Britain has laid the keel for the Royal Navy's largest-ever submarine. At BAE Systems's Barrow-in-Furness facility, the ceremony marked the "birth" of the nuclear-powered and armed HMS Dreadnought, one of the most advanced submarines to date.
Keel laying is the major milestone in the building of a ship. The keel is the main structural member of the ship's hull and laying it down is the equivalent to laying the cornerstone of a building. However, with HMS Dreadnought (S32) the ceremony is largely symbolic and can be a bit confusing for those not familiar with submarines or modern shipbuilding methods.
For one thing, Dreadnought is a submarine and as such it doesn't have an actual keel, so it's a boat rather than a ship. Also, it may have been a bit disconcerting at the March 20, 2025 ceremony to be watching a keel laying when giant sections of Dreadnought sat on the floor of the building hall as a backdrop. This is because construction of the submarine began with the first steel being cut on October 6, 2016.
Since then, the boat has been built as a series of 16 modules that will now be welded together and fitted out with the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor, Trident missile compartments, and 20,000 cables, 26 miles (42.5 km) of pipes, and other gubbins needed to make it work. It's the beginning of this final assembly that the modern keel laying, complete with a Navy cadet band, marks.
HMS Dreadnought is the 12th vessel in the Royal Navy to bear that name, with the first dating back to 1553. The namesake launched in 1906 was the first of the modern battleships that revolutionized navy ship design and armaments that saw all the world's major navies replaced within a decade. The last Dreadnought before the new one under construction was launched in 1960 and decommissioned in 1980 and was Britain's first nuclear submarine. It was unique in that it had a British forward section and what was effectively an American aft section because the Royal Navy bought a US Navy reactor to speed up the project.
This last tidbit is more family history because my father was a Royal Navy Commander and that sort of thing was what passed for dinner table conversation when I was a boy.
The new Dreadnought is expected to be commissioned sometime in the next decade and is the first of the Dreadnought Class that will include HMS Valiant, HMS Warspite, and HMS King George VI, which will be built over the next 20 years. These will replace Britain's aging Vanguard Class nuclear missile submarines that have formed the UK's nuclear deterrent since the 1990s.
Displacing 17,200 tonnes and as long as 14 London buses or three Olympic swimming pools, Dreadnought will be the largest submarine ever built for the Navy and will be one of, if not the, most technologically advanced third-generation missile boats in the world. Armed with 12 Trident II D5 SLBMs with a range of about 7,500 miles (12,000 km), it can carry as many as 144 nuclear warheads, though the operational number will more likely be 40 per patrol, with one Dreadnought-class sub on station 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for three decades as part of Operation Relentless, which has been ongoing since 1969.
In addition, it will carry a number of conventionally-armed Spearfish torpedoes with a range of 33.5 miles (54 km) as well as other classified armaments that may include hypersonic missiles.
Dreadnought will carry a complement of 130 officers and sailors on patrols where it will remain submerged for months at a time as it conducts its mission of disappearing under the sea until needed. It will be the first British submarine to have quarters and facilities for women, the first with a classroom and study area, and will have a full fitness center. There's even adaptive lighting installed to simulate night and day for better mental health.
The design includes X-shaped stern planes to enhance maneuverability, and advanced noise-reduction anechoic coatings for better stealth. Propulsion will be courtesy of a Rolls-Royce PWR3 nuclear reactor paired with an advanced pump-jet system that is designed for both speed and silence and is very much on the classified list.
The Trident missiles will be housed in the Common Missile Compartment (CMC) that has been designed by the US and UK for full compatibility, which is necessary, since Britain essentially buys the Trident missiles (though not the British-made warheads or reentry buses), from America much in the way someone buys a propane gas bottle with the expectation of swapping them for a new one when they're empty.
The total cost of the Dreadnought program is estimated at about £31 billion (US$39 billion), with an additional £10 billion (US$12.5 billion) for contingencies. This cost, plus hostility to the Continuous at Sea Deterrent (CASD) by some parties and groups in Britain, has made Dreadnought controversial, but it has full support from both Labour and Conservative parties due to the current geopolitical situation, the economic benefits it provides to depressed areas by employing 30,000 people at 1,500 companies, and the perception that opposition is seen as something of a third rail in UK electoral circles.
"This keel laying ceremony is considered the ‘birth’ of a vessel and I congratulate all those involved across the Alliance for reaching this important milestone in the life of HMS Dreadnought and look forward to bringing this exciting and highly capable submarine into service," said First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key. "Whilst the Vanguard Class of submarines continues to deliver our Continuous At-Sea Deterrent today, the Royal Navy is greatly looking forward to operating highly sophisticated and advanced Dreadnought Class submarines."
Source: Royal Navy
