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HMS ARTFUL IS LAUNCHEDThe Royal Navy's third of seven Astute-class submarines has slipped out of her dry dock where she was built in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
The 318ft long, 7,400 tonne nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Artful has cost taxpayers more than £1billion but, along with her six sisters (Astute, Ambush, Audacious, Anson, Agamemnon, Ajax), sets a new standard in weapons load and stealth.
Armed with both Spearfish heavy torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles, Artful's design marks a shift away from a Cold War focus on anti-submarine warfare to a concept of 'Maritime Contributions to Joint Operations'.
Her Tomahawk cruise missiles are claimed to have an accuracy of just a few metres over a range of within 1,240 miles, giving Artful the ability to support ground forces anywhere in the world.
More than 39,000 acoustic tiles mask the vessel's sonar signature, meaning that, despite her large size, she slips through the seas with less noise than a baby dolphin.
To help them remain stealthy, rather than periscopes each Astute-class submarine is to be fitted with two optronics masts which only need to break the surface of the water for a few seconds to give a 360 degree view on high-definition screens in the ops room.
Her sonar is said to be so powerful it can detect ships leaving harbour in New York City from a listening point below the waters of the English Channel, 3,000 nautical miles away.
In 2012, during simulated battles with the US Navy's latest Virginia-class submarine (the USS New Mexico), it was reported that the Americans were "taken aback" by the capabilities of Artful's sister ship, Astute. Royal Navy Commander Ian Breckenridge was quoted saying: "Our sonar is fantastic and I have never before experienced holding a submarine at the range we were holding USS New Mexico. The Americans were utterly taken aback, blown away with what they were seeing."
How this technology - Sonar 2076, which is also fitted to the Royal Navy's Swiftsure-class and Trafalgar-class submarines - works is something of a Royal Navy secret, but it is said to have 13,000 hydrophones, many times the number fitted in previous Royal Navy systems and more than any other submarine sonar in the world.
Swiftsure and Trafalgar Update manager, Captain Ian Hughes said, "A good analogy for the performance of Sonar 2076 is that if the submarine was in Winchester it would be able to track a double decker bus going round Trafalgar Square" (a distance of 60 miles).
She was officially named last September by Amanda, Lady Zambellas, wife of the Royal Navy’s First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir George Zambellas.https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TYkgTwXAVzA http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2631814/Taking-Royal-Navy-21st-Century-The-Britains-1billion-Astute-class-submarines-finally-takes-water.html#ixzz3254pSxYS  Artful, the third highly-complex Astute class submarine designed and built by BAE Systems for the Royal Navy, appears outside her huge Devonshire Dock Hall birthplace in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria for the first time Hunter: Her sonar is so powerful it can detect ships from 3,000 nautical miles away - equivalent to the distance between the English Channel and New York. This technology astounded the Americans in 2012 when HMS Artful's sister ship, HMS Astute, held back new USN submarine USS New Mexico during simulated battles Natural habitat: Artful got her toes wet for the first time yesterday, 24 hours after emerging from the Devonshire Dock Hall in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
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