Navy

U.K. Revives Dreadnought Name for Successor SSBNs

The first of the Royal Navy’s future ballistic nuclear missile submarines will be known as HMS Dreadnought, the UK Ministry of Defence announced on Friday.

The decision revives a famous old name that has been carried by nine British fighting ships since the 16th Century, including the revolutionary battleship launched in 1906 and the country’s first nuclear-powered submarine.

All four of the 17,200-tonne ‘successor’ SSBNs will now be known as the Dreadnought class, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said in an announcement timed to mark the 211th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar (during which the sixth ship to bear the name captured a Spanish warship) and the 56th anniversary of the launch of the pioneering SSN at Barrow in northern England.