Breaking news
HMS Artful 3rd Royal Navy Astute Class SSN Submarine Will Set Sail for Sea Trials this Summer.
| 2015
Lessons
learned from the construction of HMS Astute and HMS Ambush will allow
Artful to progress to Contractor’s Sea Trials in a significantly
advanced material state than her predecessors. The Astute Class submarines are the most advanced and powerful submarines Britain has ever sent to sea. Featuring the latest nuclear-powered technology, they can circumnavigate the world submerged, manufacturing the crew’s oxygen from seawater as they go. They also have the ability to operate covertly and remain undetected in almost all circumstances despite being 50% bigger than the Royal Navy’s current Trafalgar Class submarines. Artful’s 97m length is greater than the length of 10 London buses. When fully stored she will displace 7,400 tonnes of sea water, equivalent to 65 blue whales. She will be able to circumnavigate the world without surfacing and her dived endurance is limited only by the amount of food that can be stored and the endurance of the crew. Artful is able to manufacture its own oxygen and fresh water from the ocean. The Astute class is the first class of Royal Navy submarine not to be fitted with optical periscopes – instead they employ high specification video technology. The images are delivered into the submarine control room via fibre-optic cables. Armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, Artful will be able to strike at targets up to 1,200m from the coast with pinpoint accuracy. Around 110 km of cabling and pipe work is installed on board Artful – enough to stretch from Bristol to Oxford. The Sonar 2076 sonar suite fitted on board Artful has the processing power of 2,000 laptop computers. It has the world’s largest number of hydrophones, providing the Royal Navy with the 'biggest ears' of any sonar system in service today. On a 10-week patrol the 100-strong crew of Artful will get through, on average, 18,000 sausages and 4,200 Weetabix for breakfast. |
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