Originally posted by MischeviousElf
"I tell you now that I will turn Beunos Aries to glass, before Brittania will sail her ships home under force of your weapons, and we leave british people occupied on our territory"
I'd love a source on that. My old man was in the RN during the Falklands War, he was serving on HMS Hermes but was taken off the day before it sailed & sent up to Scotland to see if HMS Bulwark could be quickly worked up as a third carrier (she couldn't - she wasn't called the Rusty B for nothing). I remember, jokingly, saying to him we could always nuke the Argies and he gave me most stern look back, as was his wont. Nuking Argentina was never on the agenda, mate. Never. Even if Thatcher had gone a bit fruity loopy the Navy would simply have refused to do it.
The Brits did use their financial expertise & sent operatives out with a blank cheque to buy up any exocets on the market & they were seemingly helped enormously by the French. That, I think, was about as far as it went. President Mitterand did embargo weapons sales to Argentina, as far as I remember, he didn't need the threat of Argentinian cities burning to do it though.
I've got my own doubts about replacing Trident. I dunno if the US has made any formal decision about replacing their Trident system, frankly all Britain does is supply its own warheads on top of the missile & there's every chance the spec for the warhead is American anyway. I think simply being nuclear is sufficient deterrent, for Britain at least. The method of delivery is less important.
If Britain has been destroyed by nuclear weapons it matters not whether Moscow gets glassed in 15 minutes or 15 days ... the fact we have the capability to glass them at all should be sufficient to put off any likely aggressor. I'm sure the UK could conjure up a less expensive alternative to the Trident replacement & one which maintains its deterrent value.
[edit on 29/11/08 by Niall197]


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