Vanguard Class Life Extension Programme

Working closely with a number of agencies and partners, including: the Ministry of Defence (MOD) Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA), Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), commercial partners and ship’s staff, Babcock is undertaking a significant programme of work for the submarine HMS Vanguard at our Devonport Royal Dockyard facility.

This highly complex and critical programme will enable the submarine to operate a third commission. The life extension activities are platform wide, covering revalidation of the structure and through boat systems. Significant capability enhancements are also being installed and integrated including replacement of motor generators and upgrades to the communication systems and strategic and tactical weapon systems.

The following statistics give an impression of the size and complexity of the programme:

• More than 25,000 individual engineering tasks undertaken
• Approximately 2.3km of cabling installed
• Around 7,000 welds surveyed and repaired as necessary
• In excess of 200 upgrades carried out
• 26,000 items of ship’s equipment overhauled by Babcock
• Hundreds of systems tested by Babcock’s commissioning team

In excess of two million working-hours spent on the platform involving more than 2,000 people and dozens of sub-contracting companies.