Vanguard-class Submarine
The ''Vanguard'' class is a class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in service with the Royal Navy. The class was introduced in 1994 as part of the Trident nuclear programme, and comprises four vessels: , , and , built between 1986 and 1999 at Barrow-in-Furness by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering, now owned by BAE Systems.''Jane's Fighting Ships, 2004–2005''. Jane's Information Group Limited. p. 794. . All four boats are based at HM Naval Base Clyde (HMS ''Neptune''), west of Glasgow, Scotland. Since the decommissioning of the Royal Air Force WE.177 free-fall thermonuclear weapons during March 1998, the four ''Vanguard'' submarines are the sole platforms for the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons.
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HMNB Clyde
His Majesty's Naval Base, Clyde (HMNB Clyde; also HMS ''Neptune''), primarily sited at Faslane on the Gare Loch, is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Devonport and HMNB Portsmouth). It is the navy's headquarters in Scotland and is best known as the home of Britain's nuclear weapons, in the form of nuclear submarines armed with Trident missiles. History Faslane was first constructed and used as a base in the Second World War. During the 1960s, the British Government began negotiating the Polaris Sales Agreement with the United States regarding the purchase of a Polaris missile system to fire British-built nuclear weapons from five specially constructed submarines. In the end, only four were constructed; , , and . These four submarines were permanently based at Faslane. Faslane itself was chosen to host these vessels at the height of the Cold War because of its geographic position, which forms a bastion on the relati ...
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