The ''Valiant'' class were a class of

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 ...

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

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 ...

from the mid-1960s until 1994. They were the first fully British nuclear fleet submarine; the earlier used an American nuclear reactor. There were only two boats in the class, the first, ''Valiant'' (the nameship) commissioned in 1966 three years after ''Dreadnought'', and ''Warspite'' the following year. Both were built by

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...

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Design

The class were based on ''Dreadnought'', but were enlarged by 20 feet (6 m) and had a dived displacement of 4,900 tons compared to 4,000 tons. Improvements made since the original ''Dreadnought'' meant that they ran significantly quieter under main power, and also had a Paxman diesel-electric generator that could be used for

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. In most other respects (outside the power plant), the ''Valiant''s were identical to ''Dreadnought''. According to former head of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors R.J. Daniel, when US Admiral

Hyman G. Rickover Hyman G. Rickover (27 January 1900 – 8 July 1986) was an admiral in the United States Navy. He directed the original development of naval nuclear propulsion and controlled its operations for three decades as director of the U.S. Naval Reacto ...

, widely regarded as the father of the nuclear submarine, initially learned of the proposed rafting system for the ''Valiant'' class, (in which ship's machinery is acoustically isolated from the hull by padding known as "rafts"), he was dismissive of the concept, with the result that the Royal Navy gained an advantage in submarine silencing that the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

did not introduce until considerably later.

Service

The ''Valiant''s were primarily used in the anti-submarine role, important 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 ...

. In 1967 ''Valiant'' set a

(RN) record of sailing 12,000 miles (19,312 km) submerged in twenty-eight days, from

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

to the UK. Both boats received a number of refits, including the capability to use the

Harpoon missile The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security). The AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) and later AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack M ...

. ''Valiant'' and other nuclear fleet submarines served 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. The ''Valiant''s had long careers: ''Warspite'' was decommissioned in 1991, and ''Valiant'' in 1994, due to cracks being discovered in her primary to secondary cooling system. They were very successful and served as the template for the ballistic missile submarine and subsequent fleet submarines.

Construction Programme

References

Cited footnotes

Cited texts