HMS Resolution (S22)

HMS Resolution (S22) was the first of the Royal Navy's Resolution-class ballistic missile submarines.

A cutaway model of HMS Resolution
For other ships with the same name, see HMS Resolution.

HMS Resolution in 1977
History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Resolution
Ordered: May 1963
Builder: Vickers Shipbuilding Ltd, Barrow-in-Furness
Laid down: 26 February 1964
Launched: 15 September 1966
Commissioned: 2 October 1967
Decommissioned: 22 October 1994
Badge:
General characteristics
Class and type: Resolution-class ballistic missile submarine
Displacement: surfaced 7,500 tons; submerged 8,400 tons.
Length: 425 ft (130 m)
Beam: 33 ft (10 m)
Draught: 30 ft 1 in (9.17 m)
Propulsion: 1 × Vickers/Rolls-Royce PWR.1 pressurised-water nuclear reactor, 27,500 shp (20,500 kW); Propeller.
Speed:
  • surface: 20 kn (37 km/h)
  • submerged: 25 kn (46 km/h)
Range: Unlimited except by food supplies
Complement: 143 (two crews)

Ordered in May 1963, she was built by Vickers Armstrong at a cost of £40.2m. The keel was laid down on 26 February 1964 by the Director General Ships, Sir Alfred Sims, and the launch was on 15 September 1966, attended by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The submarine was commissioned on 2 October 1967, and following extensive trials, including the firing of her first Polaris missile on 15 February 1968, commenced her first patrol on 15 June 1968.

Her Polaris system was updated in 1984 with the Chevaline IFE (Improved Front End) that included two new warheads and re-entry bodies and penaids, super-hardened to resist ABM attack, replacing the original three ET.317 warheads. Resolution conducted the longest Polaris patrol of 108 days in 1991.

Following the completion of the first Trident-carrying Vanguard-class submarine in 1992, the Resolution class were gradually removed from service. Resolution was decommissioned on 22 October 1994, after 69 patrols, and laid up at the Rosyth Dockyard. She remains in the main basin at Rosyth, intact but with her reactor defuelled; the MOD has yet to finalise plans for removal of the radioactive reactor parts and the scrapping of the boat.[1]

References
  1. Cameron Buttle (18 November 2011). "Dismantling a nuclear submarine". BBC News.
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