Blighty gets a new big stick

[Svartalf]

If you can't destroy Moscow, what's the point, really?

Don't mess with the gas supply experts and stop living in the past, history are lessons not templates. Put the subs round 'merica after it goes religious fuckwit.

Chel-sa-ay! Chel-sa-ay!

Yeah, London does need a couple megatons of neutron goodness.

[klr]

Reports today that the first £350 million of contracts has gone out for preparatory design work for the replacement for the Vanguard ICBM subs, despite there being no official decision to replace them. Apparently, this will ensure that Blighty retains the ability to destroy Moscow, Peking or Paris until at least 2060.

Can't spare one frigate to do anti-piracy patrols but have cash to blow on another irrelevant war-whale. Excellent!

Destroy Paris? unless you intend to use ultra short range ordnance and send a pocket sub up the Seine to deliver it... wouldn't a modern missile (or maybe even artillery) battery around the Kentish coast be quite adequate for the job?

Too far from the White Cliffs of Dover for that I'm afraid. Modern field artillery tends to have a max. range of 30-40 km, maybe twice that with "assisted" munitions. The age of Really Big Guns is over, as they would be far too easy to locate and destroy, and much too slow to move.

[Atheist-Lite]

We got to take on 'merica or the world will be full of dumb TV forever.

[Svartalf]

Yes and no. No because at the political level the French appear to have no qualms or doubts whatsoever about retaining a nuclear deterrent, unlike the UK.

Which is why we have drastically cut down on our delivery ability... 4 Triomphant class subs, and about 70 missiles that can be launched from fighter planes... rafales, and mirages... no real long range delivery ability for those AtG ones, since they are not made to fit on real long range planes, and even if the Rafale is carrier capable, our only carrier is drydocked more often than on duty... we used to have ICBMs, but somebody bright decided to scrap the Albion site.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Reports today that the first £350 million of contracts has gone out for preparatory design work for the replacement for the Vanguard ICBM subs, despite there being no official decision to replace them. Apparently, this will ensure that Blighty retains the ability to destroy Moscow, Peking or Paris until at least 2060.

Can't spare one frigate to do anti-piracy patrols but have cash to blow on another irrelevant war-whale. Excellent!

Destroy Paris? unless you intend to use ultra short range ordnance and send a pocket sub up the Seine to deliver it... wouldn't a modern missile (or maybe even artillery) battery around the Kentish coast be quite adequate for the job?

Easier to have DSI drive it into town.

[klr]

Yes and no. No because at the political level the French appear to have no qualms or doubts whatsoever about retaining a nuclear deterrent, unlike the UK.

Which is why we have drastically cut down on our delivery ability... 4 Triomphant class subs, and about 70 missiles that can be launched from fighter planes... rafales, and mirages... no real long range delivery ability for those AtG ones, since they are not made to fit on real long range planes, and even if the Rafale is carrier capable, our only carrier is drydocked more often than on duty... we used to have ICBMs, but somebody bright decided to scrap the Albion site.

A submarine-based ballistic missile system is the most survivable (and therefore the most credible) deterrent option. It would be hard for the likes of the UK and France to justify having batteries of ICBMs in silos, or air-launched stand-off nuclear missiles. There is a case for the latter I suppose, but if (heaven forbid) you ever need to destroy a target with such a missile, it wouldn't be for the purposes of deterrence. If say, some rogue power had a secret weapons facility buried deep underground ...

The French and UK submarine deterrent fleets have always been just four or five boats each IIRC, and there are never more than one or two on patrol at any given time. But that's enough.

[Svartalf]

We used to have 6 Redoutable class subs

[Atheist-Lite]

'Mericas heads been gone for years, their doing a tour of the world like that other lot in case Clinton hasn't noticed. These subs are not to deter them...they are being built to bring them down.

[klr]

We used to have 6 Redoutable class subs

My bad, I get confused sometimes over what constitutes a "class" of similar vessels. The first and the last unit were quite different from the others, once certain modifications were made during or after construction.

Anyway, nowadays these systems are all supposed to be more reliable (unlike Rum's TV ), and given the end of the Cold War, one out of four on station at all times should be enough.

[Svartalf]

One in the Thames estuary, one patrolling either the Baltic or the White Sea, one off either American Coast, one in the China Sea/Japan Sea area... that's five that have to be available at all times... and we ought to have on ship at home for every one on patrol, which means that an effective missile sub navy ought to be at least 8 or 10 strong.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

I think we should set off a Nuke.

Just for fun.

[Svartalf]

in the Yalu river...

[klr]

I think we should set off a Nuke.

Just for fun.

in the Yalu river...

That's pretty much what Douglas MacArthur wanted to do during the Korean War.

[Ian]

I want to know when you Brits are finally going to conquer Norway. They've got tons of oil and other resources, protected by a little population and a little military. Give in to the Dark Side and have at them already.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I want to know when you Brits are finally going to conquer Norway the Northern Falklands. They've got tons of oil and other resources, protected by a little population and a little military. Give in to the Dark Side and have at them already.