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Vanguard

The deployment at the beginning of 1996 year of HMS Victorious, the second Vanguard Class submarine, marks a major step in the transition from Polaris to Trident. Trident has now taken over the main burden of providing UK strategic nuclear deterrent, and also provides a continuously-available sub-strategic nuclear capability, a role the Trident force took over fully when Vigilant entered service and the WE177 bomb was withdrawn in 1998. At that point, Trident became the only UK nuclear weapon system.

The Vanguard Class submarine has been purpose-built as a nuclear powered ballistic missile carrier, incorporating a selection of successful design features from other British submarines. In this respect it is unlike its Polaris predecessor, which was adapted from the then existing Valiant Class SSN. At over 150 metres in length and over 16,000 tonnes, about twice the displacement of the Polaris submarines of the Resolution Class.

The submarines were designed and built by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited [VSEL] at Barrow-in-Furness. They are by far the largest submarines ever manufactured in the United Kingdom and the third largest unit in the Royal Navy. A special manufacturing facility, the Devonshire Dock Hall, had to be purpose-built at Barrow for their construction. The Vanguard Class submarines are larger than the Resolution Class mainly because of the need to accommodate the Trident D5 missile. However, the complement of a Vanguard Class boat is smaller - 132 officers and men compared to a Polaris submarine's crew of 149. The Vanguard Class boats include a number of improvements over previous British submarines, including a new design of nuclear propulsion system and a new tactical weapon system for self-defence purposes both before and after missile launch.

The 16-tube missile compartment is based on the design of the 24-tube system used by the United States Navy's Ohio Class Trident submarines. Although each Vanguard Class submarine is capable of carrying 192 warheads, the boats will deploy with no more than 96, and possibly with significantly fewer.

Since January 1995 Trident submarines have taken on a secondary "sub-strategic" role, with a number of Trident missiles carrying one nuclear warhead. The submarine in reserve may be armed with 11 missiles with 8 warheads, 4 missiles with 1 warhead on each, plus an Active Inert Missile during trials.

Some fourteen years after the start of the Trident project, the first submarine, HMS Vanguard, entered service on time in December 1994. HMS Victorious repeated that achievement, entering service in December 1995. The third Trident submarine, Vigilant, was commissioned in Barrow on 2 November 1996. In late 1997 HMS Vigilant emerged from the nuclear weapons store at Coulport fully armed with Trident missiles and nuclear warheads.Vigilant test fired two missiles in October 1997, then loaded missiles from 19 November to 3rd December, in which time nuclear warheads were attached to the missiles at Coulport. There was a final inspection on 05 December 1997, then the submarine became operational. The fourth and last UK Trident submarine, the Vengeance, was launched at the Barrow-in-Furness shipyard in Cumbria on 22nd August 1998. The Vengeance was commissioned into the Royal Navy at the GEC Marine (formerly VSEL) shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria on 27 November 1999.

It is too early in the life of the Trident program accurately to assess operating costs but the Government estimates them to be in the order of £200 million per annum over a 30 year in-service life. This estimate encompasses manpower and related costs, refits of the submarines, stores and transport costs, a share of the running costs of shore facilities, an element of the costs of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, in-service support of the submarines and their weapon systems and decommissioning and disposal costs. The latest estimate of the total acquisition cost of the Trident programme is £12.57 billion at 1996-97 economic conditions, over £3.6 billion less in real terms than the original 1982 estimate.