Crawling along the ocean floor, submarines sail in sea of secrecy
Slowly gliding through the deep, carrying the means of mass destruction, for obvious reasons, the exact location of Britain’s Trident submarines is on a need-to-know basis and very, very few need to know, according to a naval expert.
One subplot in the BBC’S Sunday-night drama Vigil is about the escalating concern a Russian sub has been secretly trailing the British ship beneath the North Atlantic, causing rising panic among the top brass.
Peter Sandeman, director of analyst group Navy Lookout, said only one of the Royal Navy’s four Vanguard-class nuclear submarines is usually operational at any one time, patrolling a continentsized patch of the Atlantic – with its location in very limited circulation.
“Their primary task is to stay hidden for the three months they are at sea,” he said. “It is believed they crawl along slowly near the bottom of the ocean and come to the surface as rarely as possible.
“On board, only the captain and a select few, such as the navigator, will know where they are or where they have been.”
He explained that one of the other Trident submarines will sometimes be at sea for training exercises but two would remain at base for maintenance work.
“We also have six smaller and more agile attack submarines. One or more of these can be deployed to protect the deterrent boat that is on patrol.”
Sandeman said that, although there had been incidents involving fishing boats and submarines in the past, this had improved in recent years. “Communication between the Navy and fishing communities is a lot better than it used to be and it is a lot safer.”
He said that, although the Vigil TV series makes for gripping viewing, some of it is a bit far-fetched. “The interior of Vigil looks more like a large spaceship from Star Trek than a submarine,” he said. “On a real vessel it is a lot more cramped.”
He added: “There is also no way a regular police officer would be invited on board a nuclear submarine to conduct an investigation while it was at sea – and they certainly wouldn’t be permitted to wander around wherever they like unescorted as has been happening in the show.”