Sea Power

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, said missile technology was developing at such a pace that it was becoming more feasible to “locate and track” aircraft carriers.

British nuclear submarine infrastructure is creaking and heavily burdened by the requirement to keep the UK’s ageing nuclear deterrent submarines, the Vanguard class Trident missile subs – also kept in service beyond their time – on constant patrol. Maintenance delays have limited how many of those six attack submarines, or SSNs, can deploy at any given time. More than once in recent years, there have been zero British attack boats at sea. It’s a problem, according to Sidharth Kaushal, an expert with the Royal United Services Institute in London. But not an insurmountable one. With investments in shipyards and the imminent commissioning of two more of the 7,000-ton Astutes to replace the aged Triumph – and help from the French – the Royal Navy should be able to match, in the next decade, the Russian navy’s Northern Fleet and its new Yasen-class attack submarines.