HMS Revenge (S27) was the fourth of the Royal Navy's ballistic missile submarines.
The four Resolution-class submarines were ordered on 8 May 1963, with Revenge, the fourth of the class, laid down at Cammell Laird's Birkenhead shipyard on 19 May 1965. Construction of the two submarines being built at Lairds (Revenge and) was much slower than planned, with poor performance by Cammell Laird and in particular its workers to blame. At one stage the Ministry of Defence considered towing the unfinished submarines to Barrow-in-Furness for completion by Vickers-Armstrongs. Revenge was launched on 15 March 1968. She was formally commissioned on 4 December 1969.
Revenge was 425feet long overall and 360feet between perpendiculars, with a beam of 33feet and a draught of 30feet. Displacement was 7500LT surfaced and 8500LT submerged. A PWR1 pressurised water reactor, designed and built by Rolls-Royce fed steam to geared steam turbines, with the machinery rated at 15000shp, giving a speed of 25kn submerged and 20kn surfaced. A 4000bhp diesel engine provided auxiliary power.
Sixteen tubes for Polaris A3 Submarine-launched ballistic missiles were carried, in two rows of eight. The missiles had a range of 2500nmi, and each missile could carry three 200ktonTNT nuclear warheads. Defensive armament consisted of six 21inches torpedo tubes. The ship had a complement of 143 (13 officers and 130 other ranks), with two separate crews in order to maximise time at sea.
Following commissioning, Revenge underwent extensive sea trials and work-up, before sailing to the United States to carry out a test firing of a Polaris missile at the Eastern Test Range off Florida in June 1970.
She was marked for disposal in 1992. She is currently being stored pending the identification of a disposal solution for all of the UK's decommissioned nuclear submarines, at Rosyth Dockyard,[1] [2] on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. She is docked down for maintenance and re-preservation approximately every 12 years.