The ''Swiftsure'' class was a class of

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fleet submarine A fleet submarine is a submarine with the speed, range, and endurance to operate as part of a navy's battle fleet. Examples of fleet submarines are the British First World War era K class and the American World War II era ''Gato'' class. The ...

s in service with the

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from the early 1970s until 2010. Six boats were built and commissioned. ''Swiftsure'' was decommissioned in 1992 due to damage suffered to her pressure hull during trials. followed in 2004 after defence cuts caused a reduction in the size of the Royal Navy submarine fleet. was decommissioned in January 2006, with following on 12 September 2006. was decommissioned on 26 September 2008. The remaining boat in the class, , was decommissioned in December 2010. The six boats of the class were not replaced, although the seven boats of the successor ''Trafalgar''-class submarines are in the process of being replaced by seven boats of the ''Astute''-class submarines. A few were upgraded with the capability to launch

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cruise missiles in addition to their original armaments of

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es,

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and anti-ship missiles. They were also the first class of Royal Navy submarines to be built with shrouded

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propulsor {{short description, Mechanical device to propel a vessel A propulsor is a mechanical device that gives propulsion. The word is commonly used in the marine vernacular, and implies a mechanical assembly that is more complicated than a propeller. The ...

Design history

The , and classes all had a "whale-shaped hull", of "near-perfect streamlining giving maximum underwater efficiency". The hulls were of British design, "based on the pioneering work of the

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in and ." The hull of the ''Swiftsure'' class was a different shape and maintained its diameter for a much greater length than previous classes. Compared with the ''Valiant''s the ''Swiftsure''s were Hool, Jack, and Nutter, Keith, ''Damned Un-English Machines, a history of Barrow-built submarines'', pub Tempus, 2003, pages 181–4. "shorter with a fuller form, with the fore-planes set further forward, with one less torpedo tube and with a deeper diving depth." A second major change was in propulsion. Rather than the seven/nine-bladed

propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

used by the previous classes, all but the first of the ''Swiftsure''-class submarines used a shrouded pump-jet propulsor. The prototype propulsor had powered . It is not clear why was the only one of the class not fitted with a propulsor. The propulsor was perhaps as much as 50% more efficient than a propeller, producing the same speed at lower revolutions, thus reducing the noise signature. In addition all pipework connections to equipment on the main machinery raft had expansion/flexible coupling connections, which also reduced noise. The US Navy secured a licence to copy the main shaft flexible coupling arrangement in US-built submarines.

Construction programme

Operational history

Combat history

Both ''Splendid'' and ''Spartan'' were ordered to sail south for the

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two days before the Argentine invasion of the islands on 30 March 1982. ''Spartan'' was the first boat to arrive in the islands and began to enforce a

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imposed by the British. Shortly after, ''Spartan'' sighted Argentine merchant shipping mining the harbour at

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, but was not ordered to attack. This was partly due to British concerns about escalating the war too early, but also to avoid scaring off more valuable targets such as the Argentine

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. Unlike , neither ''Spartan'' nor ''Splendid''

fired in anger {{Short pages monitor After surveying the damage, the Royal Navy decided to decommission ''Superb'' slightly ahead of schedule on 26 September 2008.

In fiction

HMS ''Sceptre'' acts as a ''

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'' for the ''Red October'' in Tom Clancy's eponymous

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, as she enters the

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References