Britain Is Building the Most Powerful Submarine It Has Ever Made

For most of the last century, every submarine had one hard limit. Sooner or later it had to come back for fuel, air or supplies. Now, in Barrow-in-Furness on the coast of Cumbria, British engineers are building a boat made to push that limit further. It will be longer than three Olympic swimming pools, and one number explains why it matters. The video starts with the first HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1960, and the Polaris and Vanguard boats that came after it. Then it goes to the BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow, where the new Dreadnought class is being put together inside Devonshire Dock Hall, each boat 153.6 metres long and more than 17,000 tonnes underwater. Next it visits Rolls-Royce at Raynesway in Derby, where the Pressurised Water Reactor Three is made, and explains how the crew of about 130 get air and fresh water. After that it looks at the pump-jet, the X-shaped stern, the twelve Trident missile tubes shared with America's Columbia class, the 41 billion pound budget, the Astute class and the planned SSN-AUKUS submarine. HMS Dreadnought is still under construction and has not entered Royal Navy service; the published target is the early 2030s, and its hardest tests are still ahead. The submarine is British-built, but its Trident Two D5 missiles are American-made by Lockheed Martin, and the missile compartment was developed together with the United States. Facts and figures are as reported when the video was made. Subscribe for more stories about British engineering.