,
Gosport. In 1900 the
Royal Navy ordered five submarines from
Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering of
Barrow-in-Furness, designed by
Electric Boat Company. The following year the first submarine, , was launched, and the navy recruited six officers for the Submarine Service, under
Reginald Bacon as Inspecting Captain of Submarines. At the beginning of
World War I it consisted of 168 officers, 1,250 ratings, and 62 submarines. During the war it was awarded five of the Royal Navy's 14
Victoria Crosses of the war, the first was to Lieutenant
Norman Holbrook, commanding officer of , for passing through minefields to sink the
Ottoman warship Mesudiye. Late in the war, the Royal Navy introduced the large
K-class submarines. In order to be fast enough to operate alongside the battlefleet, they used steam propulsion while surfaced. En route to a training exercise with the fleet in a disaster, afterwards nicknamed "the
battle of May Island", two K-class submarines were sunk, with death of most of their crew, and three more and a light cruiser damaged.
Second World War At the start of the war, the Royal Navy had 60 submarines with another nine under construction. By August 1945 a further 178 had been commissioned and 76 had been lost to all causes, the majority of the losses in the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean (during the
Siege of Malta),
British U-class submarines began operations against Italy as early as January 1941. Larger submarines began operations in 1940, but after 50% losses per mission, they were withdrawn. U-class submarines operated from the
Manoel Island Base known as HMS
Talbot. Unfortunately no bomb-proof pens were available as the building project had been scrapped before the war, owing to cost-cutting policies. The new force was named the
Tenth Submarine Flotilla and was placed under Flag Officer Submarines, Admiral
Max Horton, who appointed Commander
George Simpson to command the unit. Administratively, the Tenth Flotilla operated under the
First Submarine Flotilla at Alexandria, itself under the admiral commanding in the Mediterranean,
Andrew Cunningham. In reality, Cunningham gave Simpson and his unit a free hand. Until U-class vessels could be made available in numbers,
British T-class submarines were used. They had successes, but suffered heavy losses when they began operations on 20 September 1940. Owing to the shortage of
torpedoes, enemy ships could not be attacked unless the target in question was a warship, tanker or other "significant vessel". The flotilla's performance of the fleet was mixed at first. They sank of Italian shipping; half by one vessel, the submarine . It accounted for one Italian submarine, nine merchant vessels and one
Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB). The loss of nine submarines and their trained crews and commanders was serious. Most of the losses were to mines. On 14 January 1941, U-class submarines arrived, and the submarine offensive began in earnest. One of the most famous Mediterranean submarines was , commanded for its entire career by
Lieutenant-Commander Malcolm Wanklyn. He received the
Victoria Cross for attacking a well-defended
convoy on 25 May 1941 and sinking an Italian
liner, the . In her 16-month operational career in the Mediterranean, before she was lost in April 1942,
Upholder carried out 24 patrols and sank around 119,000 tons of Axis ships – 3 U-boats, a destroyer, 15 transport ships with possibly a cruiser and another destroyer also sunk.
Upholder probably struck a mine on 13 April 1942. On 8 September 1944, C-in-C Mediterranean ordered that the submarine base at
La Maddalena be closed, and that Tenth Flotilla be disestablished and the submarines be incorporated into the First Submarine Flotilla at Malta.
Cold War The submarine force was cut back after the end of the war. The first British nuclear-powered submarine was launched in 1960, based around a U.S.-built
nuclear reactor. This was complemented by the from 1966, which used a new British-built
Rolls-Royce PWR1 reactor. The UK's strategic nuclear deterrent was transferred to the Royal Navy from the Royal Air Force at midnight on 30 June 1968, i.e. 1 July. The ballistic missile submarines (
SSBNs) were introduced to carry out this role under the
Polaris programme from 1968. These carried US-built
UGM-27 Polaris A-3 missiles and were later replaced by the submarines and the
Trident missile system from 1994. In 1978 the Flag Officer Submarines double-hatted as
NATO Commander Submarine Force Eastern Atlantic (COMSUBEASTLANT) part of
Allied Command Atlantic, moved from HMS
Dolphin at Gosport to the
Northwood Headquarters. made history in 1982 during the
Falklands War when she became the first nuclear-powered submarine to sink a surface ship, the . and hunted the Argentine Navy carrier group
Task Group 79.1 but did not engage. in
Scotland. At the end of the
Cold War in 1989 the
Flag Officer Submarines, who was also COMSUBEASTLANT, a
rear admiral, commanded a fleet of 30 submarines which were grouped into four squadrons (First, Second, Third, and Tenth (SSBN)) at three bases.
Post Cold War In May 1991 s and her sister returned to the
submarine base in
Gosport from patrol in the
Persian Gulf flying
Jolly Rogers, indicating successful actions. In 1999 participated in the
Kosovo Conflict and became the first Royal Navy submarine to fire a
Tomahawk cruise missile in anger. During
Operation Veritas, the attack on Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces following the
September 11 attacks in the United States, was the first Royal Navy submarine to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles against targets in Afghanistan. was also involved in the initial strikes. launched fourteen Tomahawks during the
2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2011, HMS
Triumph and
Turbulent participated in
Operation Ellamy. They launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Libya, firing the first shots of the operation. In April 2016,
The Sunday Times reported that Royal Navy submarines were to resume under-ice operations in the Arctic. Such operations have not taken place since 2007 after a fatal explosion on board . The crews of all seven active Royal Navy attack submarines will receive training on how to navigate below and "punch through" ice floes. For an extended period of time, the navy has had difficulty in attracting specialist staff into the nuclear submarine force, in part because of the long undersea patrols. In 2008 there were shortfalls of 28% in senior nuclear engineering officers, 23% in sonar and sensor operators, and 20% in nuclear weapons system junior ranks. In 2018, the
National Audit Office highlighted the shortage of 337 skilled Royal Navy nuclear staff. In 2023, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sir
Ben Key said recruiting for the submarine service was still proving difficult and the service was in a "war for talent". In December 2025, the former director of nuclear policy who led the 2010 Trident value for money review, Rear Admiral Philip Mathias, said the service faced an unprecedented situation, with record delays in building fleet submarines and "shockingly low availability” of submarines which had driven up patrol duration for crews to more than 200 days up from the 70 days during the Cold War. He highlighted that three Astute submarines had spent more than 950 days in maintenance outages and that had taken over 13 years to build, and called for Britain to pull out of the
AUKUS programme to build 12 new nuclear submarines as "The UK is no longer capable of managing a nuclear submarine programme". ==Perisher==