The sixth and most recent HMS ''Valiant'' was the second of Britain's

nuclear-powered Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

submarines 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 info ...

, and the first of the two-unit .

Construction

She was ordered on 31 August 1960 and laid down 22 January 1962 at

Vickers-Armstrongs 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, w ...

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 ...

. The basic design concept was to use the forward design of ''

Dreadnought The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's , had such an effect when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", ...

'' together with an aft end consisting of all British nuclear machinery based on the

Dounreay Dounreay (; ) is a small settlement and the site of two large nuclear establishments on the north coast of Caithness Caithness (; ; ) is a Shires of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutena ...

prototype. She was launched on 3 December 1963 by Lady Thorneycroft, and finally entered service 18 July 1966.

Operational history

She was refitted in 1970, 1977 and 1989. In 1977 ''Valiant'' was trailing a Soviet submarine in the eastern Mediterranean when she suffered a salt water pipe leak, which flooded the reactor compartment with sea water. The reactor was shut down and the compartment pumped dry and after a clean-up of the compartment, the reactor was taken under power again. ''Valiant'' took part in 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 ...

in 1982, arriving in the war zone on 17 May. She transmitted more than 300 early air-warning alerts and spent 101 days on patrol off Argentina's

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

n coast. On 23 May, ''Valiant'' suffered minor damage while submerged off

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

when an Argentine fighter coming back from a mission jettisoned its bombs near the submarine in order to secure a safe landing. In November 2010, it was reported in

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printe ...

that ''Valiant'' had run aground in the North Norwegian Sea in March 1991.Commons Debate, 2 November 2010
/ref> Following the development of engine trouble in June 1994, she was paid off on 12 August 1994. Her hull and reactor are currently laid up afloat at Devonport Dockyard,

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, until facilities are available for the long term storage of her radioactive components. ''Courageous'' was selected for the

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

to represent the SSN fleet of the Royal Navy during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. Components were removed from ''Valiant'' to restore ''Courageous''.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Valiant (S102) Valiant-class submarines Falklands War naval ships of the United Kingdom Maritime incidents in 1982 1963 ships Cold War submarines of the United Kingdom