Blair's nuclear bombshell

Sorry guys, but that illegitimate little William of Normandie don't count because he was half 'Anglo-Saxon' in the first place.

According to the history of Normandie his mother - bless her, was a bit of a sport and went with all and sundry in her effort to sire a boychild.

The only reason he invaded and landed at Pevensy in 1065, was because he threw a very large teddy out of his pram and Harold, bright chap that he was, did not want some backwater 'Anglo-Saxon-Normandie' type git, sitting on what was rightfully his throne.

My God! Even then we were against a European Union. Some things never change!

So if yer gonna spout things about invasions, at least try to get yer dates right! Battle of Hastings was fought on Senlac Hill in 1066 - near Battle, not far from Hastings.

The had to build a castle at Pevensy first to consolidate his beachhead and that took a year. Hence the main event taking place in 1066!

Good job there were no nucs about 'cause we'd have fried the little before he got his toe on the beach.

Immediate time travel - fast forward to 2005

Nuc weapons are here to stay. Blair and Prescott and Harmon and all the other CND freaks (once they gained power in illegally held elections) have changed their collective mind and have come to realise that YES! we should remain in the nuclear club and YES! we should maintain a nuclear deterrent.

But at what cost?

Nuc weaps are very expensive to purchase, let alone maintain and upgrade. The non-proliferation treaties have done next to nothing to prevent certain countries obtaining nuclear power, let alone weapons. Israel, South Africa, India and Pakistan all managed to obtain the necessary 'do-da' from which to fabricate weapons grade materiels and I for one and looking forward to the outcome, over N.Korea and Iran.

I personally believe that we, the once proud and mighty United Kingdom do not need a fleet of super expensive white elephant nuclear submarines from which to launch a new breed of super expensive nuclear missiles.

We don't need 'em. Aft we not about to take delivery of the EuroFighter 'Typhoon'? The all singing-all dancing aircraft that has promised so much and as yet has delivered very little?

Why cant that carry a small 'stand-off' nuclear missile or why don't we just upgrade the Tornado ac (again!) and use them.

Better yet, we could upgrade RAF Macrihanish, and rebuild the silos that were there and use them to launch ICBMs.

Those options would be much better than buying new subs (sorry Navy, you'll just have to make do with those 2 new French ac carriers Labour has promised you!) and buying new nuc missiles when so much of our armed forces are struggling with faulty equipment, is undermanned and over stretched.

I can think of many projects which would be better off with this apparent glut of money.

Over to you!

Uhh ok fritz one thing, the navy doesnt have a "fleet" of nuke ships, we only have like 3 or 4.

Also, the typhoon and tornado as nuke launchers?
Ok.....how will this hit an enemy home land?

Why cant that carry a small 'stand-off' nuclear missile or why don't we just upgrade the Tornado ac (again!) and use them.

The Typhoon will be able to launch the new Stormshadow cruise missile. As can the Tornado...

The 3-4 Vanguard's we have eat up about £1 billion/year from the defence budget. They are quite pricey to run, but I think it is a cost that we can bear quite easily.

There are 4 vangard class subs, (one is in refit at plymouth), two are in dock and one is on patrol.


Tornado's used to carry freefall nuclear bombs untill only a few years ago.

I knew they carrried like stand off and free fall stuff but I meant like hows that going to hit anywhere in the world?
Unless we have typhoons and Tornados all over the world???

Originally posted by devilwasp
I knew they carrried like stand off and free fall stuff but I meant like hows that going to hit anywhere in the world?
Unless we have typhoons and Tornados all over the world???

There isnt an awful lot of point in having air launched strategic weapons. To vunerable.

It makes sens to have an SSBN out in the ocean where even if everyone at home dies in a horrible, burning, ball of nuclear flame...we can still hit them back...

Originally posted by stumason
There isnt an awful lot of point in having air launched strategic weapons. To vunerable.

Thats another reason..

It makes sens to have an SSBN out in the ocean where even if everyone at home dies in a horrible, burning, ball of nuclear flame...we can still hit them back...

Yeah...not nice to think about huh?

Aparenttly the Defence review has been disarming on the quiet since 1998

When these decisions are fully implemented, the total explosive power of Britain's operationally available weapons will have been reduced by more than 70 percent since the end of the Cold War. The explosive power of each Trident submarine will be one-third less than that of the Chevaline-armed Polaris submarines of recent years.

Full Aarticle

Leasing the missiles means that the US lease bases on mainland UK (I Think) so when the trident lease runs out, things could get, intresting.

Just a few quick points.

First off, as others have said, the decision facing the MOD at the moment is how to replace Trident, which is the delivery system and not the nuclear warheads themselves.

For a number of years now the UK has practiced a policy of minimum deterence which has seen a reduced warhead carry on our nuclear subs. There is every reason to believe that a Trident replacement could actually lead to yet another reduction in actual warheads rather than an increase. A popular belief now is that any conceivable use of nukes is likely to be on a small scale rather than in a cold war WW3 scenario, so a single warhead cruise missile may in fact be preferable to a MIRVed ICBM. (Of course whether this is actually more worrying from the viewpoint of making them more "acceptable" to employ is another argument).

Secondly, describing UK Trident's as being leased from the US is both accurate and missleading to the same degree. It is true that UK Tridents come from a shared pool of missile bodies and that the UK has "ownership" of 60 odd missile bodies, which are stored, maintained and refurbished in the US. In that sense you could well argue the missiles are leased. On the other hand you must remember that the UK ALWAYS has those 60 odd missiles in it's possesion. Short of invading the UK and taking them back by force (come on Westpoint, you know you want to!) , there is nothing the US can do stop those birds flying. So in every realistic sense of the word they are UK owned.

Thirdly, whilst the cost of maintaining a nuclear deterent is large, we have to factor in the resultant savings from the scale back of conventional forces. Nukes were one of the factors considered when doing away with conscription and national service. Owning a nuclear deterent enabled the UK to vastly scale back the size of our standing army, and whilst you might argue today that we could do away with our nukes without having to increase our standing forces, this has not been the case for the best part of the last 50 years.

Just a quick addition before anyone starts saying that the UK can't launch it's missiles without the US saying so.

Why? How can the US stop them? ICBM's are a no recall delivery system in general. Once they fly you can't call them back. I have often heard people claim (not in this thread) that the US could jam the GPS signal, well go ahead, Trident doesn't need one. It is inertially guided and uses star shots to confirm terminal accuracy.

You see that's the thing with an ICBM, you don't want it to be able to be recalled, factor in a way for your own side to stop it and you can be sure the enemy will catch on to it real quick. Make it reliant on GPS and the Soviets wouldn't bother with an anti ballistic missile shield. Far easier to take out those 24(?) GPS satellites in geostationary orbit, and far cheaper too. So why would Trident rely on GPS?



[edit on 19-10-2005 by Badger]


[edit on 19-10-2005 by Badger]

I have to say this is one of the few times I agree with Tony Blair. Despite hating him for the Iraq War, and now possibly an Iran one too, my opinion is that nuclear weapons are things of peace.
Everyone knows that if both sides had not had WMD's in the cold war there would most probably have been a war like world war two killing many of our parents.

Fact is nuclear weapons are one thing that is so terrible it guarantees that all nations (dictatorship and democracy alike) really do exhaust all possible options for peace before war. And as the Cold War demonstrates there are probably always options providing both sides are seeking them.

Even the Mullahs of Iran will probably be having second thoughts before they meet their creator, because judging by many of their personal actions many of them will be going to hell (of course even by the standards of their religion).

Some say we should get rid of nukes so Iran gets rid of theirs: What is Iran the Soviet Union?
Let’s look at things the other way. Say we had no nukes would Iran still be trying to develop them then? Or even better say we had no military power; do you think Iran would be paying a blind bit of notice then?

Maybe it’s me, but surely people who think we should have less nukes because Iran is trying to get more (i.e. more than zero) aren’t thinking very deeply?

WHY WE NEED THEM…
Some people are saying "what does Britain need nukes for?" Well there's France, but more seriously there's this 1.2 billion person dictatorship called China, which believe or not we are currently helping make strong by trading with.
Bare in mind that our current investment in nukes is a long term thing. Then remember that could be China a major superpower (possibly in 10 or 20 years). This is why we need to invest in them.
Already the dictatorship of China is investing in anti satellite technology. Could this be because they are thinking about 3rd world little dictatorships like we seem to do? Or could it be because they are thinking about us? After all who else uses military satellites (although it could be India, a friend of ours)?

Personally I think the only reason we trade with China is because we are addicted to its cheap goods. But judging by the way the lobbying power of the arms industry drives U.S politics, and the rise of a new power, I think it is more than likely we will see a repeat of the cold war (best be on the safe side).


[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]