Britain just left its entire attack submarine fleet stuck in port all summer

Not one Royal Navy attack submarine could be sent to sea for the whole of summer this year.

All five of Britain's Astute class boats sat tied up in port at the same time.

That's according to a new briefing from the 878 Institute, a UK-US think tank, published two days ago.

So why does an old story matter again right now? Because nothing has changed since.

The gap the briefing describes ran through June, July and August. That's the same summer the Royal Navy spent weeks tracking Russian ships off the British coast.

So what actually happened? In late June, every single one of the five Astute boats in service was alongside. None at sea. None able to sail.

Look at the boats one by one. It gets worse.

HMS Astute went into Devonport in June last year for a mid-life refit. It's been waiting for a dry dock ever since.

HMS Ambush hasn't been to sea since August 2022. That's over three years. It was reported at very low readiness after parts were stripped from it to keep its sister boats running.

HMS Artful hasn't sailed since roughly May 2023.

HMS Audacious reached Devonport in April 2023. It waited 22 months for a dock, finally got one in February last year, and only came back out in June this year.

HMS Anson returned to Devonport in late May. Its trip to Australia under the AUKUS pact was cut short because of the crisis in the Middle East.

Five boats. Five different reasons. Same result.

So why can none of them get fixed? Here's the problem. Britain has only three places that can lift a nuclear submarine out of the water. The ageing Faslane shiplift, and two dry docks at Devonport.

And when they're busy, the Vanguard submarines go first. Those are the boats that carry Britain's nuclear deterrent.

Parliament's Defence Committee has found that some Astute boats waited more than two years for maintenance because of exactly that queue. And more than £500 million of planned submarine maintenance has gone undone since 2018, according to The Times.

The Vanguard boats aren't having an easy time either. The 878 Institute says patrols meant to last 100 days have run far longer. At least the last ten deterrent patrols went over five months. The most recent, which ended in April, ran for more than 200 days.

And here's the part that gives this gap its weight.

The Royal Navy spent 21 days in July alone shadowing Russian ships near British waters. Tracking operations were up 25% on the year before. Russian warships made repeated trips through the Dover Strait and the North Sea.