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Home > HMS Dreadnought (S101)


Career
Ordered:
Laid Down: 12th June 1959
Launched: 21st October 1960
Commissioned: 17 April 1963
Decommissioned: 1980
Fate: As of 2004, is laid up at Rosyth
General Characteristics
Displacement: 3,500 tons surfaced/4,000 tons dived
Length: 265.7 ft (81 m)
Beam: 31.2 ft (9.8 m)
Draught: 25.9 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion: One Rolls Royce / Westinghouse S5W reactor, two steam turbines, one shaft, 15000 hp (11 MW)
Speed: 20 knots surfaced/28 knots dived
Range:
Complement: 113
Armament: 6 x 21-in torpedo tubes (All located at the bow. 24 torpedoes in total)


The fourth HMS Dreadnought (S101) was Britain's first nuclear-powered submarine, built by Vickers of Barrow-in-Furness.

In 1955 the United States Navy completed USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. During subsequent exercises with the Royal Navy, Nautilus ran rings round British anti-submarine forces, who had developed extensive anti-submarine warfare techniques during the Second Battle of the Atlantic. The Admiralty decided to build nuclear-powered submarines.

Instead of developing an all-British nuclear submarine, much time and money would be saved by accepting the American lead and taking advantage of US nuclear technology. The excellent relations between Admiral Lord Louis, Earl Mountbatten, the First Sea Lord, and Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover, in charge of the American naval nuclear power program, expedited obtaining that help. Dreadnought was thus assembled from American parts in a Vickers-built hull. In particular, the reactor compartment and engineroom are almost entirely of US Navy design and construction and are known as the "American Sector".

Dreadnought was laid down on 12 June 1959, and launchedThe ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old. A Babylonian narrative dating from the 3rd millennium BC describes the completion of a ship: :Openings to the water I stopped; :I searched for crac by Her Majesty the QueenGolden Jubilee in 2002, wearing her Canadian orders) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary), styled HM The Queen (born April 21, 1926) is the Queen regnant and Head of State of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland an on Trafalgar DayTrafalgar Day 21 October, was widely commemorated by parades, dinners and other events throughout much of the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th century as a celebration of the victory won by Admiral Horatio Nelson's British fleet over the combined, 21 October 1960Events January-February January 1 Independence of Cameroon January 9 Aswan High Dam construction begins in Egypt January 11 Chad declares its independence. January 14 Ralph Chubb, the gay poet and printer, dies at Fair Oak Cottage in Hampshire. January 23. Dreadnought made her first dive, in Ramsden Dock, on 10 January 1963Events January-March January 11 The Whisky A Go-Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened. January 14 George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. January 22 Elysee treaty between France and Germany January 28 Black student Harvey. At the time of her commissioningThe ceremonies involved in commissioning ships into a military force are based in traditions thousands of years old. Ship naming and launching are the inseparable elements which endow a ship hull with her identity. Yet, just as many developmental mileston on 17 April 1963, she was one of the most formidable attack submarines in the world.

In the mid- 1960s, Dreadnought's visits included trips to Norfolk, Virginia, Bermuda, Rotterdam, and Kiel. She was at Gibraltar in 1965, 1966, and 1967, and on 19 September 1967, she left Rosyth, Scotland for Singapore on a sustained high-speed run. The round trip finished as 4640 miles surfaced and 26545 miles submerged.

During her career, Dreadnought performed many varied missions. On 24 June 1967, she was ordered to sink the wrecked and drifting German ship Essberger Chemist. Three torpedoes hit along the length of the target, but the gunners of HMS Salisbury finished the job by piercing the tanks, which were keeping Essberger Chemist just afloat.

Apart from minor hull-cracking problems, Dreadnought proved to be a reliable vessel, popular with her crews. On 10 September 1970, she completed a major refit at Rosyth, Scotland , in the course of which her nuclear core was refuelled and her ballast tank valves were changed to reduce noise.

On 3 March 1971, Dreadnought became the first British submarine to surface at the North Pole. In 1973 she took part in the Royal Navy's first annual Group Deployment, when a group of warships and auxiliaries would undertake a long deployment to maintain fighting efficiency and "show the flag" around the world.

Together with the frigates Alacrity and Phoebe , Dreadnought was deployed to the South Atlantic in 1977 to deter possible Argentine aggression against the Falkland Islands. Due to machinery damage and the limited refit facilities then available for SSNs, Dreadnought was withdrawn from service in 1980.

Dreadnought is now at Rosyth Naval Dockyard , laid up indefinitely while her radioactive contamination decays. Her nuclear fuel has been removed and she has been stripped of useful equipment.

During Dreadnought's construction, Rolls Royce and Associates, in collaboration with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, developed a completely new nuclear propulsion system. On 31 August 1960, Britain's second nuclear-powered submarine was ordered from Vickers and, fitted with Rolls Royce's nuclear steam-raising plant, Valiant was the first all-British nuclear submarine.

See HMS Dreadnought for other ships of the name.

Dreadnought



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