British navy unveils new submarine

AP via Seattle PI ^ | 05/08/07 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[Enchante]

At $2.4 billion each they’re coming in more expensive than our Virginia-class subs which (last I saw) are around $2 billion each?? Of course, costs per unit soar when all the R&D has to be divided only among 3-4 units produced. Couldn’t the US and UK find a way to collaborate on some such projects, or are the classified issues and defense industry priorities just too hard to resolve?? We did work together on the Trident missile program, yes?

[Wiseghy]

I’d be interested to know how this stacks up to US attack subs, such as Los Angeles Class.

[Paul Ross]

Nearly 40,000 acoustic tiles, designed to mask the submarine's sonar signature, have still to be attached to the ship's 318-foot hull, which is 30 percent longer than that of the submarines now in use.

Sounds (?) like a lot of dead weight...

[martin_fierro]

TTIUWP

[Enchante]

Yes, and if anyone can make comparisons with the latest USN attack boats, the Virginia class, that would be of great interest here too. Here’s something on the Virginia class:

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nssn/

I think we ended up only building 3 of the Seawolf class due to costs?? Is the Virginia class a reduced version of the Seawolf, or something much different?

[Joe Boucher]

At least the Britts can build one and not blow themselves up with it.
Now as for the russians?

[steveo]

Looks like they have hugh design problems with holes in the hull.

[martin_fierro]

Those are windows, smarta$$.

[Blue State Insurgent]

Nah, those are the screen doors.

[rednesss]

LMAO

[theDentist]

Here's a photo of it firing a torpedo during tests in the Antarctic

[PAR35]

If they don’t work, they could always wait for a new leftwing government in Canada, and sell them to that country.

[mylife]

Ordered: March 1997
Builder: BAE Systems Marine
Laid down: January 2001
Launched: 8 June 2007 (planned)
Commissioned: 2009 (planned)
Status: Under construction
General Characteristics
Displacement: 7800 tonnes submerged
Length: 97 m (323 ft)
Beam: 11.3 m (37 ft)
Draught: 10 m (33 ft)
Propulsion: Rolls-Royce PWR2 reactor (with full submarine life core), MAN (Paxman) 1900 kilowatt diesel generator
Speed: 29 knots (54 km/h) submerged
Range: circumnavigation 40 times without refuelling
Complement: 98 officers and men normally, capacity of 109
Sensors and processing systems: Thales Underwater Systems Sonar 2076, Atlas Hydrographic DESO 25 depth-finding echosounder, Two Thales Optronics CM010 periscopes, Raytheon Systems Ltd Successor IFF system
Armament: six 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, 38 Spearfish torpedoes, UGM-84 Harpoon and Tomahawk Block III cruise missiles, naval mines

[Osage Orange]

Series too..!!

[verum ago]

Nearly 40,000 acoustic tiles, designed to mask the submarine's sonar signature, have still to be attached to the ship's 318-foot hull, which is 30 percent longer than that of the submarines now in use.

Sounds (?) like a lot of dead weight...


I bet it's dead weight that any submariner is more than happy to drag along

[Dan Middleton]

The British are officially scraping the bottom of the barrel to get adjective names for ships.

Well, actually, they scraped it during the 1940’s when the first HMS Astute came into service.

[relee]

LoL!

[Stonewall Jackson]

fyi

[GAB-1955]

Much different. It’s designed to be not only stealthy, but to be able to carry a lot of cruise missiles in switch out pods for fast reloading. The Virginia subs are designed to make sure the Chinese Navy doesn’t have to spend money on deep water ships, because they’ll be sunk in harbor.