Scale: 1:96. ‘Dreadnought’ (1960), Britain's first nuclear-powered submarine, entered service in 1963 opening a new chapter in the history of the Royal Navy. Built by Vickers Armstrong, in Barrow-in-Furness, the boat was seen as a revolution in the defence of the realm and, to emphasize the fact, she was launched by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, on Trafalgar Day, in 1960. The press and media made much of the fact that the name had been used for vessels of the Royal Navy since the first ‘Dreadnought’ fought against the Spanish Armada in 1588. Rather less trumpeted, however, was the considerable American help in her building, which included the purchase of the entire nuclear reactor system.

In the days of the Cold War between the West and Soviet Bloc the advantages were obvious of a submarine that could stay submerged for months, undetected. ‘Dreadnought’s’ main role was to detect and destroy enemy submarines, so her ability to ‘run silent, run deep’ was crucial. Her prowess was demonstrated in 1967 when she made the round trip from Rosyth, her base in Scotland, to Singapore and home again without needing to resurface and, in 1971, she became the first British submarine to surface at the North Pole.

‘Dreadnought’ was deployed to the South Atlantic in 1977 to deter possible Argentine aggression against the Falkland Islands and the effectiveness as a deterrent was demonstrated five years later in the Conflict itself when, on 2 May 1982, HMS ‘Conqueror’ torpedoed the Argentine cruiser ‘General Belgrano’. With no means of determining the position of the ‘Conqueror’ and her fellow nuclear-powered ‘subs’, the entire Argentine navy withdrew to coastal waters for the remainder of the conflict. Due to general wear-and-tear and the limited refit facilities then available for nuclear-powered boats, ‘Dreadnought’ was retired when she reached the end of her operational life in 1980.

By the very nature of the subject, models of submarines tend to be, at first glance at any rate, large, black, and featureless. In this case however there is a surprise inside; both the model and the baseboard that supports it split in half longitudinally to show some of the ‘Dreadnought’s’ internal details. These are illustrated in colour on the flat longitudinal surface of the model. Other features are not shown because the model was made when much information about the class was still classified.