HMS Spartan (S105)

Career (UK)
Name: HMS Spartan
Operator: Royal Navy
Ordered: 7 February 1976
Builder: Vickers
Laid down: 26 April 1976
Launched: 7 May 1978
Commissioned: 22 September 1979
Decommissioned: January 2006
Motto: Courage With Great Endurance
Fate: Paid off
Badge:
General characteristics
Class and type: Swiftsure-class submarine
Displacement: 4,900 tonnes (dived)
Length: 82.9 m (272 ft 0 in)
Beam: 9.8 m (32 ft 2 in)
Draught: 8.5 m (27 ft 11 in)
Propulsion: Rolls-Royce pressurised water nuclear reactor (PWR1)
Speed: In excess of 20 knots (37 km/h), dived
Complement: 116 officers and men
Armament: 5 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Spearfish torpedoes
RN Sub Harpoon missiles
Tomahawk cruise missiles

HMS Spartan (S105) is a nuclear-powered fleet submarine of the Royal Navy's Swiftsure class. HMS Spartan was launched on April 7, 1978 by Lady Lygo, wife of Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo. The boat was built by Vickers-Armstrongs (now a division of BAE Systems) at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, England. She was decommissioned in January 2006.

Spartan was ordered to sail south for the Falkland Islands two days before the Argentine invasion of the islands on March 30, 1982. Spartan was the first ship to arrive in the islands and began to enforce a 200-mile (370-km) maritime exclusion zone imposed by the British. Shortly after, Spartan sighted Argentine merchant shipping mining the harbour at Stanley, but was not ordered to attack. This was partly due to British concerns about escalating the war too early, but also to avoid scaring off more lucrative targets such as the Argentine aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo. Unlike HMS Conqueror, Spartan did not fire in anger during the Falklands War, she did however provide valuable reconnaissance to the British Task Force on Argentine aircraft movements. Spartan's presence also ensured that the Argentine Navy would not dare leave its port.

In 1999, Spartan was fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles.