HMS ''Resolution'' (S22) was the first of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are powered only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) typic ...

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

s. She operated from 1968 until 1994 providing the UK

Polaris Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris (Latinisation of names, Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an ...

at sea nuclear deterrent.

Construction

The submarine was ordered on 21 May 1963 with

Vickers Armstrong Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, wi ...

at a cost of £40.2m. The keel was laid down at

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town and civil parish (as just "Barrow") in the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the county of Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borou ...

on 26 February 1964 by the Director General Ships, Sir Alfred Sims. She was launched was on 15 September 1966, attended by

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was al ...

. After fitting out, she proceeded to sea on 22 June 1967. The submarine was commissioned on 2 October 1967, and following extensive trials, including the firing of her first

Polaris missile The UGM-27 Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fuel rocket, solid-fueled nuclear warhead, nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). As the United States Navy's first SLBM, it served from 1961 to 1980. In the mid-1950s the Navy ...

on 15 February 1968, commenced her first patrol on 14 June 1968. To ensure continuous operation, she was the first Royal Navy submarine to operate with two dedicated crews, who would relieve each other, known as port and starboard respectively.

Service

The ship was assigned to the

10th Submarine Squadron (United Kingdom) The 10th Submarine Squadron was an administrative unit of the Royal Navy. History The squadron was formed at HMNB Clyde, Faslane, Scotland, in the 1960s to direct the Resolution-class submarines equipped with Polaris missiles that formed part o ...

where it operated as the first of the UKs new Polaris based nuclear deterrent. Her Polaris system was updated in 1984 with the ''

Chevaline Chevaline () was a system to improve the penetrability of the warheads used by the UK Polaris programme, British Polaris nuclear weapons system. Devised as an answer to the improved Soviet Union, Soviet A-35 anti-ballistic missile system, anti-b ...

'' IFE (Improved Front End) that included two new warheads and re-entry bodies and penaids, super-hardened to resist ABM attack, replacing the original three ET.317 warheads. ''Resolution'' conducted the longest patrol of any Polaris submarine being at sea for 108 days in 1991.

Alleged use during the Falklands War

During the early stages of the

Falklands War The Falklands War () was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British Overseas Territories, British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and Falkland Islands Dependenci ...

, the BBC World News reported that ''Resolution'' was stationed off

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. A similar story appeared in 1984 in the

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

which alleged that ''Resolution'' was sent south, as a means of launching a nuclear attack against Córdoba in the event that a Royal Navy aircraft carrier be sunk. HMS resolution model

In reality, ''Resolution'''s crew were having to deal with an upsurge of Soviet SSN activity, with ''Resolution'' having to take evasive action to avoid a

November-class submarine The November class, Soviet designation Project 627 Kit (, NATO reporting name November) was the Soviet Union's first class of nuclear-powered attack submarines, which were in service from 1958 through 1990. All but one have been disposed of, wi ...

. Despite Soviet efforts, ''Resolution'' was never found during her 72-day patrol.

Decommission

Following the completion of the first

Trident A trident (), () is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. As compared to an ordinary spear, the three tines increase the chance that a fish will be struck and decrease the chance that a fish will b ...

-carrying in 1992, the ''Resolution'' class were gradually removed from service. ''Resolution'' was decommissioned on 22 October 1994, after 69 patrols, and laid up at the

Rosyth Dockyard Rosyth Dockyard is a large Royal Navy Dockyard, naval dockyard on the Firth of Forth at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, owned by Babcock Marine, which formerly undertook refitting of Royal Navy surface vessels and submarines. Before its privatisation i ...

. She remains in the main basin at Rosyth, intact but with her reactor defuelled; the MOD has yet to finalise plans for removal of the radioactive reactor parts and the scrapping of the boat.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Resolution (S22) 1966 ships Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness Cold War submarines of the United Kingdom Resolution-class submarines