February 2008 - update on Chinese submarine fleet.
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As a school-age naval reservist I was drafted into the Royal Navy in one of its last National Service cohorts. Then, when my call-up time came I joined HMS Collingwood as an REM1 and spent time marching up and down on the UK's largest parade-ground, playing the trombone - and smoking, as you can see here.
I swtiched to being a seaman and after time on the lower deck in frigates and carriers, and making AB, I was commissioned and became the only NS officer in experimental submarines.
HMS Scotsman (top thumbnail) was my first appointment and had a long history of doing curious things. Then I served on HMS Explorer (middle thumbnail). This was high-speed ASW target using AIP (air independent propulsion). We led a rather isolated life because our hydrogen-peroxide fuel used to go bang on its own, much to the alarm of anyone near us, such as our depot ship HMS Adamant, whose ward-room wine glasses got broken. So we were given our own tender (Miner VIII) to play with and became a little banana-republic Navy all to ourselves.
After the Navy and Oxford I joined Rolls-Royce & Associates and worked at Electric Boat in Groton CT purchasing the S5W Westinghouse reactor for Dreadnought (third picture), the first UK nuclear submarine. Then I returned to Derby to help design and build the protoype British PWR for the Valiant class (big moody picture). The latest UK class is the Astute. Quite a performer.
One day I was at Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, for a meeting about building the Valiant, the first of her new class, and wandering around the yard only to come across Explorer being scrapped. Strange sad feeling; speaking of which I was in Groton CT a little while ago and EB looks fearfully quiet.
Submarines are interesting and important in this strange world of ours, and why and how we make and use them bears a lot of thought. One of my relations, Tony Spender, served in HMS Seraph, the WWII submarine made famous in the espionage tale of the "Man Who Never Was". The UK's nuclear attack capability is now entirely submarine-borne. The Japanese, Chinese, and many other navies are developing non-nuclear and nuclear submarines with considerable capabilities. While the US boats are still world-class, there is a steady proliferation of under-sea warfare technology and a rising threat of their being overwhelmed by numbers. Watch this space, perhaps, as some argue that the Straits between Taiwan and the mainland are effectively closed to US fleets.
With Paul Bierly and Scott Gallagher (James Madison U.) I have been studying managing the design and construction of attack submarines for several years. We have some papers in draft but it is something of a struggle to get anyone interested in such managerial and non-engineering dimensions. We are trying to change the prevailing view that it's all about the technology, not the people and how they think. Alas this is not what really matters in the end - ships are of oak, men are of steel.
There are many opportunities to see retired submarines from and in different countries. The USS Nautilus can be toured in the US Submarine Force Museum in Groton CT. The UK Submarine Museum in Gosport has the HMS Alliance, a sistership of HMS Andrew on which I served for a time. A Soviet era submarine is open to the public in Folkestone UK. Here are some interesting pictures of the hardened Soviet-era underground base in Balaklava. Juliett 484 is viewable in Providence RI. The German U 505 is in Chicago. There is a Type XXI boat - the Wilhelm Bauer (U-2540) in the Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven.
Now, of course, submarines are becoming an especially private form of play - and work? - for high-worth individuals such as Paul Allen - see the Exomos site. And not such nice people too, perhaps.
