Does It Matter If the RN Has No SSN's at Sea? No, it Does Not.

 

The Royal Navy does not currently have any nuclear attack submarines (SSN) at sea. The fantastic website ‘Save The Royal Navy’ (STRN) has identified that of the force of 6 hulls, all are currently in port either returned from operations, preparing to deploy on operations or awaiting maintenance. Is this a disaster that highlights Britain’s further decline as a naval power or a routine reality that all navies face?

The RN operates three classes of submarine – a solitary TRAFALGAR class (HMS TRIUMPH), now in her final years of service, five ASTUTE class (with a further two under construction) and four VANGUARD class ballistic missile submarines which carry out the strategic nuclear deterrence role. A further four DREADNOUGHT class SSBN are in various stages of construction, while design work has begun on the SSN Replacement, which will be built jointly with Australia.

For the last 50 plus years there has always been an SSBN on patrol somewhere at sea able to fire up to 16 missiles as required. These are the ultimate guarantor of British sovereignty, knowing that a surprise attack on the UK would still, thanks to the command-and-control arrangements in place, still fire even if HMG were to be wiped out. The SSN force has been operating for over 60 years carrying out a range of roles from support to the nuclear deterrent, conducting intelligence gathering missions in places they probably shouldn’t have been, conducting land attack missions using cruise missiles and a variety of other tasks. The SSN is one of the ‘jewels in the crown’ in the British arsenal, providing a capability that very few nations possess.

The UK is, like other SSN operators, highly reticent to discuss operational specifics about where its submarines go and what they do. Even routine movements are often discussed long after the event or captioned as being ‘an A class submarine’ rather than focusing on the specific hull. We do know that RN SSN’s have been operational and very busy, but we don’t really know what they’ve been up to or where they’ve gone – which is precisely as it should be. Notably port visits for the SSN community are increasingly rare – the challenges of putting a nuclear-powered vessel alongside into most ports is complex and can attract unwanted interest. Reports of where the submarines go while deployed is hard to come by, reliant mostly on OSINT and occasional snippets of information.

We know that of the force of 6 vessels activity has been busy. HMS TRIUMPH has been deployed, reportedly to the Eastern Med for around 3 months. HMS AUDACIOUS has been deployed for over 400 days (with crew rotations occurring), again in the Eastern Med. Of the other four hulls, all appears to have not been to sea operationally for many months, with both HMS ARTFUL and ANSON reportedly not sailing since Feb, while HMS AMBUSH has not been operational for over a year. HMS ASTUTE spent around 500 days alongside, only sailing for the first time in July for a short period. Of the force of 6 hulls then, this means the RN appears to be keeping only two operational at any one time – is this an issue?

Part of the challenge here is that operating warships and submarines is very different to the aspirations that amateurs have. Each SSN is one of the most mechanically complex pieces of technology ever built, comprising hugely complicated systems working together in tandem to operate a nuclear reactor deep under the surface of the ocean and able to fire weapons that can sink ships, destroy targets over 1000 miles away or deploy sensors or special forces at will, while still being operational for months at a time. These assets cannot just ‘go’, they require regular maintenance and support as well as crew training to keep them safe and available for operations.

Deploying lots of submarines at once realistically imposes several costs, both short and medium term. In the short term it imposes a huge people burden as the boats are operational at sea with their crews. The RN, like other navies, is short of nuclear qualified submariners, and particularly in certain pinch point areas. Personnel availability is the critical path here -if you break the force by deploying too many people at once, you increase the likelihood of unplanned resignations and reduce availability of people downstream to go to more seagoing roles. Its easy to say, “send the sailors to sea, that’s why they joined isn’t it?’, and while this may be true for junior sailors, it isn’t the same for Senior Ratings. You cannot gap safety critical posts and there are only a finite number of people in the RN with the skills needed to safely operate nuclear reactors at sea. If you run out of them, you run out of the ability to keep the SSBN force at sea, let alone the SSN force. Those people are often married with family responsibilities and want to see their kids, they don’t all want to spend months, if not years, deployed on back-to-back seagoing drafts to keep the nuclear submarine force at sea. It is easy for internet keyboard admirals to demand a submarine is sent to sea, but they don’t have to worry about not seeing their family or being under the pressure to resign and get a good stable job in the nuclear energy industry instead.

The wider challenge the RN faces, beyond not breaking their crews is the issue of maintenance and ensuring the boats remain fit for service in a safe way. Refits, maintenance periods and other challenges emerge, exacerbated by an at times shortage of docks for refit work. The ‘STRN’ article identified that HMS AUDACIOUS needs planned maintenance but cannot enter dry dock at this point due to it being occupied by VANGUARD class hulls. The RN is investing heavily in putting ‘No10 dock’ in Plymouth as the refit dock for SSN’s, but this takes time (and has doubtless been delayed by COVID). Until there is increased dry dock availability, there will be a challenge in ensuring that hulls are available for operations – you cannot take risk here, because the potential for things to go wrong deep under the ocean is too grim to contemplate. But this choke point highlights the importance of spending on industrial capability, dry docks do not enjoy the ‘sex appeal’ of submarines at sea, but unless you spend money on the infrastructure, you won’t get the submarines to sea long term.

Fleet planners face a real challenge in trying to ensure the availability of hulls that are safe to operate, with the right number of crew to sustain long term deployments. As noted, HMS AUDACIOUS did crew rotations during her 400-day patrol, something that will have reduced availability for other hulls as people were sourced to fill key billets. Trying to keep the force at sea is going to be a headache that the RN will struggle with, but realistically it is hard to see the force keeping more than 1-2 hulls on deployment at any one time. Too many deployed will break crews, impose refit needs and reduce longer term contingency availability. If you look to the T45 fleet, you’ll see similar, where for many years the force has usually comprised 1-2 deployed hulls with the others in much lower states of readiness. This problem is not unique to the RN either – any navy operating ships or submarines will struggle to keep more than about a third of the force strength operationally deployed at any one time.

A wider issue is that we focus on deployment and not availability. A wise quote on twitter quoted a former RN submariner 2* about how fighter jets deliver effect even if they are on the ground and not on the air. There is some wisdom in that – that ships or submarines are alongside is not, of itself, a cause for worry. All warships spend time alongside, what matters is less where the ship or submarine is, and more whether it can get to sea safely, effectively and with a fully trained crew able to do the job required of it, in the notice time needed. This is what really matters. You’ll see this increasingly manifest itself with the way that the Royal Navy deploys forces – in recent years it has moved away from having singleton escort ship deployers, except in rare circumstances, and instead moved to task groups. This means that ships may seem to be in port more, but in fact they will deploy as formed groups en masse, rather than as a single ship on deployment – the Batch 2 RIVER class fill the role traditionally carried out by those deployers, flying the flag far from home, while leaving the major platforms for other tasks.

Look in Portsmouth dockyard now and it seems full, as if the RN isn’t operational. In fact it’s the end of the summer leave period, where crews have taken well deserved rest. They have worked their ships up and over the coming weeks we will see significant departures of major platforms to conduct autumn and winter deployments around the world. Rather than having a single ship somewhere, you can expect to see a major surface (and who knows, maybe subsurface) presence globally. This is the future operating model for the RN – small ships deployed permanently (supported in future by Type 31) leaving the main fleet in home waters to deploy on major set piece operations. It’s a bold move and one that will potentially be far more valuable to NATO and other allied planners – offering a fully formed Carrier Strike Group to NATO to which allies can integrate is a lot more powerful than sending a singleton escort ship.

At its heart though the RN has to focus on how it can sustain its presence globally not just in the short term but also the medium and long term. There is no point breaking the back of the force in a rush to get ships and submarines to sea to ‘do something’ if doing that means people leave or maintenance gets deferred. You only have a Navy if you have people to crew the ships you sail. Lose those and you’ve got a collection of very expensive bath toys. The price of ensuring long term stability though is going to mean periods like this, where you will occasionally see SSN’s alongside – the perfect combination of post deployment rest, preparation for new deployment and also planned maintenance means it can look like the RN isn’t working. Nothing could be further from the truth – indeed if you reflect on what the submarine force is doing right now, it has spent much of the last 18 months operating SSNs at distance from home doing highly sensitive missions whose stories can never be told. It has kept SSBN’s on station able to ensure that the UK can deliver a nuclear strike if required, silently operating in the shadows to maintain deterrence against erstwhile aggressors. It is only in the last few days that HMS TRIUMPH returned home, and it is likely to be only a very short period till the next A Boat slips quietly from her moorings and sails to sea, silently ready to do very unpleasant things to those who would do us harm. Focus on the capability, the readiness and the ability to sustain this for the long term, not the short-term snapshot in time of a late August day during the main summer leave period.

The submarine service may not say very much, but what can be counted on is that it is there able to do almost impossible things in the service of the nation whenever it is called upon to do so. They’re a special breed are our submariners, and the women and men who make up the RN submarine service deserve our thanks and respect for what they willingly do. They won’t let us down.