The three Churchill-class submarines were nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines which served with the Royal Navy from the 1970s until the early 1990s. The lead ship was named for the former British Prime Minister and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. The Churchill class was based on the older Valiant-class, but featured many internal improvements. The controlled utilization of nuclear energy today involves converting nuclear energy into thermal energy by fission, and in most cases from thermal to kinetic by means of a steam turbine and finally to electron energy by a generator. ... USS Los Angeles A submarine is a specialized watercraft that can operate underwater. ... The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but keeping the same mind-set. ... A prime minister may be either: the chief or leading member of the cabinet of the top-level government in a country having a parliamentary system of government; or the official, in countries with a semi-presidential system of government, appointed to manage the civil service and execute the directives... The First Lord of the Admiralty was a British government position in charge of the Admiralty. ... The Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS (30 November 1874–24 January 1965) was a British statesman, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. ... The Valiant-class were the first fully British nuclear fleet submarine, as the first nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnought, actually used an American nuclear reactor. ...

The Churchills carried a crew of 103 and had a full load displacement of 4,900 tons whilst dived. They were 86.9 metres long, had a beam of 10.1 metres and a draught of 8.2 metres. Their single pressurized water cooled reactor supplied steam to two English Electric geared turbines, producing a total of 20,000shp for the single shaft and resulting in a maximum of 28 knots submerged. One Kelvin Type 1008 surface-search radar was fitted. The ships were built with a Type 2001 sonar array, but this was replaced in the late 1970s with a Type 2020 array and a Type 2026 towed array. Weapons included Mark 8 torpedoes, Mark 24 Tigerfish torpedoes, and sub-harpoon anti-ship missiles. Six 21 inch torpedo tubes fired from the bow. A knot is a non SI unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour. ... An Anti-ship missile (AShM) is a military missile designed for use against naval surface ships. ...

Like all nuclear powered submarines the Churchill class could remain submerged almost indefinitely, with supplies of food being the only limiting factor.

HMS Churchill evaluated both the American Mark 48 torpedo and the sub-harpoon missile, though only the latter was adopted by the Royal Navy. She was decommissioned in 1990 and is laid up at Rosyth awaiting disposal. Testing of the Mark 48: The Australian Collins class submarine, HMAS Farncomb, fired a Mark-48 torpedo at the 28-year-old destroyer escort Torrens. ...

HMS Conqueror was the most famous of the class, sinking the Argentina cruiser ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War. Although she did not fire again during the war, she did provide valuable help to the British task force by using her monitoring equipment to track Argentine aircraft departing the mainland. After the war Conqueror returned to Faslane; the sinking of the belgrano had provoked some controversy in Britain and Conqueror's crew were criticised for flying the Jolly Roger as she returned to port, a customary act of Royal Navy submarines after a mission on which a "kill" has been scored. As of 2005, she was the only nuclear powered submarine to have engaged an enemy ship with torpedoes. She was decommissioned in 1990 and is laid up at Devonport awaiting disposal. The Conqueror's periscope can be viewed at the Royal Navy's museum in Portsmouth. HMS Conqueror was a Churchill-class nuclear powered submarine that served in the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1990. ... The Belgrano as she was in 1941 as the USS Phoenix passing Battleship row at Pearl Harbor The ARA General Belgrano was an Armada República Argentina cruiser sunk with significant loss of life in a controversial incident during the Falklands War. ... The Falklands War or the Malvinas War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), was an armed conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, also known in Spanish as the Islas Malvinas, between March and June of 1982. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ...

In 1981 HMS Courageus became the first British submarine to carry the Sub-Harpoon missile. She was decommissioned in 1992 and is laid up at Devonport awaiting disposal.