UK RN's Submarine Crisis Spreads (Australia Enthusiastic)

"The UK’s High North [referred to below] spans the Greater Arctic and the North Atlantic, including the critical Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap, where the UK views itself as a strategic "nearest neighbour" rather than a direct Arctic state. [1, 2, 3]"

George Allison for the UK Defence Journal ("ukdj") reports October 22, 2026 at https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/committee-questions-whether-attack-submarines-put-to-sea/

"Evidence of low availability among destroyers, frigates and attack submarines raises serious questions about whether Britain can meet its High North commitments before new capabilities enter service, according to a report by the [UK House of Commons] Defence Committee.

The committee, chaired by Tan Dhesi, the Labour member for Slough, records reporting that all five of the Astute class nuclear attack submarines then in service had recently been tied up in dockyards at the same time, with none deployed.

[same ukdj article reports]...Professor David Blagden of the University of Exeter told the committee: “[i]t was reported in the media quite recently that a French SSN [attack submarine] had been seen in Faslane around the time that one of [our] SSBNs sailed on its patrol… [i]s this the French now doing ‘delousing’ for a UK nuclear deterrent submarine going on patrol? Is that great alliance solidarity or is it, ‘Oh my god, we can’t get one of our own SSNs to sea to do one of the highest missions?'”

Delousing is the activity in which an attack submarine sanitises the waters around a ballistic missile submarine to ensure it is not being tracked or tailed by an adversary as it leaves on or returns from a deterrent patrol.

The Rt Hon the Lord Case, chair of Team Barrow, told the committee in November 2025 that the government is saying to the defence industry “[p]lease, how quickly can you build our nuclear submarines for us? We are having to make up for decades of neglect.”

[same ukdj article reports]....Retired Rear Admiral Philip Mathias, a former Director of Nuclear Policy at the Ministry of Defence, said in December 2025 that one consequence of a lack of investment in the submarine fleet was that the duration of patrols for Vanguard class crews, which were seventy days during the Cold War, were now more than two hundred days, and that there was a shockingly low availability of submarines to counter the Russian threat in the High North..."

------------------------

Why were all five Astutes unavailable?

Brandon Weichert at 19fortyfive on October 23, 2026 at https://www.19fortyfive.com/2026/10/all-5-of-britains-astute-class-attack-submarines-were-tied-up-in-june-and-the-reason-is-not-the-submarines-britain-has-2-yards-that-can-work-on-a-nuclear-boat-and-the-missile-subs-go-first/ explained:

"Summary and Key Points: Britain’s five Astute-class nuclear attack submarines were all in port in June [2026], and Brandon Weichert argues the cause is a shipyard crisis: only two nuclear-certified yards and a mandate that puts the Vanguard missile submarines first. HMS Ambush has not sailed since 2022 and is being stripped for parts. HMS Agamemnon, launched in 2024, awaits sea trials, and HMS Achilles sits unfinished. Construction of the SSN-AUKUS [Australia happy with technically unreliable UK?] replacement is due ["cut steel" political mythology] to begin in 2027."

Pete Comment
So the UK's four Vanguard SSBNs get priority for long and shorter term maintenance especially their faulty PWR2 reactor piping arrangements. The UK's five often unavailable Astutes, also with the same faulty reactor arrangements, (see Wiki) are repaired later, if at all.