The fifth HMS Sceptre is a Swiftsure-class submarine

Swiftsure class submarine

The Swiftsure class were a class of nuclear-powered fleet submarines in service with the Royal Navy from the early 1970s until 2010....

 built by Vickers

Vickers

Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

 in Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

. She was launched in 1976, with a bottle of cider against her hull. She was commissioned

Ship commissioning

Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...

 on 14 February 1978, by Lady Audrey White. She was the tenth nuclear fleet submarine to enter service with the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. She was decommissioned on 10 December 2010, at which time she was the oldest commissioned vessel in the Royal Navy still available for service. In theory she is replaced by the first in service, HMS Astute.

Collision with a Russian submarine

Sceptre has suffered several accidents in her career. In the early 1980s she collided with a Russian submarine and her reactor's protection systems would have performed an automatic emergency shutdown (scrammed the reactor), but her captain ordered the safety mechanisms overridden (battleshort

Battleshort

Battleshort is a condition in which some military equipment can be placed so it does not shut down when circumstances would be damaging to the equipment or personnel....

 enabled). The crew were told to say that they had hit an iceberg. This incident was disclosed when David Forghan, Sceptres former weapons officer, gave a television interview which was broadcast on 19 September 1991. The Soviet submarine collided with was probably K-211 of the Delta-III class, which on 23 May 1981 collided with an unknown submarine, identified at the time as an unknown Sturgeon-class American submarine.

1987 refit

In 1987 Sceptre was fitted with an improved reactor core (Core Z). In March 1990, there was a coolant leak while Sceptre was at Devonport

HMNB Devonport

Her Majesty's Naval Base Devonport , is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy . HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England...

. On 20 October 1991, there was a fire onboard while the boat was moored at Faslane. In August 1995 Sceptre was forced to abort her patrol and return to Faslane after suffering, in the words of the Ministry of Defence, "an unspecified fault in the propulsion system." A defect in Sceptres reactor was discovered in 1998, though its seriousness was not appreciated until after the investigation of another serious accident.

Propulsion trial accident (2000)

On 6 March 2000 Sceptre suffered a serious accident while inside a drydock at the Rosyth

Rosyth Dockyard

Rosyth Dockyard is a large naval dockyard on the Firth of Forth at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, owned by Babcock Marine, which primarily undertakes refitting of Royal Navy surface vessels.-History:...

 yards while undergoing trials towards the end of a major refit. The test involved flooding the drydock, and running the main engines slowly with steam supplied from the shore. However, too much steam was used and the engines went to full speed. Sceptre broke her moorings and shot forward off the cradle she rested on. The steam line ruptured, scaffolding buckled, a crane was pushed forward some 15 feet, and the submarine moved forward some 30 feet inside the dock.

Return to active service (2003)

The investigation into the runaway also looked at Sceptre’s reactor problems, and recommended that the boat be scrapped. In January 2002, with Sceptre still laid up, Defence Minister Adam Ingram

Adam Ingram (Labour politician)

Adam Paterson Ingram is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow from 1987 to 2010.-Early life:...

 declared that the problem was "small original fabrication imperfections" in the reactor pressure vessel. He could not say how long it would take to inspect and repair the problem. In December 2003, Sceptre was accepted back into the fleet after rigorous sea trials.

Gibraltar controversy (2005)

On 3 February 2005 Sceptre put in at Gibraltar

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

 for repairs, expecting to leave within six days. British officials assured Spanish officials that damage is in the cooling system of the boat's diesel generator

Diesel generator

A diesel generator is the combination of a diesel engine with an electrical generator to generate electrical energy....

, not to the nuclear propulsion system. (Tireless

HMS Tireless (S88)

HMS Tireless is a nuclear submarine of the Royal Navy and is the third vessel of her class. She is the second submarine of the Royal Navy to bear this name...

 spent much of 2000 at Gibraltar repairing a leak in her reactor coolant system.) Nonetheless Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos

Miguel Ángel Moratinos

Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé is a Spanish diplomat and politician, a member of the Socialist Workers' Party and member of Congress where he represents Córdoba....

 registered Spain’s "firm protest" with Jack Straw

Jack Straw (politician)

John Whitaker Straw is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Blackburn since 1979. He served as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 and Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons from 2006 to 2007 under Tony Blair...

, and insisted that Sceptre be the last British submarine repaired at Gibraltar. In addition, Peter Caruana

Peter Caruana

Peter Richard Caruana, QC is a Gibraltarian politician, and has been Chief Minister of Gibraltar since 1996, when his party, the Gibraltar Social Democrats , first came to power. His party was re-elected to office in 2000, 2003 and 2007...

, Gibraltar's Chief Minister

Chief Minister of Gibraltar

The Chief Minister of Gibraltar is the leader of the largest party elected to the Gibraltar Parliament, and is formally appointed by the Governor of Gibraltar, representative of the British Crown.-List of Chief Ministers:...

, claimed that he had been misinformed about the repairs by the British Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

, and that he had learned the true extent of the problems from Spanish sources. Apparently London officials had told him that the repairs were all external, neglecting to mention the diesel generator's cooling system. On 7 February 2005, British military spokeswoman Katherine Purdhoe announced that repairs had been completed; the boat left Gibraltar on 9 February.

Fate

HMS Sceptre was sent to the Falkland Islands

Falkland Islands

The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...

 to beef up the British garrison

Military of the Falkland Islands

The Falkland Islands are an overseas territory of the United Kingdom and, as such, rely on the UK for guarantee of their security. The other UK territories in the South Atlantic, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, fall under the protection of the British forces on the Falklands ,...

 in March 2010, during Desire Petroleum

Desire Petroleum

Desire Petroleum plc is an oil and gas exploration company headquartered in Malvern, United Kingdom. It owns offshore exploration and production licences in the North Falkland Basin in the waters north of the Falkland Islands...

's exploratory oil-drillings

.
Sceptre returned to Devonport for the last time in May 2010 and was decommissioned on 10 December 2010 after 32 years of service.

In fiction

In the Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...

 novel The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October is a 1984 novel by Tom Clancy. The story follows the intertwined adventures of Soviet submarine captain Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius and CIA analyst Jack Ryan.The novel was originally published by the U.S...

, Captain Mancuso claims to civilian authorities in Norfolk

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

that the eponymous vessel is the Sceptre in order to avert suspicion from its arrival in the harbor.