Originally Posted by
Asturias56
"What struck me was the Pavlovian MoD response, “we continue to meet all our operational tasking”. This upsets me a lot."
This always strikes me as facetious, and stern about bow - planning operational tasking has to take into account available resources.
Originally Posted by
Davef68
There was a suggestion that her return was earlier than planned (She'd had maintenance earlier in the year and re-loaded at Gib back in March/April). Having said that, Audacious sat alongside for 13 months awaiting her turn in the drydock.
The question is when does
Audacious leave 15 dock, and then
is Astute next in the queue? I assume some work will be carried while she's alongside. At 15 years it was a record breaking first commission for a submarine, unlike her predecessors she won't be refueled. The delay in replacing the previous generation led to
Triumph having a four year refit to squeeze out a final two years service - during which period she was the most active boat - before her reactor life ran out.
The Devonport drydock situation is a farce long in the making and applies to the surface fleet as well; having Three basin out of use until the 2040s due to the SSN mortuary doen't help. Where the loci of blame are spread across MOD, HMT, Babcock and governments past and present I cannot say.
The loading and unloading at Gib presumably included the UUV for the trials reported here
https://www.navylookout.com/hms-astu...-torpedo-tube/