To Renew Trident?

I'm not sure I follow. If you scrap your SSBN, where do you plan to put your better cruise missles?

SSN's.

Since SSN's and cruise missiles are both vastly cheaper and have other uses this wouldnt be "dead" money. If push comes to shove the SSN's just dive deep and go into hiding behavior.

They wouldnt have the stealth of an SSBN that spends all its time being as stealthy as possible. They wouldnt have (anything like) the fire-power of an SSBN. But we would have 10-20 not 3, and if the firepower is sufficient to make the cost unacceptable to any potential agressor it is sufficient, these dont seem unacceptable drawbacks.

Also cruise would have the advantage of being adaptable to any launch platform.
 
Authoritarian? It's democracy Dave. If the British public felt strongly enough that it didn't want to follow the US into the War on Terror, or wanted to pull out as soon as possible, they should have voted Lib Dem. Not enough of them did.
Strange Democracy when an elected party with only 35% of the vote gets to ignore public opinion. Doesn't sound very democratic.
 
Strange Democracy when an elected party with only 35% of the vote gets to ignore public opinion. Doesn't sound very democratic.
So you're content to ignore the point I've raised on 3 occasions, Labour won the majority of the vote, Labour's policy is our policy. I know you don't like it Dave, but as I've said before, until the unlikely event electoral reform is brought in, the elected Government's policyt, is ours.

Also as I've said before, not enough people voted Lib Dem to demonstrate their distain towards current foreign policy.
 
SSN's.

Since SSN's and cruise missiles are both vastly cheaper and have other uses this wouldnt be "dead" money. If push comes to shove the SSN's just dive deep and go into hiding behavior.

They wouldnt have the stealth of an SSBN that spends all its time being as stealthy as possible. They wouldnt have (anything like) the fire-power of an SSBN. But we would have 10-20 not 3, and if the firepower is sufficient to make the cost unacceptable to any potential agressor it is sufficient, these dont seem unacceptable drawbacks.

Hmm... And why do you think the SSBN are bigger or more expensive than the SSN? Could it be because the cruise missiles they carry take a bit more room than a few torpedoes?
 
So you're content to ignore the point I've raised on 3 occasions, Labour won the majority of the vote, Labour's policy is our policy. I know you don't like it Dave, but as I've said before, until the unlikely event electoral reform is brought in, the elected Government's policyt, is ours.

Also as I've said before, not enough people voted Lib Dem to demonstrate their distain towards current foreign policy.
And your ignoring the point that a government elected with only 35% of the vote disregarding public opinion is very un-democratic.

The governments policy is never mine. My policy is mine. I always question authoirty, I won't just follow a policy just because it's the governments.

Democracy is the will of people. Only 35% of the people voted for the government who are trying to renew trident. Thus it is not the will of people.

Real democracy would see a referendum on the issue.
 
And your ignoring the point that a government elected with only 35% of the vote disregarding public opinion is very un-democratic.

The governments policy is never mine. My policy is mine. I always question authoirty, I won't just follow a policy just because it's the governments.

Real democracy would see a referendum on the issue.
So the Government should consult public opinion on every issue because not enough people voted for them?

What else does this extend to? The budget? Welfare, constitutional reform? The decision to change the name of the State Veterinary Service to Animal Health?

I'm not asking you to like every decision the Government makes, that's why we have the right to question authority. But you do have to accept that the Government is elected by more people than anyone else and that in our Constitution that means they get to dictate our policy.

Whether you like it or not is irrelevant, you had the opportunity to make a difference in the election. Not enough people agreed with you.
Democracy is the will of people. Only 35% of the people voted for the government who are trying to renew trident. Thus it is not the will of people.
We delegated our decision making powers to those we elected. They are doing the job we elected them to do. If they are not doing it how we want them then someone else will be elected.

It's Democracy 101.
 
Hmm... And why do you think the SSBN are bigger or more expensive than the SSN? Could it be because the cruise missiles they carry take a bit more room than a few torpedoes?

The RN's SSN's (Swiftsure, Trafalgar and in '09 Astute classes) can all fire cruise missiles. SSBN's (French Triomphant, American Ohio, Russan Typhoon, Chinese Xia and British Vangard classes) fire sub-orbital multi-warhead high yeald nasties.

SSBN's are huge ships (Triomphant 12,640 tons, Vangard 15,680 tons, Ohio 17,033 tons, Typhoon an incredible c.24,000 tons) while SSN's are more in the 3-7k tons range. This is mainly baause they have to be designed around SLBM tubes. Huge missiles = huge sub.

SSBN's are the largest ships in the fleet after carriers, main amphibs and the largest oilers. The key point here is that they have (just about) no function apart from launching SLBM's.

If the UK wishes to retain the ability to have four boats launch 16 missiles with eight half megaton independently targetable warheads a piece (for a total of 512) we need SLBM's. These missiles have a range of 7500 km and go 29k kmph.

Cruise missiles by comparison have c. 1/7th the range, 1/30th the speed and 1/30th the payload.

Cruise missiles have been rejected as a sufficient platform for a deterrent bacause of these limitations.

My contention is that the funding could be better spent overcomming the limitations of cruise missiles than bankrolling another generation of sub-orbital missiles and the vast subs needed to deploy them.

The key driver for this being that SSBN's and SLBM's are of no use other than as a deterrent, where SSN's, cruise missiles, carriers etc are of great utility in conventional warfare. The degredation of capability would be dropping from strategic to tactical nukes.
 
those are nice points GinandTonic.

and i think you hit the nail on the head when you described the limitations of the cruise missiles.

so yeah, it pretty much boils down to sinking cash into enhancing the strategic capabilities of the conventional war heads - or - modernizing the existing SSBN paltform.

both of these issues imho are wholly legitimate.

however - if the research monies are put into the conventional cruise missile development, wouldn't that leave a big hole in the strategic/deterrent platform? i mean, the type of payload yielded from the existing cruise missile platform could be delivered via the fleet air arm. no? of course, the air units would be 'in harm's way' and all. but i think that if you put the 2 missile programs side by side, the need to maintain and modernize the SSBN fleet would come out on top...especially in today's age where conventional warfare is far less certain than it's been in the past.

of course, this is only an amateur's opinion :)
 
Im sure you know a lot more on the topic than me :)

The point Im making is that cruise missiles are not conventional or nuclear but both. Monies put into it therefore are dual use. Add to that the economies of scale and export potential and the researh funds are not completely "dead" money.

We have stealthyish cruise missiles are are working on better. We have sub launched cruise missiles. Everyone is working on decent hypersonic cruise missiles. Getting scramjets to mass production, militarising them and intergrating these technologies etc is not going to be a walk in the park (in fact it's rocket science) but under the timescales (next 25 years) and costs (£30 billion) it is doable.

We wouldnt be looking at trying to deliver the same total yield. I dont see that we need to be able to render contenents uninhabitale when being able to destroy 30-40 cities is a sufficient deterent.

EDIT - And for the £30 billion, after funds have been recoped as mentioned we would have change for, say, five SSN's, another Queen Elizabeth class, as many armoured Land Rovers as the Army wants and still have change to give primary school kids back the free bottle of milk every day.
 
And your ignoring the point that a government elected with only 35% of the vote disregarding public opinion is very un-democratic.

The governments policy is never mine. My policy is mine. I always question authoirty, I won't just follow a policy just because it's the governments.

Democracy is the will of people. Only 35% of the people voted for the government who are trying to renew trident. Thus it is not the will of people.

Real democracy would see a referendum on the issue.

35% or not, no party got more. The Labour Party got more votes than the Tories or Lib Dems, and so can do Trident if it wishes.
 
You said it yourself.... The cruise missile have 1/7 of the range of strategic missile.

France is currently using SLBM like the future M51, with a range of 11,000 km.
The Triomphant class can carry 16 missiles, with 6 heads each.
The M45 (previous generation missile) had a range of 6,000 km. So we are already improving the vector.

The circumference of the Earth is 40,000 km. So with a range of 11,000 km, you can hit "only" half of the Earth. So with two submarines, place on antipodes, you can theorically cover the whole world. Imagine that the sub can be at sea 50% of the time.

With 4 SSBN, Triomphant class, equipped with M51 SLBM, we can have a permanent coverage of the whole world and have a real deterrence.

Now, if we switch to cruise missile, with a range of 1100 km for Tomahawk, or even if we reach the 3,000 km of the Russian Raduga...

How many SSN do you need to cover the world with a range of 1,100 km instead of 11,000 km?
Range divided by 10 = surface divided roughly by 100. So instead of 2 submarines, you'll need 200. Make it 400 for rotation.

As I'm a nice guy, I accept that we can use only 1/8 of that as we don't need to cover antartic for instance, and also because you manage to increase the range of the cruise missile, without making it bigger (so it still fits in SSN). Total sub needed = let say 48.

BTW, a Tomahawk is 6.25m long, 1.5 ton. M51 is 12 m long

To accomodate that, the Triumphant class is 138m long, 12,500 t
Cost : 2.5 billions € + 2 billions for the missiles.

The Barracuda, the new French submarine class is 99 m long, 4,700 t.
Price: 8 billions € for 6 SSN. The cost of one sub is half the cost of a SSBN.
Let's suppose it would be the same for nuclear cruise missiles.

So you propose to replace a program of 4 SSBN (total cost = 4.5 x 4 = 18 billions €) with a program of 48/6x8 = 64 billions €.
 
Why can't we do both?

We could have 2 SSBNs (covering, according to Steph above, the whole world), and 24 enhanced SSNs?

Or would the fixed costs of each individual project make it uneconomical? Would the payload of two SSNs be enough to act as a deterrant?

(PS I have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's a very interesting debate that you guys are having...)
 
Sorry for the delay in replying.

First a correction - lots of Auxillary vessles are larger than SSBN's, I should have said they are the the largest combat vessles after carriers and main amphibs.

Second Steph, you are talking about the purchase cost not the lifetime cost. The research costs and the logistics cost are far higher than the purchase costs.

The point of being able to afford more Astute and Queen Elizabeth's for the cost of a new generation is that economies of scale make purchasing and supporting a tenth Astute a fraction the cost of researching, purchasing an supporting a new class of SSBN. Obviously the choice is not actually a choice between Astute's and a new generation of SSBN's, but between Astute's successor class or even the sucessor to that.

The economies of scale are particually pronounced at the SSN's scale. If we order 10-12 of a class (as opposed to the 6-8 we seem to be looking at) that basically means keeping a given drydock constantly producing SSN's. On the assumpion of a class-life (in terms of construction) of twenty years and approx two year construction time. Spares are also more economical for maintiaining more of the same class. Logistic chains already exist etc.

Most of the points you make about being able to nuke anywhere on earth at any moment I would agree with, as I said the capacity would become tatical rather than strategic. Obviously the ramifications of such a capacity remain strategic.

A cruise missile would be deployable from most naval assets, airbases, carriers and the auxilary vessles capable of re-fueling stvol aircraft. Obviously air-depoloyment would decrease the effective range of the missile since it would have to be launched from defencable airspace. We would no longer be able to nuke anywhere instantly, but we would retain the ability to nuke most hostile sites at short notice and the inability of an enemy to know if we could nuke them or not.

Extending the range of a cruise missile to, say, 2k km would not be difficult. AFAIK, the key problems of using a cruise missile is that it is far easier to intercept than a sub-orbital missile. It is astonishingly hard to destroy something traveling at 30k mph. For a cruise missile to have the necessary ability to get through air defence it would have to be more stealthy and be hypersonic.

If we get scramjets working range would increase as they are far more fuel efficient in terms of distance traveled. If we get scrmjets working the speed would increase to at least mach 6, at which point existant air-defence would be basically worthless. Add increased stealth and the missile would not be as unstoppable as an SLBM, but it would not be too shabby either.

I say we dont need to be able to nuke anywhere on earth at zero notice. It is sufficient that any country that nuked us would loose a couple of dozen major cities. It makes the cost unacceptable for any potential agressor.

The piviotal issue is that the research and assets for my programme would be useful. A bunch of attack subs, a super-carrier, a cutting-edge cruise missile for use and export. Useful and lucrative by-products of the research, instead of duplicating research that all the nations we could export it to already have equivalents to. Clearly placing our deterrent in the hands of uncertain research is not tennable, however we have at least five years to kick off some viability studies, initial research etc. If it is not viable then, sure, lets build another gen of SSBN's, but we can afford to give the geeks five years and a billion quid.

Not that I have the slightest idea what I'm talking about ;)
 
Gwynn Dyer, a long time defence analyst, has pointed out that the renewal of trident is likely to be related to military planners modelling what will happen in Europe in a more than 2 degree rise under climate change.

He points out that mainland Europe, especially the south, is likely to suffer agricultural collapse. England is likely to be able to support something close to its current population, but not with European environmental refugees exrcising their rights under the EU.

But Trident is one way of keeping them out.

see: http://taghioff.info/dant/?p=43
 
Sorry, Abaddon, but that's just ridiculous. How does the threat of a nuclear warhead stop refugees fleeing from starvation ?

I'm broadly with G&T on this one (tending to make a habit of that these days - must do better). I don't think there's a need for the UK to have a strategic nuclear threat. More than that, I am not prepared to condone the UK using or threatening to use a nuclear warhead. Having more options available in terms of conventional weapons, particularly in terms of cruise missiles, strikes me as a much more appropriate response to any of the likely threats to the UK in the next 30 years.

Perhaps I should note that I have been anti-nuke for the last 25+ years, so if I wasn't prepared to point the things at the Soviet Union, I guess it's not surprising that I'm not prepared to point them at random potential "rogue states". Also, I'd say that I don't think there is any possibility of a communist/islamic/uber-capitalist country wanting to nuke the UK as some form of pest control, and thus needing some form of nuclear deterrent to dissuade them.
 
That was a quote, not me... im completely against all nukes
 
OK, but you brought him to the party. If you knew he was a complete idiot, then you should have left him at home.

Anyway, thanks for the clarification.
 
What an interesting thread to look back upon almost 20 years ago. I got curious to see the attitudes of the British post the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and there is a marked increase in support. Source

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With the potential removal of the US nuclear umbrella, Europe will have to rely on the British and French for the ultimate protection against a bloodthirsty landgrabber in the East. Thank goodness the Brits kept their heads and didn't unilaterally disarm as ideologues wanted.
 
Ideologues? Doesn't that mean anyone who has a position - for or against - is an ideologue?

Personally I think Westminster would be in trouble if they had to move the fleet out of Faslane. It's the same problem with nuclear reactors - people like the idea, just not near them.

(I go back and forth, personally)
 
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