HMS ''Revenge'' (S27) was the fourth of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

's ballistic missile submarines.

Construction

The four ''Resolution''-class submarines were ordered on 8 May 1963, with ''Revenge'', the fourth of the class, laid down at Cammell Laird's

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

shipyard on 19 May 1965. Construction of the two submarines being built at Lairds (''Revenge'' and ) was much slower than planned, with poor performance by Cammell Laird and in particular its workers to blame. At one stage the Ministry of Defence considered towing the unfinished submarines to

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...

for completion by

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

. ''Revenge'' was launched on 15 March 1968. She was formally commissioned on 4 December 1969.

Design

''Revenge'' was long overall and

between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the ster ...

, with a beam of and a draught of . Displacement was surfaced and submerged. A PWR1

pressurised water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) is ...

, designed and built by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

fed steam to geared

steam turbines A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

, with the machinery rated at , giving a speed of submerged and surfaced. A

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

provided auxiliary power. Polaris missile launch from HMS Revenge (S27) 1983

Sixteen tubes for Polaris A3 Submarine-launched ballistic missiles were carried, in two rows of eight. The missiles had a range of , and each missile could carry three nuclear warheads. Defensive armament consisted of six

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s. The ship had a complement of 143 (13 officers and 130 other ranks), with two separate crews in order to maximise time at sea.

Service

Following commissioning, ''Revenge'' underwent extensive sea trials and work-up, before sailing to the United States to carry out a test firing of a Polaris missile at the

Eastern Test Range The Eastern Range (ER) is an American rocket range ( Spaceport) that supports missile and rocket launches from the two major launch heads located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida. The range h ...

off

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in June 1970. She was marked for disposal in 1992. She is currently being stored pending the identification of a disposal solution for all of the UK's decommissioned nuclear submarines, at

Rosyth Dockyard Rosyth Dockyard is a large naval dockyard on the Firth of Forth at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, owned by Babcock Marine, which formerly undertook refitting of Royal Navy surface vessels and submarines. Before its privatisation in the 1990s it was ...

, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. She is docked down for maintenance and re-preservation approximately every 12 years.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * *

External links

HMS Revenge on battleships-cruisers.co.uk

{{DEFAULTSORT:Revenge (S27) Resolution-class submarines Ships built on the River Mersey 1968 ships Cold War submarines of the United Kingdom