HMS Talent is the sixth of seven Trafalgar-class nuclear submarines of the Royal Navy, and was built at Barrow-in-Furness.

Talent was launched by The Princess Royal in April 1988 and commissioned in May 1990. She was the last submarine to be launched down a slipway.. The boat is affiliated with Shrewsbury in Shropshire. Talent is the third submarine of the Royal Navy to bear the name. The first was the World War II Talent, a T-class submarine transferred to the Royal Netherlands Navy as RNLMS Zwaardvisch in 1943.

Talent is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2021 and will be replaced by one of the new Astute-class submarines.

Operational history

Talent undertook a refit at her base port in HMNB Devonport and in March 2007 rejoined the active fleet, following a £386 million upgrade. She has been given a new reactor core and has been equipped with a new sonar suite, Sonar 2076. Sonar 2076 has the power equivalent to approximately 400 PCs and can precisely track the movement of small objects from hundreds of miles away. The Royal Navy describe Sonar 2076 as the most advanced sonar in service with any navy in the world. She has also been given the ability to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Three submarines of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Talent:

HMS Talent was a British submarine of the third group of the T class. She was built as P337(S37) by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow, and launched on 13 February 1945. She was originally to have been named HMS Tasman, but was this was changed to Talent after the previous HMS Talent was transferred to the Royal Netherlands Navy.

Service

Talent saw little action, but still had an eventful career. Her first commission was spent in the Far East after which she returned to the UK. She then spent her commissions alternating between the home and mediterranean stations. In 1953 she took part in the Fleet Review to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

On 15 December 1954 she was swept out of drydock at Chatham Dockyard when the dock gate lifted. Thick fog, night-fall and high tides hampered the search and rescue operations. She was not found until next day when it became clear that the accident had claimed four lives. She was reconstructed between 1954 and 1956, when she was streamlined and modified, including the removal of her 4-inch gun. She was then damaged in a collision while dived off the Isle of Wight on 8 May 1956. Talent was later used for a month-long publicity trip around the south and east coasts of England in October 1960, when she was visited by over 33,000 people.

HNLMS Zwaardvisch (S814) was the lead ship of the Royal Netherlands Navy's Zwaardvisch-class submarine, which was based on the British T class. The submarine was originally ordered as HMS Talent (P322) and built by Vickers Armstrong, Barrow, and John Brown & Company, Clydebank. It served mainly in the Pacific against the Japanese during the war, operating under both British and US operational command in Ceylon and Australia. In 1950, the vessel was renamed HNLMS Zwaardvis. She was sold and broken up for scrap in 1963.

Design and description

Zwaardvisch was 276 ft 6 in (84.28 m) long, had a beam of 25 ft 6 in (7.77 m) and a draught of 12 ft 9 in (3.89 m) forward and 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) aft. She displaced 1,290 tons surfaced and 1,560 tons submerged. Powered by twin 2,500 hp diesel engines, which could produce 1.86 MW each and twin 1,450 hp electric motors, which could produce 1.08 MW each, the submarine was capable of achieving 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h) while surfaced and 9 knots (20 km/h) submerged. She had a range of 4,500 nautical miles at 11 knots (8,330 km at 20 km/h) surfaced, and could submerge 300 ft (91 m). She had a complement of 61 personnel and was armed with six internal forward-facing torpedo tubes, two external forward-facing torpedo tubes, two external amidships rear-facing torpedo tubes, one external rear-facing torpedo tubes, six reload torpedoes, a single 4-inch (100 mm) deck gun and three anti-aircraft machine guns.