How much do you know about other Royal Navy teething troubles?

HMS Queen Elizabeth, which was found to be taking in water during sea trials. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

The news that the £3.1bn flagship vessel HMS Queen Elizabeth has sprung a leak brings back memories of other Royal Navy teething troubles as the fleet was modernised and had to get to grips with new technology.

Officials at the MoD say problems experienced by the first commissioned vessels in any class are part of the process, and that the lessons learned feed into improvements for later builds. How much do you remember about these other mishaps over the last 15 years?

1. HMS Penzance, a Sandown-class mine countermeasures ship, misplaced an 850kg £750,000 mini-submarine in 2005. What happened to it?

   1. It was held to ransom by the Scottish fishermen who found it

   2. It had been captured by the Russian navy

   3. It had sunk, and was never recovered

2. The £1bn submarine HMS Astute ran aground off the Isle of Skye in October 2010. The official report concluded that this was caused by:

   1. The officer on the bridge was not using the right radar

   2. The officer on the bridge did not have a chart

   3. The officer on the bridge was unused to navigating in the dark

   4. All of the above

3. When HMS Argyll fired a dummy torpedo into a nuclear submarine dockyard in Plymouth in 2014, what euphemism did the navy use to describe what happened?

   1. "Mistakenly deployed"

   2. "Accidentally operational"

   3. "Suboptimally engaged"

   4. "Jettisoned unexpectedly"

4. The former head of the Royal Navy Admiral Lord West caused embarrassment in 2011 when he criticised Navy procurement, saying: "We are not a second-tier power. We are not bloody ... or ... " Which two European nations' naval efforts did he insult?

   1. Portugal and Belgium

   2. Denmark and Portugal

   3. Denmark and Belgium

   4. Netherlands and Belgium

5. 

   HMS Trafalgar was grounded near the Isle of Skye in October 2002. What type of stationery did an official report find was a contributory cause of the accident?

   1. Sellotape

   2. Tracing paper

   3. Post-it notes

   4. Fax machine paper

6. Away from the sea, in 2012 it was revealed that the MoD had overpaid 423 people, and was claiming back from them a total of how much?

   1. £800,000

   2. £1.2m

   3. £2.1m

   4. £2.6m

7. The Office for Nuclear Regulation placed a hold on the launch of the submarine HMS Artful in 2013. Why?

   1. The navy had failed to complete the paperwork required to licence the nuclear engine

   2. A series of radioactive leaks had been detected during construction

   3. They had doubts about the safety of the type of nuclear power on board

   4. They had doubts about the structural integrity of the quay it was to launch from

8. 

   The Royal Navy website was the victim of hackers in 2010. What was the nationality of the hackers who claimed to have breached the security?

   1. Croatian

   2. Romanian

   3. Russian

   4. Estonian

9. 

   The Navy's Type 45 destroyers made headlines for the wrong reasons in 2016. Why?

   1. Because two of them collided

   2. Because they had been fitted with the wrong type of radar

   3. Because it was claimed their engines would fail when deployed in cold water environments

   4. Because it was claimed their engines would overheat when deployed in the Middle East

10. Which nuclear-powered fleet submarine enjoyed a "glancing" collision with a merchant ship off the coast of Gibraltar in 2016?

    1. HMS Ambush

    2. HMS Astute

    3. HMS Artful

11. Concerns were raised that navy ships were running the same Microsoft operating system affected by the ransomware attack on the NHS and many other organisations in May 2017. Which outdated system was widely reported to be running on HMS Queen Elizabeth?

    1. Windows 95

    2. Windows 98

    3. Windows 2000

    4. Windows XP

Solutions

1:A - Scottish lobster fishermen spotted the mini-sub two miles off the Mull of Oa on Islay, and recovered it. They told the media at the time: "We have the submarine in a secure location on Islay, but we think it is only appropriate, after spending money to recover it and lift it out of the water, that we receive some sort of financial recognition." , 2:D - The submarine was late for a rendezvous with another ship and ended up "cutting a corner" to get to the right position at the right time. Nobody was court-martialed over the incident, but the navy said three officers had faced disciplinary or "administrative" action. The official service inquiry into the accident noted that the commanding officer was taking a shower as the nuclear-powered submarine was heading for trouble., 3:D - The official statement about what happened described how "HMS Argyll was conducting a system test when an inert test variant torpedo was jettisoned unexpectedly. The torpedo is not an explosive hazard.", 4:C - West was one of three authors commissioned to write a report for Labour on defence procurement, and during the launch he said: "We are probably, depending on what figures you use, the fifth or sixth wealthiest nation in the world. We run world shipping from the UK. We are a permanent member of the UN security council and I think that gives us certain clout and certain ability. These mean we are not a second-tier power. We are not bloody Denmark or Belgium.", 5:B - Basic navigational errors during a training exercise for students were to blame for the grounding, in part because tracing paper had been used on the navigational chart to protect it from being written on, obscuring vital information. The report said tracing paper had been a contributory factor in previous groundings and recommended its use should be strongly discouraged. The repair bill was estimated at £5m. The submarine was decommissioned in December 2009., 6:B - The MoD ordered the repayments by taking monthly deductions from wage packets until the overpaid money was recovered. One of those affected had to give back as much as £17,000, while another was told they had been overpaid by £9., 7:D - The ONR were concerned about the structural integrity of the wet dock quay at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, saying: "Recent surveys have indicated that there may be some deterioration in its structure. ONR has placed a hold on launch of the next submarine so that we will ... be satisfied that the structure remains fit for purpose.", 8:B - A Romanian hacker operating under the name TinKode claimed to have breached security. The MoD stated: "There has been no malicious damage, but as a precaution the website has been temporarily suspended. Access to this website did not give the hacker access to any classified information.", 9:D - "A Type 45 has never been forced to return to port because of a lack of power or propulsion," the Royal Navy said, but after a series of power and propulsion problems across the fleet, defence chiefs told a Commons committee that the £1bn ships were likely to suffer engine failure in warm waters, 10:A - HMS Ambush lived up to her name by surprising the surface ship. The Astute-class vessel suffered “some external damage” but no crew members were injured in the incident., 11:D - In June 2017 it was reported that on a tour of the new aircraft carrier, screens had been spotted running Windows XP from 2001. This is believed to have been either a contractor's laptop or a comedy screensaver, not an official navy computer. Officers on the carrier insist that they are well prepared to defend against cyberattacks and will have a team of specialists on board. The Mod has stated that "Windows XP will not be used by any onboard system when the ship becomes operational"

Scores

1. 8 and above.

   You are definitely Admiral material

2. 0 and above.

   You didn't have your sea legs on for this quiz

3. 4 and above.

   Like a trainee navigator at the helm of a nuclear submarine - could do better