Artful, the third of the Royal Navy's new Astute class attack submarines, has arrived at her Scottish base port, from where she will carry out sea trials before entering service later this year. The 7,400-tonne vessel departed BAE Systems' Barrow-in-Furness shipyard on 13 August, ten years after construction began. The long lead-time has been explained by the extreme complexity of designing and building a nuclear submarine. The high-tech Astute programme suffered early delays and cost overruns, which were eventually brought under control. Artful is said to have emerged form the shipyard in a significantly better material state than that of her predecessors. The remaining four boats are in various stages of construction, with Audacious the next to be completed. She is due for roll-out in late 2016 for delivery the following year. The £1 billion submarines are equipped with a powerful Sonar 2076 sonar suite using the largest number of hydrophones of any sonar system in service today.
展开▼
