Even the name of HMS Agamemnon is a tribute to British excellence

The decision to name the Royal Navy’s newest nuclear submarine HMS Agamemnon is a good one. It’s a proper warship name, which celebrates several ancient traditions.

Firstly, Agamemnon is a name out of Greek legend, from one of the earliest battles of Western civilisation. King Agamemnon of Mycenae, to the degree that he really existed, would certainly have seen himself as unifying and defending his West – the kingdoms of Achaea – in a sort of early Nato against the threatening East in the form of Troy. Offering an example, perhaps, for modern leaders, he did not wait for Trojan aggression to build: as soon as it reached the level of wife stealing, he went on the offensive.

The Royal Navy has always respected the figures of the Trojan War, possibly because, for the Greeks, it was a seaborne war or perhaps because of the exaggerated respect that the mostly unlettered British naval officers of the 18th and 19th centuries had for classical learning. The new Agamemnon will be the sixth British warship to bear the name and there have also been six HMS Achilles, four HMS Ulysses and no fewer than nine HMS Ajaxes. This is a much better way of naming ships than calling them after provincial towns in a rather lame effort at building community support.

There is also naval history to consider. In the Senior Service, in order to keep the Army’s usually rather recent regiments in their place, we remember the history not only of the actual physical ship but that of her predecessors of the same name. A carved teak honours board carried by our new submarine will show that an HMS Agamemnon was present at British battles, from the Saints, Copenhagen and Trafalgar to the Dardanelles and the minewarfare campaigns of the Second World War. In a historical echo reverberating particularly loudly today, an HMS Agamemnon was there when Britain fought Russia in the Crimea. When the ship’s company of the latest Agamemnon raise their glasses to the Immortal Memory of Lord Nelson on Trafalgar Night, they will no doubt recall with pride that Admiral Nelson had been captain of the first HMS Agamemnon.

The new HMS Agamemnon, then, inherits a glorious name and history. She is also a somewhat glorious achievement in herself. Nuclear submarines are some of the most advanced assemblies of technology the human race has ever built. They are enormously more capable than conventionally powered subs, which have very little submerged speed or endurance.

HMS Agamemnon, by contrast, will be able to stay down for months on end, going as fast as a surface ship the whole time if she needs to. Her torpedoes and other underwater systems will dominate the sea, and her Tomahawk cruise missiles will menace targets ashore a thousand miles away. Only a sophisticated array of frigates, aircraft and sensors – or another of her own deadly kind – can hope to find or fight her.

Only six nations in the world can build nuclear submarines, and only two or three can do it as well as Britain does. With the US struggling to replace its own submarines, the British industrial base that is producing Agamemnon – troubled as it is – is a vital strategic asset for the entire free world.

Truly, it’s a name to be proud of.