the Suffren Class replacing the Rubis Class. Therein lies part of the problem. The Rubis Class were one of the least capable SSN's built, a poor hull design that then led to a complete rebuild of the ships in order to get better hydrodynamics later on, and with not very capable systems installed, they were also built far, far too small. And that impacted their capability. The UK in comparison are on their 6th generation, with the US on their 9th (or 12th if you include 1 off boats that were repurposed or led nowhere). The US and UK also spent most of the Cold War going head to head with the Soviets up north where the French never ventured...that experience drove developments forward dramatically. The French SSN's essentially missed that entire Cold War....the first Rubis Class wasn't operational until 1985 and needed lots of rework...by the time it was done the Cold War was over.... The Suffren Class is a perfectly decent SSN....but....its not up there with the latest UK and US boats for the simple reason that, again, the French have done it cheap and made it too small.....Suffren is the same size as a Trafalgar Class from the early 80's and smaller than a Los Angeles from the late 70's. 40-45 years ago.....Since then the UK and US have built much larger boats like Seawolf, Virginia and Astute. The US boats being twice the size and Astute 80% bigger....that size isn't just for fun.....it serves a real purpose. You need that size for the reactor powerplant, large weapons load, sensors, habitability and power generation for the enormous data processing that a modern high end submarine needs. The Suffren just doesn't have this. If you look at other nuclear Sub builders they're all going for larger sizes as well....the French didn't get the memo...
@@dogsnads5634 There was indeed a project named "Future Attack Submarine (FASM)" between the French and the British that failed in the early 2000s because of timeline disagreements. That was what I was referring to.
I wonder if the machinery I built for the Trafalgar class got transferred to these boats, the RN does have a tradition of, "if it aint broke"; some of the stuff the company I worked for at the time, made for the RN back in the early 1950s, was still being lifted and shifted to new generations of warships in the 1980s. (Ancillary, not weapons or electronics).
Interesting question for anyone that may know the answer. I know that the QE class and other warships get plugged into the port power supply so the ships engines don't need to remain on all the time. Do they do something similar with the nuclear reactors on the subs when they are in port. Turning on and off a nuclear reactor is a long drawn out process so it could be that they just leave it on while in port. Could even plug it into the port power supply and have the reactor produce electricity for the national grid while not at sea. Any thoughts welcome...
Excuse the land lubber Army grunt question. When making it's own oxygen from seawater, what happens to the hydrogen? The problem with the Astute class is common throughout the RN and British Armed Forces as a whole. There are simply too few to make a real difference in a global WWIII scenario. Given the likely duties they will be asked to perform. It's going to be a series of tough choices. Any losses will be catastrophic.
@@jgw9990 But GB is not most nations and HM Gov have taken great pains to poke the Bear of late. We are now in a Cold War against Russia and her axis of evil allies. I assume you appreciate the far reaching implications.
@@robertnemeth6248 I was still glad they made a big deal of the Spearfish in the show though, it's not like a US show to portray American military personnel as being afraid of something.
The main reason for the 2 loops is the first loop is highly pressurised (maybe 70 bar) so it doesn't turn to steam in significant qualities. The second loop is less pressurised maybe 20 bar - i don't know exactly. So the hot water of the first will create steam in the 2nd which is used to turn the turbines. You don't want boiling water in the first loop as it requires a larger reactor design. You could probably drink the primary loop water too tbh, it will contain slightly more heavy water than standard drinking water but probably not enough to bother you.
Another reason for two loops is to keep radiation inside the reactor vessel/compartment, whether the first loop is an open loop or a closed loop it can still become contaminated over time or through accidents and the last thing you want is to contaminate the generators and anything else that isn't shielded.
Yes. Under the Akus agreement, Australia should have bought the Astute Class off the shelf. We could have had our Submariners and Engineers trained in Nuclear Technology right fucking now. Rather then waiting 20 or so odd years for a Virginia Class that will be way out of date. Having said that, we in Australia, have the second best Urariam reserves after Russia. It wouldn't be hard at all to reopen Mary Kathleen for example. All we would need to do, is to get our best Physics people on the job, get our Submariners over to England, buy the Astutes, and it's Game over. Wouldn't take more than 3 or 5 years.
Missed opportunity at this point. Key systems are no longer being built and have moved on to other production. There was a window where they could have just tacked on to the end of the RN production run but that window is now closed.
No, neither the Virginias (nor the Astutes ofc) will be forthcoming to Australia. I think that's pretty definite, based on everything coming out of the US over the last year. If Morriscum hadn't f*cked us over for his short term political advantage, we could have stayed with the French and upgraded to the Suffren class SSN, which they would have fallen over themselves to supply, as the biggest ever arms deal by France. Macron personally invested a lot into that deal, with the potential of defining a bigger role for France in the Indo-Pacific. He was very committed to making it work, so hence his huge disappointment on the contract termination. The Suffren is smaller and a bit less capable than the Virgina/Astute, but it could have been a far better fit for Australia (less dependence on the US, a proven design, higher certainty of delivery, smaller crew requirements, larger fleet to tackle chokepoints in the archipelago). Ultimately would have moved us away from a specific obligation to assist the US in any conflict on Taiwan should China and US go to war.
I wonder how much of the AUKUS submarine will have Astutes style systems in it? as it is around 90 percent designed by BAE. Im hearing it will have the US newest nuclear reactor engine, and will use US weapons and US combat system but with British sensors, countermeasures and British/US BAE designed boat etc. And it will have a VLS capability. Never to be refueled in it's life with a 35 year life and very much quieter boat than current Astutes and Virginia class submarines. Buy the time they are in the water i'm assuming they will have wing man style escorts submarines scouting ahead of the AUKUS submarine locating, receiving and sending network centric information to the mother AUKUS. With SSN/X Virginia class replacement due I wonder if they will be similar with the US machines having extended land attack options like they did with the Virginia class Block IV to Block V with the extra VPMs.
It will use lessons learned from both the Astute class and Virginia class. The Australian ones will have US combat systems evolved directly from the Virginia class. The VLS will also likely be derived from the Virginia class VPM.
I wish I shared your enthusiasm, but I have next to zero confidence that AUS pollies and Dept of Defence are capable of carrying through on such a complex project. ASC could build it if the Brits can design it in time, but interference & delays will come from all sides, based on previous experience with the Collins class.
@@terryj-dx6op One of the heads was the deputy head incharge of the Upholder Class build at VSEL and was one of the reasons AU went with the Collins. We couldn't fettle them due to a lack of money and will and it took the Canadians a long while to get them sorted
For the French electronics and defence company Thales is pronounced Ta-les for the Greek philosopher and Mathematician its pronounced Thay-leez, so in this context Ta-les
Is it only a Russian and American trend to launch fish amidships instead of nose mounted or are they the rule and this boat design is the exception in keeping the nose tubes?
The tubes are angled out and fire out of the side behind the sonar. "T" Class had 5 tubes,4 similarly angled, 5 tube was angled down and fired under the sonar and anchor
Not much detail on the crew quarters... I just hope they have more space than on the Trafalgar class. I had a tour of one of the T boats at Devonport during a refit and those guys had little more space than late model WWII U-boats.
If I recall correctly this year all Astutes were undergoing repairs with none at sea for quite some time, lmao. Not a good look at all, but that's what happens when someone wants to have a second rate navy at a third rate budget.
Well part of the deal after the US were defeated in the War of 1812 is Naval cooperation, hence Virginias being deployed to protect the Vanguard SSBNs.
@@HolyNorthAmericanEmpire I should hope so comparing the size of both countries America's Navy has had a lot of problems lately, so I wish their submariners well.
As a former electrician’s mate, we spent a lot of time caring for the battery. Are new boats or refurbished boats able to incorporate advancements in battery technology?
![[DRAGON BALL LEGENDS REVEALS ＆ STUFF] LEGENDS FESTIVAL 2024 Special Edition Part 2](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/af0phKxitX8/mqdefault.jpg)
No country is better at naming their boats than the Brits. The Astute Class - and forthcoming Dreadnought Class of SSBNs - are epic. Well done, Royal Navy.
Absolutely, they never fail to deliver.❤
The next boat to be launched is the HMS Agamemnon with the final being the Agincourt
@@tylerdegenhardt7496
'HMS VENGEANCE' is without a doubt the best name for a submarine armed with nuclear weapons.
@@Dushmann_ Until HMS Warspite is launched in the 2030's.
I wonder what the Frogs 🇫🇷 will think of the HMS Agincourt… 🇬🇧🏴☠️😉
I had the opportunity to look inside the Astute when we did SCC OPS with her in pcan. They're neat boats, super jealous that the sailors got to keep their beards year-round.
that is an astute observation Aaron!
Gottem'
Ooofs LOL!
Damnit! I was about to make an Astute pun - well played sir, well played!
Dad jokes😂
You can put your red nose on now!
The Astute-class boats just look chonky. They are pleasing to the eye.
They are but seeing them means they have failed at the first hurdle.
Chonky for using the Vanguards' reactor.
But none of the five are ready to deploy yet.
HMS Astute's first operational deployment was back in 2014.
@@jamesday426 Only in the last month has Anson deployed.
Not for nothing that the Australians do not want Astutes.
@@EmsThaBreaks441 Yet they asked the RN for something better than what the French were offering.
Agamemnon. Gotta love that name.
Will be know to her crew as Eggs n Bacon
There are a lot more secrets to these boats of course that are not mentioned particularly on the three last boats that I worked on that have massively improved the inability to detect them from all aspects as well as silence. I am a retired (at 70)subject matter expert on stealth, sonar and propulsion. These new innovations will feed forward onto the Dreadnought class of boomers and also to future attack boats that we worked on. Kind Regards
Yeah the Astutes are iterative, each one has changes and upgrades from the previous similar to Virginia Blocks.
We don't call the big guys boomers in the UK, we call them bombers.
@@krashd Yes we do but I think this channel has a mainly US based audience. Kind regards
@@watcherzero5256 All boats tend to be different in build and improvement, but the last three Astute class have very significant changes. Kind regards
So do you have an answer why Sub games and the general public never seem to mention that torpedo's can be fired at other torpedo's... just interested.
"Bae wake up, new SSN just dropped! Wait, you've build it?!"
BAE = British Aerospace
@@sadams12345678 Yes, they know that.
@@sadams12345678 It's a merged entity between British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems.
@@sadams12345678 Yes and No.
BAE started out as the consolidation of three aerospace companies in the 1960s Since then they have branched out into almost every field of military hardware that the UK operates. Building our aircraft like the Eurofighter Typhoon, They produce the upgrade packages for our tanks like the Challenger 2 and also produce our warships.
The Astute class are produced in a huge factory in Barrow In Furnace. The factory has all the facilities to assemble and float up to three subs at a time. I have personally seen Anson there undergoing final fitting before handover to the RN. It's a huge building you can't miss with the words BAE clearly on the side.
There is an entire TV documentary showing them building the subs there and shows the launch of HMS Astute back in 2007.
BAE also built both our carriers. It was intended to be a joint project with another UK company that had to pull out mid design leading to compatibility issues with the drawings and parts that BAE had to resolve themselves.
Great video, thank you. I am a land lover military veteran. I learn so much from your videos. Honestly, submarines scare me to death. Their capabilities are enormous.
Great job to our British brothers! England always has the best ship names lol. Good to see our closest allies staying strong and America and England sharing tech to keep the nations safe
You got it right by calling us British but then you referred to us as English again. Puzzling.
-A Scot
@krashd most Americans use them both because we hear people like you get worked up if you don't use the correct one. I've literally heard Brits say you're supposed to call them English, not British. Can't win with you I guess
@@briancrawford69 stick to British/Brits in the military context and you can't go wrong.
@@krashd None of these English submarines are stationed in England. All UK Royal Navy submarines are based in Faslane Scotland.
Great video. It is Barrow in Furness BTW. I went to the 'launch' of the Astute. It is lowered very slowly into the water.
I saw one kf these last summer at barrow ship yard. Its possibly the most gorgeous looking boat to be dropped in the water.
Very good and succinct summary of this UK Sub Aaron !! It's no surprise in some ways that Australia have selected the SSN(R) as their AUKUS Sub. There are many reasons for this I'm sure, (and the US Subs are equally good), but I suspect the fact that manning levels on UK Subs vis-a-vie US Subs are lower was a factor in their decision (i.e. Astute 98 sailors, Virgina 135 sailors).
We still eat more Sausages…🤫🇬🇧😋
Reduced manning on a boat always looks great on paper...... Until the scut-work......
Having an all-hands work-party for a 90 day loadout is arduous enough with 120 guys. Take away one-fifth of that number and guess how much longer that evolution takes.
Production capacity is another large factor in that decision. The US shipyards that can produce SSNs are already at max capacity and will be for years, possibly even a decade or more, as the Virginias are expected to be desperately needed in a potential war with the PRC. Any orders from Australia would likely not start production soon enough for Australia’s needs
Also cheaper and with cooler names :)
Also cheaper and with cooler names :)
A fun fact is that Admiral Rickover once drank water from the first loop to prove how safe it was
Yay! What a great way to start the week, Aaron, Go Navy!!!
Aaron, HMS Agamemnon was launched back in October 2024. ;)
I remember the day I earned my fish, July 3rd 2007. My wife asked me this last weekend how is submarines fighting submarines. I said in the words of my favorite skipper. " We are two blind men with perfect hearing in a knife fight ". She didn't get it, I just smiled.
Thank you for these sessions.
I've been waiting for this one for so long!
HMS Astute, HMS Ambush, HMS Artful and HMS Audacious are in service. HMS Anson is the next boat to enter service. FYI - The Royal Navy's newest City Class Type 26 frigate (HMS Glasgow) has made its first journey down the River Clyde, carried by a giant barge.
@@mikedignum1868 anson is in service agamemnon is next to enter service
I'm pretty sure anson has already entered service. It's agamemnon that's goes into trials next
@@iking95249agamemnon has just entered the water (launch Oct 2024)
@ you’re correct
The Block 1 Spearfish has been put into service. It has a fibre optic wire. Upgraded sonar and computer and safer fule and insensitive warhead. The speed is officially 7o kts but it is significantly faster.
Awesome submarine all around thank you for the brief!
Spearfish MOD1 is now fibreoptic guided.
Interesting as always!
I've been to Barrow-in-Furness (The location you called Furness) a few times. Nice place. I did a big charity event there called the Keswick to Barrow, which is a 40 mile walk/run over all kinds of terrain.
Iirc, it's commonly called Barrow, not Furness.
I wish the Britts were building these for Australia, faster than waiting for Virginias sadly.
Yes. Should have ordered 8 Astutes and kept the programme going. The Virginias may or may not be delivered and they will be 2nd hand anyway. Much faster than waiting 20 years for the first Astute2.
@@advanceaustralia3321 the first one will be a second hand block IV. The second and 3rd will be new Block Vs or VIs.
I wish Adelaide were already building the Suffren class SSNs. Unlike the current AUKUS pillar 1 arrangements, Australia would end up with 12 capable subs, increased national sovereignty (less dependence on the US) and have zero issues re.nuclear non-proliferation treaty. UNFORTUNATELY, political conservatives and the DoD have an irrational fear of abandonment of this nation by its major ally and are unwilling to dial back some of the very close defence arrangements with the US in pursuit of increased national sovereignty. Pine Gap, North West Cape & Tindal support for B2/B52s are already a sufficient contribution to the US alliance and would make them targets already.
@@terryj-dx6op shut up froggie. No one wants diesel submarines.
Thales = Ta - lis. You said it correctly.
Thanks! I kept waiting for him to pronounce “Thalis”, knowing how the River “Thames” is pronounced. And the German word “thaler”, whence our word, “dollar” comes from.
But I still missed him pronouncing it. I came to the comments section specifically to find that out.
I know. I don’t have a life.
Yes. It is the French way of pronouncing the name. Typical French. As there is also an English AND a Greek way to pronounce the word. It is the name of a Greek, Thales of Miletus. He was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher. Th-als in English. Ta-lis in French. Th-a-leez in Greek.
@ I would have expected him having been a god, or someone in Greek mythology, such as Poseidon (missile), or Nimrod (aircraft).
But, thanks! I’m into both trivia and correct pronunciations.
@@perrybonney9090 Its one those "marketing did not due diligence" and look at other languages problem. According to the wiki, its actually worse.
"Previously known as Thomson-CSF since its foundation in 1968, the group was rebranded Thales (named after the Greek philosopher Thales [talɛs], pronounced as in French) in 2000 after a communication audit highlighted Thomson-CSF's image deficit, particularly among the young French graduates it sought to recruit. The new name was thus meant to liven up its image and to better embody the company's global expansion since the 1990s."
So the French chose a Greek philosopher's name to appeal to French graduates. This is mainly an electronic's company. Graduates who know who the Greek guy was, will not be applying to the company.
Rather headscratching.
It is interesting to see the evolution of heavy torpedoes. The spearfish, developed in the 80s', still uses a special fuel and hydroxylammonium perchlorate as oxidiser for propellant. This provides a lot of energy (hence the great speed of the torpedo) but can be potentially dangerous and needs to be handled with extreme care inside the sub,. It is also noisy (and thus detected as soon as fired). Furthermore, guidance is still via a copper wire, which has limited transmission capacity. The more recent Italian Black Shark, and even most recent French F21 torpedoes use aluminum-silver oxide (Al-AgO) batteries for propulsion, which are extremely silent and do not suffer a decrease in efficiency at depth (there is no exhaust system), and which are completely safe (the battery gets "primed" when entering water). Guidance is by optical fiber, which allow far more information to be transmitted, and hence enables the torpedo to better operate in complex and noisy environment. It would be interesting to see if those new technologies are being considered for the upgraded spearfish.
Fascinating 🤨 stuff, thank you for your insights Aaron. 💁🏼♂️🇬🇧👌🏼
Yes, love Brit ship names. Good brief man, thanks
excellent documentary by the way
As a Brit, I have been waiting for this video since subscribing 😂
I don’t think I’ve ever clicked on a RUclips video so fast
awesome as always. 👏👏
Liked the video. one thing you failed to consider or mention is something that BAE Systems are famous for and American shipyards do as well. Any problems identified during the building and testing of the lead vessel will be noted and improvements / changes made to the next in production. So given the build time and the advance in technology by the time the seventh vessel is launched it will be an Astute in name and probably shape only as improvements will have been made during construction making it completely different system wise to the first in class.😉🐬🐬.
Go Great Britain Go!
Glad the recent fire at Barrow didn't cause too much disruption to production.
Hi Aaron, good to see another stream of yours
These are the submarines the Australians should be building.
Agreed.... Plus Canada needs them too.
If the reactors were still available then definitely, unfortunately Rolls Royce are now on to the PWR3 for the next generation of subs…
So are they building theses one or there own design? I know they have like a contract with uk and USA right?
Astute class can no longer be built, reactor production has moved onto a new design
As I understand it, the Australians and the British will be building the replacement submarine class for the Astute class.
Really informative and well presented video.Learned a lot.
Just an update to the slides, HMS Agamemnon was launched in early October of this year
OMG!!! Sub brief still does subs...
Love the Astute. Was hoping this vid would be sponsored by Marlboro though lol
Do you intend to do a Suffren class sub brief ? That would be a good counterpart. The program is going quite switfly.
C'mon Aaron, that would be awesome.
I live on the opposite side of the bay from that construction building, it's hug and clearly visible across the bay.
what is the lump stuck on the fin at 11min 16 secs? is it a sub rescue bolt on? Is it a special forces bolt on?
Special forces would be my guess, looks like our version of the dry-well thing the US uses to deploy NAVY seals from their subs. A rescue vehicle would likely not be black.
Yes, that's the special delivery module for SBS
It’s the Chalfont dry deck shelter, as above special forces use. Can carry a SDV as well as being a lockout chamber for mass diving operations and launching/recovering RIBs.
As you can see the Astute has it nicely integrated into the fin whereas a lot of other vessels have their DDS bolted to the back with fairly clunky access.
They RN and USN subs also can cross carry each other's torpedoes and use them... Aka the Mk48 and Spearfish.
No.
They can't.
Torpedo's are complex weapons and need to be be integrated into the Combat Management Systems in order to be fired and guided. Neither the RN or USN has integrated the other nations Heavyweight Torpedo's. It would take years to do as well...not an overnight job.
Astute will fire Tomahawk however, which is a US weapon. But...even then its different to the USN now as the Tomahawk version is fired from the Torpedo Tubes in an encapsulated container. The USN used to use these as well on earlier block Los Angeles Class and Seawolf Class but has now removed it from service and only uses the vertical launch Tomahawk variant. In fact I believe the USN sold the UK the last of its TTL (Torpedo Tube Launch) units for Tomahawk. Which also means that, unheralded, the USN's Seawolf Class no longer have a missile available as they do not have VL tubes like the later Los Angeles or Virginia Class.
They’re built at Barrow-in-Furness and the structure is the DDH (Devonshire Dock Hall)
Thanks.
Great information. Can you do an update on the Zumwalt replacing the 155 mm guns with the Hypersonic CPS missile? The Navy trying to turn a disaster into a win.
I live on Walney Island next to Barrow and can see the building from Walney. As a matter of interest while on my walk I noticed a flash in the sky above the building and took four quick shots though I could see nothing . On my return home I noticed a reflective doughnut shape object high in the top left of the photo and a dark cylinder object closer to the building .I have some experience of seeing what is commonly known as U.F.O.s as well as other daylight photos taken 12 years earlier. I have good knowledge of conventional aircraft and know what they were not.
We get to see my country's attack submarines on Sub Brief.
Agamemnon was launched this year
Here's a secret about the Astute class:
The sail house is suppose to mimic a beluga whale sticking it's head out the water.
(Don't tell anyone though it's a secret, if our adversaries find out they will know how to spot our new subs when they surface so ssssshhhhh!! )
Good video by the way thanks.
🐳🇬🇧🤫
Some of these were probably actually secret until we started on the Dreadnoughts. I’m shocked we are still working on 2 more of those when the Dreads are Inc.
Maybe some for Australia.
Link-16 is on most NATO aircraft too, means these subs can talk directly with say an E-3 Sentry for targeting data for the Tomahawks.
Flank arrays were fitted to the upholders as well, before the all-nuclear decision sacked them, retained and upgraded after the RCN took them.
Aaron, could you do a video on the Vanguard subs sometime?
Nitpicking, I think the explosive might be PBX not PPX. Polymer bonded explosive no?
what's VLS? I'm guessing vertical launch system?
Yep.
Can someone explain the hull shape around the fin/sail ? It almost looks like area-rule on an aircraft.
@@paulkirkland3263 or you could listen to the video yourself where he mentions why the sub is shaped that way.......
@@paulkirkland3263 The reactor was originally designed for the larger Vanguard class bombers. The Astute’s unusual hull shape is a bit of a compromise to allow the larger reactor to fit into the smaller attack sub.
@@greva2904 Thank you for that, much appreciated.
Actually, the Astute Class was originally supposed to replace the Swiftsure Class, but with delays the government decided to let the Swiftshure class decommission without replacement to save money. this one move cut the UK SSN fleet in half.
12.02.24 Thank you muchly. Nicely done.
Hi Aaron, do you have any information on the escape system on this boat ie a Single Escape Tower of a multi person diver lockout?
Sounds like we have a very potent sub here. I am not familiar with the ordinance you mentioned, but it will be a force multiplier if those torpedo tubes can shoot some surface to surface tactical nuke tip missiles. Such as what the Israeli Dolphin mk.2 subs can do.
UK has no nuclear weapons other than the Trident missile system fitted to the Vanguard class SSBNs. They did have, but all were decommissioned at the end of the cold war.
I don’t think we (uk) ever had nukes for sub launched cruise missiles. We did have carrier based nuclear bombers, and we still have nuclear ballistic missiles on subs.
@@DanielsPolitics1 No, I am pretty sure we did not. In fact, I don't believe we ever had any nuclear weapons for our submarines (other than the SSBNs).
In theory the nuclear warhead armed Tomahawks could be brought out of storage and refurbished. But they were removed for good reasons, mainly to prevent adversaries from treating a conventional warhead Tomahawk launch as a nuke and responding with a nuke.
@@stupidburp I don't believe the Royal Navy ever had the nuclear armed variant, though the US did base ground launched Tomahawk in the UK for a while.
Okay is it me, or is Babcock taking an exceptionally long time to complete the production? And do they do that on purpose?
Is it a slow steady pace to assure the shipyard is busy and open for the entire ~25-30 until they start producing the new SSBM and/or SSN class's?
@scottsauritch3216 yes it's deliberately slow to keep staff until the next generation design is to be built.
Not enough experienced and qualified welders. US also have the same problems even after inhouse training and scholarship.
The Astute class is built by BAE, not Babcock.
It’s to avoid boom and bust, risking the loss of industrial capacity
Is this the boat Aus will be getting too?
@@jonathanbair523
Unfortunately not. We have to wait for Astute 2 design. It will larger with VLSsilos instead of tube launched missiles. But it will be 20 years before the first one is commissioned for the RAN.
Title says it all.
Is the next 1 gonna be -- The super - secrets - true - hidden - forgotten of fresh water ??
I would be interested to hear how the Astute compares to the Suffren. They basically have the same purpose, and both come from a failed partnership between the British and the French.
No they don't. Astute is a 'cheap' development of the cancelled W-class wrapped around a Vanguard reactor compartment.....only a lot if W-class concepts became affordable through gestation of the design.
There has never been a partnership between the UK and France in regards to nuclear submarines, either failed or successful.
France was years behind the US and UK in terms of nuclear submarines as she started late and her requirements were very different. They have made up some ground but only to a degree, in recent years.
The reason for this is that the French are only on their 2nd generation of SSN, with the Suffren Class replacing the Rubis Class. Therein lies part of the problem. The Rubis Class were one of the least capable SSN's built, a poor hull design that then led to a complete rebuild of the ships in order to get better hydrodynamics later on, and with not very capable systems installed, they were also built far, far too small. And that impacted their capability. The UK in comparison are on their 6th generation, with the US on their 9th (or 12th if you include 1 off boats that were repurposed or led nowhere). The US and UK also spent most of the Cold War going head to head with the Soviets up north where the French never ventured...that experience drove developments forward dramatically. The French SSN's essentially missed that entire Cold War....the first Rubis Class wasn't operational until 1985 and needed lots of rework...by the time it was done the Cold War was over....
The Suffren Class is a perfectly decent SSN....but....its not up there with the latest UK and US boats for the simple reason that, again, the French have done it cheap and made it too small.....Suffren is the same size as a Trafalgar Class from the early 80's and smaller than a Los Angeles from the late 70's. 40-45 years ago.....Since then the UK and US have built much larger boats like Seawolf, Virginia and Astute. The US boats being twice the size and Astute 80% bigger....that size isn't just for fun.....it serves a real purpose. You need that size for the reactor powerplant, large weapons load, sensors, habitability and power generation for the enormous data processing that a modern high end submarine needs. The Suffren just doesn't have this. If you look at other nuclear Sub builders they're all going for larger sizes as well....the French didn't get the memo...
@@dogsnads5634 There was indeed a project named "Future Attack Submarine (FASM)" between the French and the British that failed in the early 2000s because of timeline disagreements. That was what I was referring to.
@@lucaj8131 FASM and its replacement MUFC had zero French involvement. It was specifically a Trafalgar Class replacement.
@@dogsnads5634 Cheers, unusual to find interesting comments.
I wonder if the machinery I built for the Trafalgar class got transferred to these boats, the RN does have a tradition of, "if it aint broke"; some of the stuff the company I worked for at the time, made for the RN back in the early 1950s, was still being lifted and shifted to new generations of warships in the 1980s.
(Ancillary, not weapons or electronics).
Interesting question for anyone that may know the answer.
I know that the QE class and other warships get plugged into the port power supply so the ships engines don't need to remain on all the time.
Do they do something similar with the nuclear reactors on the subs when they are in port. Turning on and off a nuclear reactor is a long drawn out process so it could be that they just leave it on while in port. Could even plug it into the port power supply and have the reactor produce electricity for the national grid while not at sea.
Any thoughts welcome...
3:30 I don’t come to Sub Brief for the ‘main thing’, I come here for the ‘other’ stuff.
Should have mentioned HMS astute v USS New Mexico
Astute also beat two Arleigh Burkes.
Should be getting BLK 5 TLAM soon.
Excuse the land lubber Army grunt question. When making it's own oxygen from seawater, what happens to the hydrogen?
The problem with the Astute class is common throughout the RN and British Armed Forces as a whole. There are simply too few to make a real difference in a global WWIII scenario. Given the likely duties they will be asked to perform. It's going to be a series of tough choices. Any losses will be catastrophic.
7 nuclear submarines is a lot more than most countries have, which is zero.
@@jgw9990 But GB is not most nations and HM Gov have taken great pains to poke the Bear of late. We are now in a Cold War against Russia and her axis of evil allies. I assume you appreciate the far reaching implications.
H2 is pumped over the side and is dissolved in the water, It can be detected if a Submarine has been in the area.
@@gusgone4527 What bear? you talking about the cudly one in the corner getting beat up my the corgi ?? thats not a bear lad its a lamb.
@@furiousscotsman2916 A corgi that is being propped up by the strongest equipment on the planet and still isn't making a dent? That corgi?
I miss watching you play that sub fighting game on Twitch. It was oddly fascinating. Anyone remember the games name?
It might have been Cold Waters. There’s a good mod called DotMod that adds extra boats.
1:31 imagine building a submarine like an upside down jellyfish with sensors on a thousand cables, listening and watching for prey
This is a good brief, some is questionable
Is there an update on the sub that hit the undersea mount in the South China Sea, it was one of our seawolf class boats?
Nice. I hope this sub appears in Sea Power if the game goes to present day naval ships and submarines.
Can't, because that would require them to be able to ACCURATELY model the Sub; which they can't do as the necessary Stats are "Classified".
@@ligmasack9038 Then no modern subs will feature in that game about modern subs?
@@krashdsea power is not about modern subs, it's about 1960s-1980s era naval combat.
S 99 has been launched now and is in trials so only the last boat in in full build
How fast? 😳
Astute class made for a good bad guy in “the last ship”
Of cause in real lif the Spearfish would have sunk her....
@@robertnemeth6248 I was still glad they made a big deal of the Spearfish in the show though, it's not like a US show to portray American military personnel as being afraid of something.
Wye can't some of food on the submarine be grown on the submarine.
The main reason for the 2 loops is the first loop is highly pressurised (maybe 70 bar) so it doesn't turn to steam in significant qualities. The second loop is less pressurised maybe 20 bar - i don't know exactly. So the hot water of the first will create steam in the 2nd which is used to turn the turbines. You don't want boiling water in the first loop as it requires a larger reactor design. You could probably drink the primary loop water too tbh, it will contain slightly more heavy water than standard drinking water but probably not enough to bother you.
and Tritium.
Another reason for two loops is to keep radiation inside the reactor vessel/compartment, whether the first loop is an open loop or a closed loop it can still become contaminated over time or through accidents and the last thing you want is to contaminate the generators and anything else that isn't shielded.
You'd be putting a lot of trust in the fuel cladding.....
@@ligmasack9038 Tritium production would require the same hydrogen atom or one to absorb a neutron twice. So very low quantities.
@@krashd Not an issue due to very low radiation levels in the water.
This is what I always imagined the nuke sub in Civ6 was modelled on, but I don't know for sure.
Yes. Under the Akus agreement, Australia should have bought the Astute Class off the shelf. We could have had our Submariners and Engineers trained in Nuclear Technology right fucking now. Rather then waiting 20 or so odd years for a Virginia Class that will be way out of date.
Having said that, we in Australia, have the second best Urariam reserves after Russia. It wouldn't be hard at all to reopen Mary Kathleen for example.
All we would need to do, is to get our best Physics people on the job, get our Submariners over to England, buy the Astutes, and it's Game over.
Wouldn't take more than 3 or 5 years.
Missed opportunity at this point. Key systems are no longer being built and have moved on to other production. There was a window where they could have just tacked on to the end of the RN production run but that window is now closed.
@@stupidburp RR PWR2 is no longer available and without that ...
No, neither the Virginias (nor the Astutes ofc) will be forthcoming to Australia. I think that's pretty definite, based on everything coming out of the US over the last year. If Morriscum hadn't f*cked us over for his short term political advantage, we could have stayed with the French and upgraded to the Suffren class SSN, which they would have fallen over themselves to supply, as the biggest ever arms deal by France. Macron personally invested a lot into that deal, with the potential of defining a bigger role for France in the Indo-Pacific. He was very committed to making it work, so hence his huge disappointment on the contract termination. The Suffren is smaller and a bit less capable than the Virgina/Astute, but it could have been a far better fit for Australia (less dependence on the US, a proven design, higher certainty of delivery, smaller crew requirements, larger fleet to tackle chokepoints in the archipelago). Ultimately would have moved us away from a specific obligation to assist the US in any conflict on Taiwan should China and US go to war.
The first thing the Astute did was run aground coming out of the harbour.
Sattelite?
I wonder how much of the AUKUS submarine will have Astutes style systems in it? as it is around 90 percent designed by BAE.
Im hearing it will have the US newest nuclear reactor engine, and will use US weapons and US combat system but with British sensors, countermeasures and British/US BAE designed boat etc.
And it will have a VLS capability.
Never to be refueled in it's life with a 35 year life and very much quieter boat than current Astutes and Virginia class submarines.
Buy the time they are in the water i'm assuming they will have wing man style escorts submarines scouting ahead of the AUKUS submarine locating, receiving and sending network centric information to the mother AUKUS.
With SSN/X Virginia class replacement due I wonder if they will be similar with the US machines having extended land attack options like they did with the Virginia class Block IV to Block V with the extra VPMs.
RR PWR 3, based on a new US design but fettled by Rolls Royce. The Australians use US torpedoes
It will use lessons learned from both the Astute class and Virginia class. The Australian ones will have US combat systems evolved directly from the Virginia class. The VLS will also likely be derived from the Virginia class VPM.
@@dinger40 Actually the The MK48 ADCAP Mod 7 (CBASS) is an US/Australian modified MK48 torpedo.
I wish I shared your enthusiasm, but I have next to zero confidence that AUS pollies and Dept of Defence are capable of carrying through on such a complex project. ASC could build it if the Brits can design it in time, but interference & delays will come from all sides, based on previous experience with the Collins class.
@@terryj-dx6op One of the heads was the deputy head incharge of the Upholder Class build at VSEL and was one of the reasons AU went with the Collins. We couldn't fettle them due to a lack of money and will and it took the Canadians a long while to get them sorted
For the French electronics and defence company Thales is pronounced Ta-les for the Greek philosopher and Mathematician its pronounced Thay-leez, so in this context Ta-les
Is it only a Russian and American trend to launch fish amidships instead of nose mounted or are they the rule and this boat design is the exception in keeping the nose tubes?
The tubes are angled out and fire out of the side behind the sonar. "T" Class had 5 tubes,4 similarly angled, 5 tube was angled down and fired under the sonar and anchor
@dinger40 appreciate it. Subs are a good bit removed from my wheelhouse so I only have a basic understanding of the modern ones.
@@Colonel_Overkill I'm 30+ years out of date 🙁
I know almost nothing of the constantly submerged boats, but a decent amount about the u-boat style of sub
Not much detail on the crew quarters... I just hope they have more space than on the Trafalgar class. I had a tour of one of the T boats at Devonport during a refit and those guys had little more space than late model WWII U-boats.
MUCH more spacious than a T-boat. Not quite V boat floating hotel level, but close.
Ha so weird so see my hometown in the background of some pictures
Thales equipment: I wonder how many systems are shared between French and British submarines.
Thalès : "TAHL - Hayss"
(it's french)
Its actually Greek, the company is named after Thales of Miletus the first Greek Philosopher and father of Geometry.
They do have 8 dentists on board in lieu of a special mission module or VLS.
One the new dreads is fucked bad needs a complete new rewire and replacing one of the entire body sections apparently after the fire
If I recall correctly this year all Astutes were undergoing repairs with none at sea for quite some time, lmao.
Not a good look at all, but that's what happens when someone wants to have a second rate navy at a third rate budget.
Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
@RajBlake7 There are more Virginias at sea than the entire amount of Royal Navy submarines lmao
Well part of the deal after the US were defeated in the War of 1812 is Naval cooperation, hence Virginias being deployed to protect the Vanguard SSBNs.
You seem bitter, this is the second comment I've seen from you about this.
@@HolyNorthAmericanEmpire I should hope so comparing the size of both countries America's Navy has had a lot of problems lately, so I wish their submariners well.
thales --> greek thalis
As a former electrician’s mate, we spent a lot of time caring for the battery. Are new boats or refurbished boats able to incorporate advancements in battery technology?
No VLS… I was done right there.
Simply not required,