HMS Trafalgar (S107)

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HMS Trafalgar, pictured during Tomahawk missile trials
HMS Trafalgar, pictured during Tomahawk missile trials
Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Ordered: 7 April 1977
Laid down: 15 April 1979
Launched: 1 July 1981
Commissioned: 27 May 1983
Fate: Active
General characteristics
Displacement: Surfaced: 4,740 tons
Dived: 5,208 tons
Length: 280.1 ft (85.4 m)
Beam: 32.1 ft (9.8 m)
Draught: 31.2 ft (9.5 m)
Propulsion: Rolls-Royce PWR1 nuclear reactor
2 × GEC turbines
1 × shaft pump jet 15,000 hp (11 MW)
motor for emergency drive
emergency retractable propellor
2 × W H Allen turbo generators 2 MW
2 × Paxman diesel alternators 2,800 hp (2.1 MW)
Speed: Dived: 32 knots (59 km/h)
Complement: 18 officers
112 enlisted
Sensors and
processing systems:
Ferranti/Gresham Dowty DCB/DCG
Type 2072 hull-mounted flank array passive sonar
Plessey Type 2020 or Marconi/Plessey Type 2074 hull-mounted active and passive search and attack sonar
Ferranti Type 2046 towed array passive search sonar
Thomson Sintra Type 2019 PARIS or Thorn EMI 2082 passive intercept and ranging sonar
Marconi Type 2077 short range active classification sonar
Kelvin Hughes Type 1007 I band navigation radar
Pilkington Optronics CK34 search periscope
Pilkington Optronics CH84/CM010 attack periscope
BAE Systems SMCS from 1995
Electronic warfare
and decoys:
2 × SSE Mk8 launchers for Type 2066 and Type 2071 torpedo decoys
RESM Racal UAP passive intercept
CESM Outfit CXA
SAWCS decoys carried from 2002
Armament: 5 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Spearfish torpedoes (originally Tigerfish torpedoes) with 20 reloads
UGM-84 Harpoon submarine-launched cruise missile
Mines
SAWCS decoys carried from 2002

HMS Trafalgar (S107) is a Trafalgar class submarine of the Royal Navy.

After Operation Veritas, the attack on Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces following the 9/11 attacks in the United States, Trafalgar entered Plymouth Sound flying the Jolly Roger on 1 March 2002. She was welcomed back by Admiral Sir Alan West, Commander-in-Chief of the fleet and it emerged she was the first Royal Navy submarine to launch tomahawk cruise missiles against Afghanistan.[1]

In November 2002, Trafalgar ran aground close to Skye, causing £5 million worth of damage to her hull and injuring three sailors. She was traveling 50 metres below the surface at more than 14 knots when Lieutenant-Commander Tim Green, a student in the "Perisher" course for new submarine commanders, ordered a course change that took her onto the rocks at Fladda Chuain, a small but well-charted islet.

Commander Robert Fancy, responsible for navigation, and Commander Ian McGhie, an instructor, both pleaded guilty at court-martial to contributing to the accident. On 9 March 2004 the court reprimanded both for negligence. Green was not prosecuted, but received an administrative censure.[2]

In May 2008 it was reported that the crash was caused by the chart being used in the exercise being covered with tracing paper, to prevent students marking it[3].

HMS Trafalgar is set to be decommissioned in 2008.

HMS Trafalgar is referenced in Tom Clancy's World War III Thriller, Red Storm Rising.

She was not launched with a pump jet propulsion system, but with a conventional propeller, unlike the rest of the Trafalgar Class boats that followed.

See HMS Trafalgar for other ships of the same name.

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