H.M.S. Courageous, SSN06, was the last of the Churchill (Valiant Repeat) Class submarines. She was built by Vickers (Shipbuilding) Limited at Barrow-in-Furness. Her keel was laid down on the 15th of May 1968 and she was launched on the 7th of March 1970 as S50 (SSN06). At a ceremony held at Vickers, she was commissioned into the Royal Navy Submarine Flotilla on the 16th of October 1971.
Courageous was a formidable underwater weapon. Her time submerged was limited only by the food that could be carried and the endurance of the crew. Her nuclear reactor was a virtually limitless power supply driving both the propulsion and the life support systems onboard. Making fresh water and even oxygen from the sea water around her, she could remain beneath the surface for months at a time.
Her sonar, the best sensors of their time, allowed Courageous to listen
quietly for the sounds made by other ships and submarines and her weapons meant that she carried a real sting with which she could both defend and attack. The small nuclear reactor (about the size of a household dustbin) provided heat to produce steam to drive the turbines which drove the single propellor as well as for driving the turbo generators which produced enough electricity to supply a small town. Courageous was based at Faslane Submarine Base situated on the Gareloch in Western Scotland throughout her operational career as part of the Third Submarine Squadron. She conducted many Cold War patrols, mostly in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. Her crew named her “The Mean Machine” and the nickname was to remain with her throughout her service. Many of the T-shirts bore the cartoon designed by the crew. T shirts and polo shirts bearing the design are available to purchase in the online store.
Her ship’s journal, many editions of which are classified, bore the ship’s mascot, Hissing Sid also known as The Werm derived from the snake depicted in the ship’s badge. Although we would love to publish those newsletters here, we are unable to do so because of their content and the Official Secrets Act. During her first commission
Courageous completed six long patrols and, in addition, a Mediterranean patrol, winning the “Hook ‘Em Award” from the United States Navy for her excellent surveillance work. She also completed numerous shorter North Atlantic Cold War patrols and made visits to, among other places, Corfu, Gibraltar and Liverpool, Barry Island, Hull and Bergen. As you can see, there was not a great deal of time for the crew to enjoy foreign visits during the boat's very busy first commission.
Courageous underwent a major refit in Chatham from September 1976 to August 1978 following which she returned to operational duties. She was then to become the trials submarine for the Royal Navy Sub-Harpoon missile and was based at San Diego in the USA for nine months. During the Falklands Conflict of 1982 Courageous served in the South Atlantic.
The boat’s vital statistics are impressive.
DISPLACEMENT SURFACED: 4300 TONS
DISPLACEMENT DIVED: 4800 TONS
LENGTH: 285 FEET
BEAM: 33 FEET
DRAUGHT (depth in the water): 27 FEET
SPEED DIVED: 28 KNOTS PLUS - SPEED SURFACED: 18 KNOTS
COMPLEMENT: 13 OFFICERS AND 103 RATINGS (Variable)
MAIN MACHINERY:
ONE NUCLEAR REACTOR AND ENGLISH ELECTRIC GEARED STEAM TURBINES
ARMAMENT:
SIX 21 INCH TORPEDO TUBES WHICH COULD BE USED TO LAUNCH MK 8 OR MK 24 (WIRE GUIDED) TORPEDOES, MK5 AND MK 6 MINES AND ROYAL NAVY SUB HARPOON MISSILE
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Experience a virtual tour of the
submarine below.
The 3D ‘virtual tour’ of the Cold War nuclear submarine HMS Courageous was produced by the University of Birmingham’s Human Interface Technologies Team (Director Prof Bob Stone) using a Matterport Pro2 3D scanner. This is a twin camera system recording Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images and the time of flight of an infrared beam to thousands of points in the scanned scene. The camera head scans environment by rotating 360o in 5 motorised steps (about 20 seconds) and images and measurements are transferred to a hand-held tablet. The tripod-mounted system is manually moved between scan points (with gaps of 5 to 8ft). The final collection of scans is then uploaded to the Matterport Cloud, where an AI system “zips” the scans into a complete scene, enhancing the visual detail with the recorded RGB images.
In contrast to a previous virtual submarine project conducted in the 2000s, where the forward end of the boat took over 9 months to model in 3D using computer-generated imagery, the HMS Courageous project took just over one day. For security and international trade reasons, only the forward sections of the boat (that is forward of the “tunnel” over the nuclear reactor) are included.
Instructions
VIRTUAL TOUR
Bear in mind that some of these submarines were still in service 21 years after Courageous had been taken out of service and the UK's submarine technology had moved ahead in leaps and bounds.
Click on the image below to take the virtual tour.
YOU CAN SEE MANY MORE PICTURES OF THE SUBMARINE, EXTERNAL IMAGES, INTERNAL IMAGES AND PICTURES OF THE CREW AS WELL AS PICTURES OF THE BUILD PROCESS AND THE REFITS IN THE GALLERY PAGE BUT TO WET YOUR APPETITE, HERE ARE A FEW IN A SMALL GALLERY (BELOW)
