HMS Vanguard is shown heading from Loch Long to her 'home' at the Royal Navy (RN) submarine base at Faslane, on Gare Loch. This was following an apparent 204 day deterrence patrol in the North Atlantic.
When HMS Vanguard entered UK waters and surfaced prior to coming up the Clyde, the head of the RN, Admiral Sir Ben Key, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the UK defence secretary, John Healey, boarded the vessel for a first visit by a serving prime minister to a nuclear submarine since 2013. By the time I took the above, Starmer and Healey had left Vanguard via the SD Omagh.
Vanguard-class boats were originally intended to patrol for no longer than 90 days at a time. However, with one of the four undergoing an extended and over-scheduled refit, ensuring the UK's nuclear deterrence is maintained by having at least one of these at sea at all times means patrols must be longer than planned. Political indecision resulting in delays in the design and building of the replacement Dreadnought-class of ballistic missile submarines will probably result in patrols being even longer in the coming years.
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