h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Morning all,

As TB made the expected announcement on the future of our submarine based nuclear deterrent in the Commons yesterday, can I seek posters views please.

Do we need it , and if so why?
I assume that since it was commissioned when Russia was a threat with a mighty Warsaw Pact military , it was intended to wipe out any possibility of retaliation, or to pre-empt a Russian 'First Strike'. Surely this situation is no longer relevant.

I further presume that even ignoring our transatlantic friends , we have enough air based nuclear weapons (possibly of smaller yields) which may be better for use agianst the targets I would consider a possible threat , initially to the UK and secondly to the world at large.

Canwe truly afford it?

Novo

Yes.

Can you predict the way the world will look in 20 years time?

Can we afford not to have it?

Morning SWL,

That was remarkably succinct for you!

But is Trident the sort of platform that we need now, or indeed in 20 years? Are airplane carried tactical nuclear devices just as effective, or indeed ship based missiles with nuclear warheads - to defer to your RN background.

And if it is, and we justify maintaining it, how can we denu other nations the right to similar weaponry?

Novo

"I further presume that even ignoring our transatlantic friends , we have enough air based nuclear weapons (possibly of smaller yields) which may be better for use agianst the targets I would consider a possible threat , initially to the UK and secondly to the world at large.
"

Nope, we don't - the _only_ nukes we have are those strapped to the top of Trident Missiles.

But to answer your principal question...

Do we need a nuclear deterrent? In my opinion - yes.

However, as you pointed out - SSBNs were developed with a specific tasking in mind - to hide our nuclear deterrent from the Soviet Union and to assure them that we could turn the whole of their country/continent into a pile of glowing rubble.

Now, personally I think we could achieve the same results using existing and future SSNs, rather than have very expensive dedicated SSBNs.

We've currently got 9 SSNs up and running - with two of those on the way out and another four on the order books or under construction.

By the time Trident needs replacing we'll have 10 or 11 subs, all capable of launching Tomahawk Cruise Missiles (and their successors), and as anyone old enough to remember Greenham Common will know, the Tomahawk was originally designed to carry a nuclear warhead.

Ok, a submarine with half a dozen nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on board can't do the same damage as the original setup, which was 16 missiles, each with upto 8 warheads (it'll only wipe out a couple of cities as opposed to wiping out a hundred or so targets), but lets face it, the idea of having your capital city wiped off the map would be quite enough to deter most maniacs.

Incidentally, whilst Blair is going on about the importance of replacing the current Trident-carrying RN subs at the end of their 25 year life expectancy, the US Navy is busy _extending_ the service life of their own Trident subs up to 40 years... So you could ask why the heck aren't we doing the same.

Oh, and the USN are also planning to re-fit some of their Ohio-class Trident boats - removing the Trident missiles and replacing them with conventional (winkeye) Tomahawks to increase their flexibility.

Lets face it - we can't afford the same budget the US has - so why not get the most out our money and instead of paying for 4 dedicated SSBNs, only one of which is actually at sea on patrol at any one time, why not use the existing dozen or so SSNs and nominate one at a time to a Nuclear Patrol?







Personally I think that particular tasking is now

Do we need it... naa why on earth would we need it? Synario 1.
We get nuclear attack on us by some 'forign' sorts. Well, that would mean we're all dead, tridant wouldn't help us any. As for the deterant aspect, wasn't it to prevent Russia blowing us up? Well I can't see theres any likelyhood of them doing that nowdays And if they did, well we're all dead so having our own bombs wouldn't help us much With one hand the UK government is steadfast set on a policy of sucking up to the Americans and over-egging a 'percieved' non existant 'imminant and very real' threat that we're surrounded by hundreds of terrorists who're all dead set on blowing us up with dirty bombs and the like, and telling us that this is the 'new front line of war', and then on teh other hand they suddenly entirely change the storey whilst not dismissing the first, and tell us how the imminant danger and what we shoudl be worried about is having someone drop a nucke on our front lawn... They can't have it both ways. We've seen, if anything at all can be lurnt from recent illegal conflics in Afganastan and Iraq and elsewhere, that nuclear warfare is not any use, groundforces, air born divisions an attack capibilities are. Tridants just a hugely costive unneeded waste of money

I don't think an airplane based tactical deterrent is really as effective as a nuclear sub based one.

Didn't you just start a post about Putin making Russia into a dictatorship?

"I don't think an airplane based tactical deterrent is really as effective as a nuclear sub based one."

That depends on the world you expect to live in... certainly as a deterrent against individual members of the "we've got an a-bomb and we don't like you" club a deterrent based on half a dozen second-hand B2s purchased from the US would be sufficient. But it'd certainly be completely useless if ranged against a superpower. Plus of course there's the logistical problem of the UK being a little tiny Island - forget using espionage and launching your own spy satellites to locate our nuclear deterrent and plan its destruction - half an hour using google earth would be enough to find out where it was and how to get to it.

(Having said that - has anyone else noticed that there's one single area of the google earth photos of the uk that's not clear, where the photos were strangely blurred and over exposed - and that's the submarine base in Faslane.)

Hi Arnie

No

I merely queried whether he was involved with the death of Mr Litvinenko, but as it happens he does seem to be trying to rebuild the Kremlin's sphere of influence - but I don't believe that warrents Trident when , as posts above have pointed out, we still have Cruise and its sisters.

Novo

With regards to other nuclear equipped nations, having the bomb simply makes us a target, as evidenced by the Cold War struggle for first strike capability.

I'm inclined to view it as a prestige expenditure. Whether it actually gives us any diplomatic clout I'm doubtful - how do you tactfully threaten someone with nuclear weapons?

We have other nuclear options. Type 42s and the like carry nuclear depth charges. My mate's bunk is above the access hatch
The free-fall W42(?) nuclear bombs were dismantled in the 80's. The warheads in Trident cross-fit onto Tomahawk, but Tomahawk (or Storm Shadow, the UK version), gas a limited range and low surviveability in a sophisticated air defence environment. Trident can hit anywhere on the planet and there is *no* defence. Even Moscow's much admired ABM network would be swamped by a full salvo of Tridents. The US dream of an effective ABM network is just that, a dream. The testing results had to be fudged to get funding. (6 test-fires, 5 missed completely, one got within 500 yds of the target).

So Trident's the best option. Who would we use it against? I have absolutely no idea who we might be irate with in 50 years time and neither does anyone here, but I wouldn't entrust the lives of 60 million people to a crossed fingers defence policy.

Isn't the possession of nuclear weapons most valuable in that they give the UK a seat at the "big boys" table? It seems stupid, but the way the world's diplomatic structures are currently set up, that's the way it works. The UK would be stupid to voluntarily give up such influence.

If we were to get past this cold-war mindset, would it make the world more or less stable?

Ste

Erm - I think you'll find all the RN nuclear depth charges and RAF free-fall bombs have been long-since decommissioned (back in 92 if memory serves)

And as to a Trident warhead fitting on a tomahawk... I guess it may be physically possible but it'd probably need a heck of a lot of black masking tape to manage that one. Whilst the warheads themselves are of a similar size, the delivery packages required are completely different.



I'd agree - ICBMs are theoretically the best and most survivable delivery system - but they're also the most expensive - and whilst you might consider not having Trident a 'crossed-finger' approach to defence - I personally think that spending that money on conventional forces would be a heck of a better investment.




Oh, and StormShadow's not the UK version of the tomahawk at all It's a air-launched conventional warhead cruise missile fired from RAF Harriers and Tornadoes (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/casom.htm) one's a French design with a 150-ish mile range the other's american can be land, air or ship launched with a 700-ish mile range (if memory serves me it was further on the nuke version).

Yeah we need to be at the big boys table at the UN because look at what we have done form their we prevented the Massacres in Darfur, Kosovo and Rawanda....

We used them very effectively against Hitlers Germany and Stalins Russia to stop the millitary expasion by both of them and the mass mudrder and persecutions that follwed.

Oh hang on Ive confused myself here let me get this straight. We didint have them and we ended up wiht a homicidal regime doing what homicidal regimes do best and then we have them....



Personally I can understand and know the arguments for them but when I look outside my window I see the arguments being hung on the backs of pink elephants by fairies carried aloft by flying pigs.

What we need Trident for is to suck up to the people who make them. Here briefly is how millitary procurment works. Government pays for weapons. Comapany pays employees. Happy employees wonder who they should vote for. Rich company gives some of its profits to a certain political party (not necessaily the party in government, but sometimes it is) Party now has money for adverts to tell happy employees who to vote for.

Im not sure who it works for but if governments didnt buy weapons but Im sure that if weapons makers had to sack workers they'd still have enough money to pay another party to tell the now unhappy exworkers why they were out of jobs and to vote for a party who cared about national security.

Someone needs Trident but its not me.

one love

"Here briefly is how millitary procurment works. Government pays for weapons. Comapany pays employees. Happy employees wonder who they should vote for. Rich company gives some of its profits to a certain political party (not necessaily the party in government, but sometimes it is) Party now has money for adverts to tell happy employees who to vote for."

Or the alternative version of UK military procurement - buy the American kit - it's cheaper and it works - and to hell with British Jobs

Considering how many large procurement contracts end up on the other side of the pond I have my doubts as to how much 'vote chasing' has to do with procurement

(Having said that - has anyone else noticed that there's one single area of the google earth photos of the uk that's not clear, where the photos were strangely blurred and over exposed - and that's the submarine base in Faslane.)


In that case what the hell are they hiding in York? The entire city has no real detail.

Anyway I don;t believe there is a need for a nuclear deterrent anymore but possibly there might be in 50 years time so a smaller one might be a good idea.

"In that case what the hell are they hiding in York? The entire city has no real detail."

I was thinking the same about poor ol Torquay

Oh we could lasways pretend to upgrade Trident but not really bother. After all by the time we are all dead (I.e. when trident would be used) would anyone care wether it was us or the US who hit whoever it is who as gone mad and starting firing nukes.

You under-rate people's desire for revenge. It's akin to someone smacking you in the mouth and you not hitting back on the basis that it would only hurt him and not make the pain in your mouth go away.

I believe they interviewed survivors of the Blitz after the war and asked them if they had any sympathy with Germans who died in RAF raids, including Dresden. The overwhelming response was "No".

Revenge is one of the most powerful emotions.

About Google Earth - certain areas are still low definition with little detail - but Faslane's been physically gone over with an airbrush or something to cover the quayside and floating dock

Bit like those WMD sites in Iraq then