When it comes to the strongest armies of our time, most citizens for some reason forget about a country like Great Britain. Let, after the Second World War, this state is not so powerful, however, the United Kingdom is all still has an advanced army and many allies, including the countries of the so-called "British commonwealth". The island state also has its own nuclear shield, and with it submarines.
As you might have guessed, "Astute" (Astute - "insidious", "cunning") is not a separate submarine, but a whole class of the latest British submarines. According to the British classification, it belongs to the category SSN - general purpose nuclear attack submarines. This means that the submarine is equipped with both a torpedo tube and a missile launcher. In addition to the most traditional role of a hunter submarine, Astyut can engage in shelling ground and surface targets, and also be used as a vehicle for the covert delivery of special forces groups to the enemy territory.
It is curious that the history of Astyut goes back to the years of the Cold War and the Soviet Union. The project was launched by the Royal Navy of Great Britain as a response to the emergence of the latest Soviet submarines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The British naval command believed that the aging Swiftsure and Trafalgar would no longer be able to compete on an equal footing with the Soviet hunter submarines in the event of a new war. However, the subsequent collapse of the USSR forced the British to refuse to finance an expensive project.
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However, the "joy" of the pacifists was short-lived. Already in 1994, the Royal Navy once again started talking about the need to create a new class of submarines. Moreover, on paper, Astute were almost finished. Companies such as GEC-Marconi, BMT, VSEL and Rolls-Royce, which needs no introduction, participated in the tender for the development of the submarine. As a result, work on the "Sly" was resumed already in 1995, and in 2001 the UK launched the first finished submarine. Over the past years, there were always two submarines. The fleet is counting on another 7 submarines in the foreseeable future. At the same time, the British have already begun work on the successor to the Astute, which should be born in 2040.
Submarines "Astyut" can be in autonomous navigation for up to 90 days. The crew of the submarine is 98-109 people. The submarine is armed with six 533 mm torpedo tubes and a Tomahawk cruise missile launcher. For navigation, the Thales 2076 sonar and the Atlas DESO 25 echo sounder, as well as a pair of Thales CM010 optoelectronic masts are used. The main problem of Astyut is its speed. More precisely, its absence. Although the declared maximum speed is 29-30 knots, in practice it turned out that to accelerate the "Sly" to such a speed is almost impossible, unlike the Russian "Ash-M" - 31 knots and the American "Virginia" - 34 node. At the same time, the British submarine is superior in armament to the American one, but inferior to the Russian one. In the bottom line, it is still a formidable underwater predator, which cannot be ignored by both underwater and surface targets.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about what it is "Lyra": what was the strength of the Soviet nuclear submarine project 705.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/030522/62879/