The entire UK nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet is currently stuck at the port due to bottlenecks in maintenance, RT reported.
According to the newspaper, citing open source tracking data on the fleet, all 5 active Astute-class submarines of the British Royal Navy are not ready. The sixth, HMS Agamemnon, was commissioned last year but is still in the sea trial phase and not ready for frontline missions, while the seventh is still being built.
Two of the submarines are almost motionless at Faslane on the Clyde River in Scotland after a long time in the sea, while 2 others are undergoing a long-term deep maintenance at Devonport, Plymouth, the only UK base equipped to maintain nuclear-powered ships. The fifth, HMS Anson, has just returned after a deployment and is undergoing routine procedures.
According to reports, the core problem is not in the performance of submarines at sea but in the UK's maintenance capacity. Devonport has a limited dry dock space, while the shortage of spare parts and specialized engineers has exacerbated the delay, with at least one ship believed to have been partially dismantled to get spare parts to maintain operation for other ships.
