Shooting Aboard HMS Astute in Southampton Docks

More embarassment today for the Royal Navy with HMS Astute in the forefront yet again of media be known as the submarine whose personnel fight amongst themselves. 

News currently is unclear about who exactly was involved in the incident but Chief Superintendant Dave Thomas confirms that some thirty people were onboard the boat and will be interviewed as witnesses. The surrounding areas of the docks are cordoned off and MOD Police, Royal Navy Provost and Hampshire Police are investigating.

This modern and high-tec submarine is supposedly the “stealthiest” yet that the Royal Navy has in service and yet is consistently finding its way into the fore run of media attention. The Royal Navy’s official website describes HMS Astute as:

“Astute is the first of a new Class of submarine that will be the largest and most powerful nuclear attack submarines ever built for the Royal Navy.

Astute’s capacity for sustained high speed combined with almost unlimited endurance enables a truly global reach.  Deployed SSNs are inherently at high readiness, they can move over 500 miles in a day, allowing them to redeploy to any theatre in the world within 14 days.  The SSN’s stealth is a key attribute, allowing it to operate covertly, with little risk of counter-detection, this provides strategic and operational flexibility.  The Astute design extends the current SSN capacity to fully exploit the underwater environment, including littoral waters, allowing it to integrate even more closely with other joint forces to deliver a range of effects, some far inshore”

So why might a firefight break out aboard HMS Astute if it has all the most modern technology aboard? If it is not a terrorist threat then is Britain’s military falling apart from the inside? Surely the submariners weren’t arguing over a desk, a chair or a bunk? In fact they may well have been. Submarines are notorious for they’re cramped living conditions with personnel working six hours on six hours off. It is not the best of conditions to live within and so tension would undoubtedly have been in the air. In such an atmosphere arguments are bound to arise and unfortunately in this instance it has gone one step further. 

Whilst the defence review has outlined many of the Royal Navy’s assets to be retired HMS Astute is not one of them and nor is it likely to be due to its pure potential. These first couple of years of service have been rough but the Royal Navy can take comfort in the fact such an incident did not occur whilst on operations in foreign territory such as Afghanistan, Libya or Egypt.