Swiftsure - class submarine The " Swiftsure " class were a class of nuclear - powered fleet submarine s in service with the Royal Navy from the early 1970s until 2010 . Six boats were built and commissioned . " Swiftsure " was decommissioned in 1992 due to damage suffered to her pressure hull during trials . " Splendid " followed in 2004 after defence cuts caused a reduction in the size of the RN submarine fleet . " Spartan " was decommissioned in January 2006 , with " Sovereign " following on 12 September 2006 . " Superb " was decommissioned on 26 September 2008 . The remaining boat in the class , " Sceptre " , was decommissioned in December 2010 . They are being replaced by the " Astute " - class submarines . A few were upgraded with the capability to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles in addition to their original armaments of torpedo es , mines and anti - ship missiles . They were also the first class of Royal Navy submarines to be built with pump - jet shrouded pump - jet propulsors . Design History . The " Dreadnought " , " Valiant " and " Churchill " classes all had a " whale - shaped hull " , of " near - perfect streamlining giving maximum underwater efficiency " . The hulls were of British design , " based on the pioneering work of the US Navy in " Skipjack " and " Albacore " . " The hull of the " Swiftsure " was a different shape and maintained its diameter for a much greater length than previous classes . Compared with the " Valiant " s the " Swiftsure " s were 13 feet " shorter with a fuller form , with the fore - planes set further forward , with one less torpedo tube and with a deeper diving depth . " A second major change was in propulsion . Rather than the seven / nine - bladed propeller used by the previous classes , all but the first of the " Swiftsure " - class submarines used a shrouded pump - jet propulsor . The prototype propulsor had powered the " Churchill " . It is not clear why the " Swiftsure " was the only one of the class not fitted with a propulsor . The propulsor was perhaps as much as 50 % more efficient than a propeller , producing the same speed at lower revolutions , thus reducing the noise signature . In addition all pipework connections to equipment on the main machinery raft had expansion / flexible coupling connections , which also reduced noise . The US Navy secured a licence to copy the main shaft flexible coupling arrangement in US - built submarines . Operational history . Combat history . Both " Splendid " and " Spartan " were 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 , neither " Spartan " nor " Splendid " fired in anger during the Falklands War , but they did provide valuable reconnaissance to the British Task Force on Argentine aircraft movements and the submarines ' presence effectively restricted the freedom of action of the Argentine Navy which spent most of the war confined to port . In the late 1990s , " Splendid " became the first British ship to be armed with American - built Tomahawk cruise missile s . In 1999 the BBC were allowed on board the boat to record her firing Tomahawks in battle against Yugoslav targets in Belgrade during the Kosovo War , becoming the first British submarine in the conflict to do so . She again fired these weapons against Iraqi targets in the 2003 invasion of Iraq . Incidents . The class suffered from a number of design problems and reactor incidents . In the early 1980s " Sceptre " collided with a Soviet submarine and her reactor ' s protection systems would have performed an automatic emergency shutdown ( scrammed the reactor ) , but her captain ordered the safety mechanisms overridden ( battleshort enabled ) . The crew were told to say that they had hit an iceberg . This incident was disclosed when David Forghan , " Sceptre " s former weapons officer , gave a television interview which was broadcast on 19 September 1991 . The Soviet submarine collided with was probably K - 211 of the Delta - III class , which on 23 May 1981 collided with an unknown submarine , identified at the time as an unknown " Sturgeon " - class American submarine . " Sovereign " underwent an extensive refit in the mid - 1990s and was rededicated in January 1997 . Cracks were discovered in the tailshaft during post - refit sea trials and she was sent to Rosyth for 14 weeks of emergency repairs in June 1998 before returning to Faslane . On 6 March 2000 " Sceptre " suffered a serious accident while inside a drydock at the Rosyth yards while undergoing trials towards the end of a major refit . The test involved flooding the drydock , and running the main engines slowly with steam supplied from the shore . However , too much steam was used and the engines went to full speed . " Sceptre " broke her moorings and shot forward off the cradle she rested on . The steam line ruptured , scaffolding buckled , a crane was pushed forward some 15 feet , and the submarine moved forward some 30 feet inside the dock . On 26 May 2008 , the " Superb " hit an underwater pinnacle in the Red Sea , 80 miles south of the Suez Canal . She remained watertight , and none of the 112 crew were injured ; however , she was unable to resubmerge due to damage to her sonar . After undertaking initial repairs at the Souda Bay NATO base on Crete on 10 June 2008 , she passed through the Mediterranean , with a pause ( at night ) some miles off Gibraltar to disembark some less critical crew . " Superb " then continued back to the UK , arriving at Devonport Dockyard on 28 June 2008 . After surveying the damage , the Royal Navy decided to decommission the " Superb " slightly ahead of schedule on 26 September 2008 . In fiction . HMS " Sceptre " acts as a " nom de guerre " for the " Red October " in Tom Clancy ' s eponymous novel , as she enters the Norfolk Naval Station . See also . List of submarines of the Royal Navy < br > Trafalgar class submarine