Standing between Russia’s increasingly assertive Northern Fleet submarines and British shores are the Royal Navy submarine captains, deemed the most “feared” in the world by Tom Clancy, the author of The Hunt for Red October. Their reputation is based on the officers’ ability to push a boat and her crew confidently to the very edge of what each is capable of, acting aggressively but without becoming rash or endangering the lives of those on board. These skills are honed on an infamously brutal command course, a century old this year, known within the service as “Perisher”, because the 35 per cent who fail can never serve underwater again, making a decade’s sea preparation redundant. Perisher is knowingly unforgiving; the submarine service’s responsibilities are too complex,…

Source: The Times April 14, 2017 23:03 UTC