It is an emotionally brutal regime, with a very high dropout rate. On average, between 20 percent to 30 percent of the Perisher trainees don't make it, and failure rates on individual courses may be as high as 40 percent. Unfortunately, to drop out of Perisher is to never step aboard a British submarine again. When it happens, the teacher's coxswain gives the trainee a bottle of whiskey, and escorts him back to shore.
If the trainee survives the approach phase, he heads into an equally challenging operations phase in which the Perishers play the roles of actual submarine captains on missions. These may include sneaking up on a coastline in the British Isles to deliver a Special Boat Service (SBS) commando team, snap some pictures of a coastline, or practice laying mines. The final phase of the course has the trainees taking part in a war-at-sea exercise, designed to see how each trainee can handle actual command of a boat in combat. When it is all over, and the Perisher has checked off all items on the teacher's checklist to the instructor's satisfaction, he is what every seaman officer dreams of being, a Perisher graduate and qualified to command a Royal Navy submarine.
The Perisher course is a very expensive proposition for the Royal Navy. If it did not already have the assets in place to conduct the course, the cost per individual trainee would be approximately PS1.2 million. The human cost is also high. Failed Perishers usually transition into what is known as General Service if they choose to stay in the Navy. If they are lucky, they may even rise to command a frigate or destroyer. But the stigma of being failed Perishers will always follow them.
For all the costs, just what does the Perisher course produce? Arguably the world's finest quality submarine captains. Perisher is the Royal Navy's commitment to making sure that the men who command their submarines are as good as the boats themselves. With only about twenty submarines in the force, they feel they must have them commanded by the very best. This is not to say that the U.S. commanding PCO course is not a good course-it is. But by separating the engineering career paths from the service officers at an early point, the future captains can concentrate on being captains, not nuclear engineers. This does not mean that U.S. skippers are not as good as their Royal Navy counterparts, only that the Royal Navy has a procedure in place that automatically selects and qualifies the best of their submariners for their command, not engineering, skills.
Once the Perisher trainee has graduated, he will be assigned as the first lieutenant of a Royal Navy submarine. In the past, when the RN had more diesel submarines, a Perisher graduate could count on getting command of one of these boats directly after completion of the course. Now, of course, all of them do a tour as a first lieutenant. This means that every Royal Navy submarine has two men who are fully qualified to command the boat. Once he has done this tour, the officer will likely be given command of his own boat. In, fact, it is not impos-sible that a good Royal Navy submarine captain might command a diesel boat, an SSN, and an SSBN before he is finished in submarines.
The British like to get their money's worth out of the men they qualify for command, and a really good captain is not done yet. Once a captain has finished with submarines, the Royal Navy frequently sends him to drive ASW frigates such as one of the Type 22 Broadsword class or Type 23 Duke class. By this time a full captain, he is ready to move on to command a task group or naval base, and then, flag rank. This is the big difference between the American system and the British. The U.S. Navy system creates superior submarine drivers and engineers; the Royal Navy system is designed to produce pure leaders like a Nelson, Rodney, or Woodward.
The Trafalgar Class-A Guided Tour
HMS Triumph (S-93) is the seventh and last unit of the Trafalgar class. It is based at the Royal Naval Station at Devonport, near the town of Plymouth in southwest England. She is part of the 2nd Submarine Squadron, which includes the seven "T" boats, and the four diesel boats of the "U" or Upholder class. Ordered in 1986 and laid down at VSEL in 1987, she was launched on February 16, 1991, and commissioned into the Royal Navy on December 10, 1991. At the time this book is being written, the Flag Officer, Submarines, for the Royal Navy is Vice Admiral R. T. Frere, RN. His Chief of Staff, Submarines, is Commodore Roger Lane-Nott, RN. They command the British submarine fleet from the Royal Navy operations center at Northwood, near London.
HMS Triumph is the tenth ship (and the second submarine) of the RN to carry the name. Her predecessors carry a total of sixteen battle honors, starting with the battles against the Spanish Armada in 1588. The current Triumph is commanded by her commissioning commanding officer, Commander David Michael Vaughan, RN. His first lieutenant is Commander Michael Davis-Marks, RN. Both are Perisher graduates, and each has even commanded one of the cherished "O" class diesel boats before he came to Triumph. They are an excellent team, generally considered to be two of the best command-qualified officers in the Royal Navy submarine service. They are aggressive, confident, colorful, and seem fully capable of any tasks that might be asked of them and their boat. Her crew is made up of twelve officers and ninety-seven enlisted men. It is a trim, neat-looking boat with a definite polish to her. Let's take a look for ourselves.
Hull and Fittings
Triumph is somewhat different from the Miami in that she is built not so much for speed as stealth. She is smaller than a 688I, at 4,700 tons displacement versus the 8,100 tons for the 688I, and is shorter, around 250 feet/76 meters long. In addition, her hull is more like the classic shape of the Albacore, and is somewhat more hydrodynamically stable than the 688I. Her hull is covered in rubber tiles like the 688I, but these are hard and stiff. This coating is anechoic, designed specifically to defeat active sonars that might be trying to get a "ping" off the hull. She may also have a decoupling coating on the inside of the hull to help reduce any machine noise produced internally.