Argentine Threat Over Falkland Islands Oil Operations

Forgot to mention, is that guy in Spain smarting over the amarda? although from his typing, his English seems just too good to be an Iberian.

reply to post by pikestaff


Quite - a shocking decision by the Government of the time to cancel our own excellent programme then give all the data to the French........

One in a long list of things we could have dominated the world in, but short-sighted politicians cancelled and sold us out.

reply to post by stumason


im sorry i dont know how to quote nicely.. is not my intention to make it more difficult to read, i will try spacing and make some bold in case that helps... again i am sorry

First of all, I am not sure why you think we would even use them - we wouldn't in a war with Argentina and I have stated that quite clearly earlier in the thread.

i never said YOU said you would use them, various other delusional commentators throw this idea every now and then.


"Secondly, the inertial guidance alone is quite good enough to get the missile on target - it's a Nuke, after all and doesn't require to be within a few square meters. As it happens, inertially guided missiles can expect to land within a hundred metres or so of the target."


ah so you have an almost operational control over its targeting ? .. it more or less will land where is targeted ? It can be used as a free fall bomb too

"Why are you gabbling on about Alpha Centauri?"

well its quite bright usually

"Exactly - All Royal Navy Officers are taught basic navigation using tried and tested methods, so a sextant will suffice. Not to mention charts, sonar soundings, visual landmarks if close to shore etc etc... There was sailing before GPS and the Vanguards themselves were designed well before such systems. "

Thats a good one, vanguard nuclear submarine surfaces in south atlantic.. the captain checks the sextant and the coordinates are loaded into the Tridents.. now go find the star.. not Alpha Centauri if u don't fancy it.. Do you know Monty Python are re-united ? this scenario would feet lovely in their show

yeah ok they run on xp not 2000.. ok fine.. according to the then Minister of Defence they were actually seem to be liking the windows 2000 solution but ok maybe now they even use windows 7 enterprise
www.theyworkforyou.com...

"As for the Warheads, they aren't just "stockpiled" in Scotland - they are actually built and maintained about 10 minutes drive from where I am sat in Southern England. And the reasons for the placement of the Base at Faslane and RNAD Coulport,are not irrelevant - they are actually very strategic - again, showing your ignorance"

yeah ok mate you missed the irony in my comment about irrelevance of position... Clyde would have been a prime target back in the day.. it probably still is very high in the list

"50 missiles, each with a minimum of 3 warheads (and some with more) can make a hell of a bad day for someone."

except you own Nazi party that is moaning that even the Pakistanis will have more than the UK in a few years
www.bnp.org.uk...



"And you still have provided no proof that we are beholding to the US for the use of the missiles or our warheads, all you've done is tie yourself up in knots."

the conclusion of the White Paper mentioned before :

“We continue to believe that the costs of developing a nuclear deterrent relying solely on UK sources outweigh the benefits. We do not see a good case for making what would be a substantial additional investment in our nuclear deterrent purely to insure against a, highly unlikely, deep and enduring breakdown in relations with the US. We therefore believe that it makes sense to continue to procure elements of the system from the US.”

what more can be said about the subject ? no yanks no nukes, no ? the highly unlikely deep an enduring breakdown in relations with the US would be an absolute certainty should the UK even dared mentioning anything about nuclear deterrence in the conflict with Argentina.

"The weapons themselves are entirely made and maintained within the UK @ AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield. "

yes and i-phones are built in China... but yes of course its a wrong analogy..

Anyhoo, this is all going way off topic and I am not sure why you are keen to try and push home this non-point (and not very well, either)

My non point is you wouldn't be able to threaten with and obviously use any of the UK nuclear deterrent capabilities in the conflict with Argentina even if you wanted it to...it was not for you originally, it was for the delusional muppet that dared say "one word Tridents"..

alldaylong

laytheovers
reply to post by stumason

 

so your argument is that despite the fact that this particular hardware was designed by US, its maintained by US, its crucially dependent on technologies the US controls exclusively (hello GPS hello...), you, the UK maintain a full control over its use because you control the loading.. hahaha ok mate.. fair enough, makes perfect sense..

just so in case you have a chance to respond in kind in case the command structure was compromised in US in the event of a thermonuclear war... as if your first priority in such an incident would be to retaliate... not to find some hole to crawl into.. ok mate its bollocks.. but dont tell me tell your parliament they are the ones that held this debate if you bothered having a look at the link i quoted.

by the way obviously in every other parliament of a nuclear power they have sat there plenty of times and seriously debated if they can or not control their "own" nuclear weapons.. the Russians, the Chinese, the French, the Indians they all have this debate at least once a month.. NOT !!

I take it that you are aware that the nuclear warheads are designed and manufactured in The UK?

Or does that not fit in with your argument?


en.wikipedia.org...

designed the war heads ?
im sorry the link you quoted says

"To maintain the warheads for the Trident nuclear deterrent safely and reliably in service:
To maintain a capability to design a new weapon, should it ever be required.

how does this affect my argument ?

laytheovers
ah so you have an almost operational control over its targeting ? .. it more or less will land where is targeted ? It can be used as a free fall bomb too

You seem to be totally misunderstanding, being facetious even - if GPS were to suddenly be unavailable, for whatever reason, the missile guidance will not be compromised in any way, shape or form. Using a sextant, or whatever archaic means such as triangulating the stars, to position yourself is actually quite accurate if you are trained - accuracy, if you know what you're doing and take several measurements, can be down to half a mile or less.

Now, if you know your starting point, you can plot a launch trajectory. Consider if GPS is available for the sub and they get their start point down to the cm, then the accuracy of the missile is within 100m of the intended target, using a traditional system to plot yourself and the launch would make the missile accurate to within a half a mile mile, which for a nuke targeting a city is plenty accurate enough. With proper navigation on the Sub, the accuracy, as stated is less than 100m which is pretty much a bullseye for a missile travelling thousands of Km.

laytheovers
well its quite bright usually

As are a great many other celestial bodies.

laytheovers
Thats a good one, vanguard nuclear submarine surfaces in south atlantic.. the captain checks the sextant and the coordinates are loaded into the Tridents.. now go find the star.. not Alpha Centauri if u don't fancy it.. Do you know Monty Python are re-united ? this scenario would feet lovely in their show

In your scenario, where we nuke Argentina, we wouldn't have to be in the South Atlantic to launch. With a range of 12,000km, we could launch one from the Solent, knowing exactly where we are and hit them.

But yes, it isn't out of the question, should all other navigational aids be otherwise unavailable, for the Sub to surface and take star readings or use a sextant. Hence why RN crews are trained to do so. The USN still practices using a sextant and other means to navigate - relying on GPS solely is foolish.

laytheovers
yeah ok mate you missed the irony in my comment about irrelevance of position... Clyde would have been a prime target back in the day.. it probably still is very high in the list

And it would most likely have survived - at least long enough to launch the boats - it is an extremely hardened position with heavily fortified sub pens and easy, quick access to deep water channels of the Scottish West coast. Soviet strategy didn't actually consider a direct nuclear strike on the UK in a first strike anyway - they would have focussed on a blast of the East coast to produce an EMP and knock us out that way.

laytheovers
except you own Nazi party that is moaning that even the Pakistanis will have more than the UK in a few years
www.bnp.org.uk...

Oh dear - using the BNP to make a point! Not a good starting point..... They are total whack jobs and aren't grounded in reality. Personally, I couldn't care less if Pakistan had 10 times as many warheads, they cannot deliver them to anywhere but India, so what threat do they pose when we can strike them from afar and with much bigger warheads with a much better accuracy.

laytheovers
the conclusion of the White Paper mentioned before :

“We continue to believe that the costs of developing a nuclear deterrent relying solely on UK sources outweigh the benefits. We do not see a good case for making what would be a substantial additional investment in our nuclear deterrent purely to insure against a, highly unlikely, deep and enduring breakdown in relations with the US. We therefore believe that it makes sense to continue to procure elements of the system from the US.”

what more can be said about the subject ? no yanks no nukes, no ? the highly unlikely deep an enduring breakdown in relations with the US would be an absolute certainty should the UK even dared mentioning anything about nuclear deterrence in the conflict with Argentina.

Yet again, you're totally confusing the Trident missile with the weapon itself. The conclusion Parliament came up with, in your own post, is that it is almost in the realm of impossibility we should be in a position where the US would refuse to give us our missiles. This also doesn't mention the fact we would always be in possession of some anyway on our boats.

The warheads, however, are ENTIRELY AND WITHOUT QUESTION built, maintained and designed in the UK. If push came to shove and the Yanks decided they didn't want to share, we have the capability to design our own - Parliament just says what is the point in doing so, at great cost, when we have a ready supply from our friends?

laytheovers
"The weapons themselves are entirely made and maintained within the UK @ AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield. "

yes and i-phones are built in China... but yes of course its a wrong analogy..

What the hell? I assume you're implying that the warheads are British designed but American built? That is how the analogy plays out... If that is what you're implying, you are dead wrong.

laytheovers
My non point is you wouldn't be able to threaten with and obviously use any of the UK nuclear deterrent capabilities in the conflict with Argentina even if you wanted it to...it was not for you originally, it was for the delusional muppet that dared say "one word Tridents"..

Yes, we would, if we really wanted to, which we don't.

We always have at least1 Sub out on patrol, with 2 more in "readiness training" each with 16 or so missiles, so even if the Yanks phoned up Mr Cameron tomorrow and said "deals off", we'd still have in our physical possession 48 odd missiles each with a few warheads loaded.

Again, please explain exactly how the Americans could prevent us from using our weapons? Simple answer is, they cannot. All they can do is refuse to provide us with new or service our existing ones.

reply to post by laytheovers


Again, you're taking a small snippet, twisting it and presenting it our of context to try and hammer home a non-point.

AWE designed our current crop of warheads, maintains them and retains the capability to design new ones, such as will be likely required on the Trident successor, should they be required - you knew full well what that quote meant, but deliberately misrepresented it.

Here is a link to AWE themselves, rather than Wiki - take the time to read it and edumacate yourself

reply to post by laytheovers


The point is that the weapons are UK designed and manufactured. This has always been the case from the start in 1946 and is unlikely to change until such time as the UK disarms.

Lets go straight to the source shall we

www.awe.co.uk...

From their own site: "Our work at AWE covers the entire life cycle of nuclear warheads; from initial concept, assessment and design, through to component manufacture and assembly, in-service support, and finally decommissioning and disposal"

The ICBMs that deliver the warheads are US sourced for reasons purely of cost.

The US could withhold spares and logistics support for the delivery systems already in inventory, that is all. They cannot prevent use of weapons already deployed or serviceable in inventory.

Should the US cut support of the missiles we would engineer an alternative.

Lets put this to bed and get back on topic.

Gary29
reply to post by alldaylong

 

Now all we need is a navy.

You have a Navy…the USN. Britain's defacto Navy since forever.

reply to post by howmuch4another


Contrary to some sections of the popular belief, we still have a capable Navy with some of the worlds most advanced ships and subs. Compared to 3/4's of the World, our Navy is huge with only a handful of NATO countries + China and Japan being able to put an equal or superior fleet to sea.

EDIT: Also, up until the end of WW2, the Royal Navy was larger than even the USN.

reply to post by stumason


I completely agree AND….the only way you could have strategically reduced your Navy is because you have a proxy. Together there isn't a Navy that could challenge the combination HMS\USS offers. EVER.
Carry on.

howmuch4another
Carry on.

Don't forget, Keep Calm, then Carry on....

laytheovers

alldaylong

laytheovers
reply to post by stumason

 

so your argument is that despite the fact that this particular hardware was designed by US, its maintained by US, its crucially dependent on technologies the US controls exclusively (hello GPS hello...), you, the UK maintain a full control over its use because you control the loading.. hahaha ok mate.. fair enough, makes perfect sense..

just so in case you have a chance to respond in kind in case the command structure was compromised in US in the event of a thermonuclear war... as if your first priority in such an incident would be to retaliate... not to find some hole to crawl into.. ok mate its bollocks.. but dont tell me tell your parliament they are the ones that held this debate if you bothered having a look at the link i quoted.

by the way obviously in every other parliament of a nuclear power they have sat there plenty of times and seriously debated if they can or not control their "own" nuclear weapons.. the Russians, the Chinese, the French, the Indians they all have this debate at least once a month.. NOT !!

I take it that you are aware that the nuclear warheads are designed and manufactured in The UK?

Or does that not fit in with your argument?


en.wikipedia.org...

designed the war heads ?
im sorry the link you quoted says

"To maintain the warheads for the Trident nuclear deterrent safely and reliably in service:
To maintain a capability to design a new weapon, should it ever be required.

how does this affect my argument ?

Google is your friend:-

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by stumason


i m learning with the quotes.

You seem to be totally misunderstanding, being facetious even - if GPS were to suddenly be unavailable, for whatever reason, the missile guidance will not be compromised in any way, shape or form. Using a sextant, or whatever archaic means such as triangulating the stars, to position yourself is actually quite accurate if you are trained - accuracy, if you know what you're doing and take several measurements, can be down to half a mile or less.

Now, if you know your starting point, you can plot a launch trajectory. Consider if GPS is available for the sub and they get their start point down to the cm, then the accuracy of the missile is within 100m of the intended target, using a traditional system to plot yourself and the launch would make the missile accurate to within a half a mile mile, which for a nuke targeting a city is plenty accurate enough. With proper navigation on the Sub, the accuracy, as stated is less than 100m which is pretty much a bullseye for a missile travelling thousands of Km.

what are you on about mate? you started with "system that maps the stars" and now you are talking about using a sextant to target a nuclear missile.. i was joking for christ sake.. please... at least you understand what triangulation is.. hopefully my point about Trident camera tracking ONE star has not been totally lost.

we could launch one from the Solent, knowing exactly where we are and hit them

so you do appreciate there could possibly be issues of control but then again you think of practical solutions to solve them.. yes as i said before when you were placing all your hopes in the stars you need to know exactly where you are.. so when you said "GPS hehehe" in the previous reply, would you care to retract the hehehe since you just presented the limitations of its lack ?

Oh dear - using the BNP to make a point! Not a good starting point.....

never mind about that, i just wanted to call the Nazis what they are just so i check who im talking too..i have wasted sometime today on the subject, i would not waste 1 more sec talking to a bnp sympathizer

.Yet again, you're totally confusing the Trident missile with the weapon itself. The conclusion Parliament came up with, in your own post, is that it is almost in the realm of impossibility we should be in a position where the US would refuse to give us our missiles

the point is simple.. either you have a weapon SYSTEM or you have a free fall bomb.. you have a SYSTEM upon conditions... this has been displayed

This is from Annex 1 of White Paper of June 2006 already quoted.. it refers to a report in a journal titled
The future of the British bomb Ainslie, John (2005), i have not read this book personally but nevertheless have a look here: the table presents System components and issues pertaining US dependency :

Warhead: The UK warhead is a copy of the US W76 warhead.

Arming, fusing and firing system: This triggers the explosion. The model used in UK warheads was designed by the US Sandia Laboratory and is almost certainly procured from the USA.

High-explosive (HE): This starts the nuclear explosion. The UK uses a different HE to the USA. Key explosives calculations for the US warhead cannot simply be duplicated so US labs assess the UK HE's long-term performance.

Neutron generator: This initiates nuclear fission. The neutron generator used in UK warheads is the MC4380, which is manufactured in the USA and acquired "off the shelf".

Gas reservoir: This supplies tritium to boost the fission process. It is most likely that the reservoir used in UK warheads is manufactured in the USA. UK gas reservoirs are filled with tritium in the USA.

Re-entry body shell: This is the cone-shaped body which contains the warhead. The UK purchases the Mark 4 re-entry body shell from the USA.

The D5 missile: The UK does not own its Trident missiles—they are leased from the USA. UK Trident submarines must regularly visit the US base at King's Bay, Georgia to return their missiles to the US stockpile for maintenance and replace them with others.

Guidance system : The Mark 6 guidance system used on the UK's Trident D5 missiles is designed and made in the USA by Charles Stark Draper Laboratories.

Submarines: UK Vanguard-class Trident submarines are UK-made, but many aspects of the design are copied from US submarines and many components are bought from the USA.

Navigation: The high accuracy of the Trident D5 missile depends on the submarine's position being precisely determined. This is achieved using two systems: GPS, which relies on satellites, and the Electrostatically Supported Giro Navigation System (ESGN), which uses gyroscopes. In both cases UK Trident submarines uses the same US system as the US Navy submarines. The USA has the ability to deny access to GPS at any time, rendering that form of navigation and targeting useless if the UK were to launch without US approval.

Targeting: Target packages are designed and formatting tapes produced on shore, then stored on the submarine—using US software at each stage.

Onshore targeting: The software installed in the computers at the Nuclear Operations and Targeting Centre in London is based on US models and is probably derived from the US Navy's Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Integrated Planning System.

Weather and gravity data: The US Navy supplies local gravitational information and forecasts of weather over targets, both of which are vital to high missile accuracy, to US and UK submarines.

Fire control system (FCS): Used to assign targets to the warheads on the submarines. UK submarines carry a slightly different model to that on US submarines. However, all the hardware and software used by the system is US-produced. The hardware is produced by General Dynamics Defense Systems. The contracts show that the UK uses similar, if not quite identical, software.

Management: British nuclear warheads are designed and made at Aldermaston near Reading. Aldermaston is part managed by the US corporation Lockheed Martin. Repairs to Britian's Trident submarine are carried out at Devonport, which is part managed by another US corporation, Halliburton.

Research and development: There is extensive cooperation between Aldermaston and America's nuclear weapon laboratories—Los Alamos in New Mexico and Sandia and Lawrence Livermore in California.

Testing The W76 warhead was tested at the US nuclear test site in Nevada in the early 1990s. The UK has no test site of its own. The missiles are test launched from British submarines under US supervision at Cape Canaveral off the Florida coast. These tests are analysed by the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at Johns Hopkins University and by the Charles Stark Draper Laboratories.

as i told u before.. they US gave you 50 missiles to parade them and you ve turned it into a big deal

reply to post by justwokeup


what exactly do you want me to see in the Awe website guys ? you all seem to see something incredibly interesting there

ok i went there.. it says
www.awe.co.uk...
The Missiles

The Trident II D5, currently in service, is supplied by the Lockheed Martin Corporation. It is a three stage, solid-fuel missile, 13 metres long, more than two metres in diameter and weighs more than 60 tonnes. Each missile can carry up to 12 nuclear warheads and each Vanguard-class submarine can carry up to 16 missiles.

so what ?

reply to post by laytheovers



Who actually do you think invented the nuclear bomb?

2nd.

reply to post by alldaylong


i did not get what you are saying here, would you like to please explain this ?

laytheovers
reply to post by alldaylong

 

i did not get what you are saying here, would you like to please explain this ?

The question was straight forward and easy to understand.

I will make it easier for you. Which country or countries invented the nuclear bomb?

reply to post by alldaylong


and what does the Julin Bristol has to do with this ?

what is your point.. do you want me to say that Frederick Soddy invented the nuclear bomb or something ?

laytheovers
reply to post by alldaylong

 

and what does the Julin Bristol has to do with this ?

what is your point.. do you want me to say that Frederick Soddy invented the nuclear bomb or something ?

You need a history lesson in development and production of nuclear weapons:-

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...


If you are saying that countries like India, Pakistan and North Korea can design and manufacture nuclear weapons and Britain car'nt then you are either having a laugh or just plain stupid.

we're ending up here in some sort of willy waving contest about nukes and who designed what, The Brits and the USA have been working together for decades so its hardly surprising that certain parts of designs will be common especially if you are going to share a lot of tech

but we all know noone is going to nuke anyone as its a game everyone loses long term so all these subs are doing is playing high stakes games of chicken for the profit of the shareholders of the military tech companies who get billions for making something that'll never get used