Facilities at Faslane and Devonport

[PMN1]

On the AUKUS thread

A moderately sized 'nuclear certified' drydock....

And at that point the costs go through the roof. In all seriousness by the time you've done that you may as well have constructed a big, fixed drydock and have it as a facility for decades to come. The RN made the mistake of thinking similar in the 80's and built the Syncolift at Faslane....which is now one of the reasons the RN's sub fleet is in dire straits. It cost way more than expected and they could have built a new drydock easily with the cost it eventually ran out to. If they'd just built a proper dry dock they wouldn't have the issues they have. Unfortunately they're about to attempt to repeat the mistake as they're looking for a floating drydock for Faslane....a decision they will either stop in time or live to regret...

Does anyone know if a Dry Dock was looked at or they went straight to the Syncrolift idea?

Edit, found a Hansard article that states it was looked at by the lift would be cheaper.....that worked out well......


Some interesting discussions of Submarine servicing facilities at Devonport here

Trouble in the docks – fixing the infrastructure issues impacting Royal Navy submarine availability | Navy Lookout

www.navylookout.com

and

A small step forward in Royal Navy submarine infrastructure improvement | Navy Lookout

www.navylookout.com

Including an interesting picture of how Devonport will look like.




It seems the surface navy will be losing 9 and 10 docks permanently.