American nuclear attack submarine arrives in Scotland

A United States Navy Virginia class attack submarine was spotted running on the surface in the Firth of Clyde on the morning of Monday 7 September.

Sightings of this kind are a familiar part of daily life on both sides of the firth. His Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde at Faslane, on the Gare Loch, is the home of the Royal Navy’s submarine service, and the associated armaments depot at Coulport sits on Loch Long a short distance away. Boats entering or leaving the base must pass down the Gare Loch and out through the firth, which brings them within clear view of Dunoon, Gourock, Cloch Point and the surrounding coastline for a considerable stretch of the transit.

The Virginia class is the backbone of the United States Navy’s attack submarine force, a nuclear-powered design built for anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, land attack with the Tomahawk cruise missile, special operations support and intelligence gathering. Boats of the class have visited the Clyde on a high number of occasions in recent years, and the base is one of a small number of locations in Europe capable of supporting visiting American nuclear submarines alongside.

Surface transits are the norm in these confined and comparatively shallow waters, and the routing takes submarines past some of the most heavily populated coastline in the west of Scotland. As readers will know, that combination has made the Clyde one of the most productive stretches of water in the country for anyone with an interest in naval movements, and community pages in Dunoon, Helensburgh and Inverclyde routinely carry photographs and video of departures and arrivals taken from front windows and hillside paths.

Visits by allied submarines to Faslane are not announced in advance, and neither the Royal Navy nor the United States Navy routinely comments on the movements of individual boats. Port calls of this kind allow for maintenance, stores and crew rest, and they also form part of the wider pattern of American submarine operations in the eastern Atlantic and the waters to the north of Scotland, an area that has drawn steadily greater attention from NATO navies over the past decade.

Movements through the firth are supported by Royal Navy police and Ministry of Defence marine units, and small craft are frequently seen accompanying boats on passage. The waters around the base and the approaches to it are subject to restrictions on the approach of other vessels, and mariners operating in the area are advised of movements through the usual navigational channels.

Work has continued in recent years to expand and modernise the facilities at Faslane under the programme to consolidate the submarine flotilla on the Clyde, covering waterfront infrastructure, engineering support and accommodation, and the base remains one of the largest single employment sites in Scotland.