A fire broke out on board the French nuclear submarine last Friday Perle, of the class Ruby, moored in the port of Toulon for maintenance work. There were no casualties.
To extinguish the fire the firefighters took 14 hours, the Mediterranean Maritime Prefecture excludes the release of radioactive material from the boat.
the class Ruby it consists of six boats (SSN) which entered service between the 80s and 90s of the last century, however, for some years, voices have been raised in the Marine Nationale circles about their obsolescence and poor reliability.
The boats of this class are the smallest nuclear submarines in service today (2.385 tons on the surface, 2.670 underwater), thanks to the installation on board of a nuclear reactor, with pressurized water, integrated with natural circulation (with a thermal power of 48 megawatts) which moves two turbo alternators and a main electric motor, allowing the boat a surface speed of 18 knots and a submersion speed of 25. The armament (4 533 mm torpedo tubes) consists of 10 wire-guided torpedoes F17 and L5 Mod.3 anti-submarine, with active-passive self-searching warhead and 4 medium-range anti-ship missiles (50 km) SM.39 Exocet.
Image: web
