Submarine Town supplement, July 2007 iii
Barrow in the 1880s (left) and HMS Explorer – nicknamed Exploder – in heavy seas in the late 1950s (above)
deep expertise
as HMS Exploder partly because of the
impressive fireballs she emitted from her
exhausts on start-up – suffered many
teething trials, but the pair were fast.
● HMS Dreadnought, the Royal Navy’s fi rst nuclear-powered submarine
But HTP was abandoned, partly as
being too dangerous, and partly because
– Churchill and Courageous – were Type 540 German-designed boats for the
the Americans had by then managed to
completed; HMS Conqueror was built at Israelis, and seven Improved Swiftsure- or
squeeze a nuclear reactor into a boat.
Cammell Laird at Birkenhead. Trafalgar-class boats, the sixth of which
There was still a need for economical,
After the enormously-complex task of – HMS Talent – was the last to rattle
efficient and quiet diesel patrol craft,
designing and building Resolution, which down a slipway at launch.
and Barrow obliged with members of
joined the Fleet in October 1967, Barrow Her younger sister, HMS Triumph, was
the Porpoise-class (1955) and the classic
turned out Repulse, while Cammell Laird- completed in the new Devonshire Dock
Oberon-class of 1959.
built Renown and Revenge. Hall – the largest such facility in Europe
Nuclear power heralded another golden
The effort that had gone into getting – and rolled out in 1990 to be lowered
age for Barrow.
Resolution ready was vindicated when into the water by ship lift, the preferred
Dreadnought, completed in 1963,
she fired her first test Polaris in the US at technique as it avoids stress on the hull.
m M2 – open hangar doors brought about her destruction in 1932
included a large percentage of American
11.15am on February 15 1968 – just 15 Breaking from the nuclear line were
input, but the next boat off the stocks
milliseconds later than the deadline set the Upholder-class diesel submarines –
, which submarines which could keep pace with and the Rainbow-class of 1929, all long-
– HMS Valiant – was a truly British-built
nearly five years earlier in 1963. using knowledge gained from the nuclear
C. the Grand Fleet on the surface. distance patrol submarines.
machine, although based closely on the
Polaris deterrent patrols began in 1969, programme, these highly-automated,
in May No problem in principle – oil-fired The unexceptional River-class
successful and popular Dreadnought.
and the four R-boats maintained vigilance lean-manned Cold War warriors were
petrol- boilers and powerful steam engines gave succeeded the tragic K-class in the
Warspite followed in 1965, then the
until they were seamlessly replaced by designed as the quietest conventional
the first the boats the speed of a destroyer. late 1920s, followed by Porpoise-class
Valiant-class was sidelined while work
the four Barrow-built Vanguard-class boats in the world.
gun, the But in the words of one submariner minelayers of 1930, (which did sterling
forged ahead on the Resolution-class
Trident submarines, the first of which Barrow built the first of class, and the
o go with of the day, the class had “too many work resupplying Malta in World War
Polaris missile submarines.
was commissioned in the town on August other three proved a swansong for the
oats also damned holes”; so many hatches had to 2, as did River-class HMS Clyde), the
With the launch of Resolution, the
14 1993. Birkenhead yard of Cammell Laird.
– earlier be closed to achieve watertight integrity, outstanding wartime S-, T- and U-classes,
Valiants and Repeat Valiant-class
In the interim Barrow had built three And then came Astute…
nlike the including lowering the funnels, that it the entirely Vickers-built V-class, X-craft
took five minutes to dive. midget submarines (including those
brought The K-boats had a reputation for which crippled the Tirpitz in Altenfjord,
atertight being jinxed; eight suffered disasters, Norway, in 1942) and XE-craft.
a diving there were 16 major accidents and any There were even four Reis-class boats
56 built number of minor mishaps. for the Turkish Navy, with delivery
the first However, the experience of building completed after the war.
Barrow. big (1,980-ton) vessels brought with it The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour
was the valuable pointers. prompted the Royal Navy to look at
ander to Two unused K-class hulls were used long-range boats, resulting in the fine A-
Hela in to construct M-class monitors, the class, though only two were completed
(Lt Cdr Admiralty’s response to rumours of by the end of the war and just 16 of the
(Lt Cdr German 5.9in gun submarine cruisers. ordered 46 were built, ten at Barrow.
ow boats, M1 and M2 emerged from Barrow Barrow’s considerable war effort
of the with 12-in guns as used on Majestic- yielded 99 submarines in under six years,
class battleships, but again the principle according to Tom Clark’s A Century of
– the V- was flawed; M1 sank in a collision in Shipbuilding – at peak production rates
s or N1 1925, while M2, by then a seaplane in 1942 the yard was pushing out two
en came carrier, sank when water poured in the boats a month.
n. open hangar door in 1932. Barrow also managed to produce
procured The boats continued to flow from four aircraft carriers, three cruisers,
ard took the Barrow production line – 18 of 27 ten destroyers, ten cargo ships and 11
acement, L-boats, 12 of 22 H21-class (based on landing craft.
to G13) an American design) and two of ten R- In the aftermath of war the rate of
as did 12 boats, the first true attack submarines development again picked up.
with a submerged speed of 15 knots and In the mid-1950s the two Barrow-
o Barrow six torpedo tubes. built Explorer-class boats, based on
the next The post-war O-class were named, experimental U-boat U1407 which
nest. and two of them – Oxley and Otway became HMS Meteorite, tested high-
ass were – were built by Vickers. speed engines powered by volatile high-
d on an Barrow contributed to the Odin-class test hydrogen peroxide (HTP). ● Nuclear submarine HMS Courageous ‘on the step’ – their hull-form and speed allowed these submarines to ride up on their
powered of 1928, the six Parthian-class of 1927 HMS Explorer – known by many bow waves and plane along on the cushion of water (above)
● N1, or Nautilus, in Barrow in
1917 (above)
● Vanguard-class boat HMS
Vigilant after roll-out from the
Devonshire Dock Hall in 1995
(right)
Pictures: Royal
Navy Submarine
ch the hybrid surface steamer/submarine
Museum
xx2-3Barrow_NN_Jul.indd 22-3Barrow_NN_Jul.indd 2 119/6/07 10:05:459/6/07 10:05:45
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