Oberon Class Submarines
HMS Ocelot S17
Preserved at Chatham Dockyard, we take a tour around former Royal Navy 'O' or Oberon Class Submarine HMS Ocelot S17 on 28th October 2017. Built at Chatham, she was laid down in November 1960 and launched on 5th May 1962. Commissioned into the fleet on 31st January 1964, she was involved in any number of Cold War covert operations which are still classified as top secret almost 30 years later. Fully submerged, she has a displacement of 2410 tons and is powered by twin Admiralty Standard Range 16 VMS diesel generators which generate 2 × 3,000 shaft horsepower (2,200 kW) electric motors. With a top speed of 17 knots submerged (around 20 mph), HMS Ocelot's naval career concluded in August 1991 when she was preserved at Chatham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH9r0iJ_Beo
HMS Onyx S21
Another preserved warship and Falklands veteran that has since been tragically and scandalously scrapped. In this slide show, we see ex Royal Navy Oberon Class diesel submarine HMS Onyx S21 berthed with other preserved warships, including HMS Plymouth and HMS Bronington, at Birkenhead Docks on 13th September 2003. Unlike today's submarines which are built at Barrow, the preservation of HMS Onyx at Birkenhead was significant as she was built in the city by Cammel Laird, being launched in August 1966 and was commissioned on 20th November 1967. The only non-nuclear submarine to take part in the Falklands, her displacement of just 1610 tons (standard displacement) proved ideal at landing SBS marines around the shallow waters of the Falkland Islands. Decommissioned by the Royal Navy in 1991, she was initially preserved at Birkenhead, the city of her birth, before leaving in 2006 for a new submarine museum at Barrow in Furness. Sadly, this failed to materialise, and in 2014 she was towed to Rosneath Jetty on Gare Loch where she was scrapped. How sad that HMS Onyx joined other Falklands veterans like HMS Illustrious and HMS Plymouth by being scrapped, although at least Onyx met her end in British waters, rather than suffer being towed to a Turkish scrapyard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PxySLf9IA