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Admiral Lord West Trident demands

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Admiral Lord West Trident demands

Old 23rd Jan 2017, 03:26
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Its a witchhunt driven by people who dont fully understand the challenges of missile testing. The Russians average a 50% fail rate on their Bulava Missile (SLBM) which is at 12 tests failed from 24. The Americans historically design their missiles for a 90% success rate (stats elsewhere) but every single American programme has had as a percentage a far larger failure rate.

Missiles should work, but sometimes they don't. On this occasion it seems like it didnt but thats one of those things. Saying people will think the UK is a laughing stock or doesnt have a credible deterrent only makes sense sense if you apply exactly the same logic to the US, French, Russians who have all had identical problems.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 07:00
  #42 (permalink)  
 
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Indeed!

This whole thing is being sensationalised by "should-know-better" politicians using it for their own anti-Trident agenda. The SNP and CND luvvie, Jeremy Corbyn. They are trying to undermine last year's vote on renewal, simple as.

And there was me thinking that 'test' firings of the delivery system had to be 100% perfect, 100% of the time....!
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 07:06
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Wouldn't a real headline be

Weapon system works 100% of the time
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 07:40
  #44 (permalink)  
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...and, of course, nothing happened while the Lord Admiral was on watch did it. Or perhaps it was because he chose very sensibly, not to comment on the status of our defence capability.

Pot = Kettle

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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 09:07
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Presumably this is T S NUC UK EYES ONLY

- so I don't expect to know.

To address an earlier q on who these are targetted at?

- Well whomsoever fired one at us - that's why it's called a detterent.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 09:12
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Thank you all for your comments in the light of which here's Flight Lieutenant Basil's opinion (Yes, even the lower orders have an opinion even if it may not have the validity of that of a VSO).

With hindsight, the PM should have responded that we do not discuss that sort of thing publicly and that includes Parliament which is a public forum. OTOH, she DID take the opportunity of a good sideswipe at The Leader of the Opposition.

Re the comments by Admiral Lord West:
The Admiral should be ashamed of himself.
The Lord? Well, just another point-scoring pollie.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 09:12
  #47 (permalink)  
 
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For sure we want to know that the issue which sent this missile off course is being fixed, but no system works 100%; some well below 50% The political head of steam being worked up by Labour is naked opportunism. Their own leader has publicly stated he would not press the button even if we were attacked. So if by some calamity they come to power, we don't even have a deterrent at all!
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 09:42
  #48 (permalink)  
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From The Times........

Steve Aitken, a former nuclear submarine commander and member of the Ulster Unionist Party, defended Theresa May, saying that she is under no obligation to speak about sensitive national security matters.

“There is a convention that we don’t talk about the deterrent,” he said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning. “It’s the nature of the security of this nation and I would fully support the prime minister in avoiding these questions.”

He added that the row had turned into “politicking”.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 10:45
  #49 (permalink)  
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It should be noted that it has not been 5 years since a Trident UGM-133 test firing. It has been 5 years since the U.K. performed a test firing as part of the recommissioning of one of our boats after a refit - but the USN also do test firings on a regular basis.

The UK does not own its own missiles, but shares a common pool with the USN held at King's Bay, Georgia and which are rotated on a regular basis. Hence the test firings are valid as a data source whichever boat or service fires them.

The last firing was by the USS Maryland on 31st August 2016 - and it was successful, the 161st successful firing since 1989.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 11:06
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All in all, quite an interesting worked example of what is wrong with our politicians and media. If the pun can be forgiven, "ready, fire, aim".
If a system could be guaranteed to be 100% reliable, there would be no need to test it. For such a critical system, nobody could possibly guarantee 100% reliability, so testing is necessary. Arguably the most valuable tests are the ones where something goes wrong (as long as nobody is injured obviously), as a point of failure can be identified and eliminated.
There was no risk to life or limb here, other than to any passing fish, and there would be no danger posed by a live firing going astray.
For me the biggest disappointment was the Prime Minister's inability to state the bleeding obvious: Love Trident or hate it, the debate doesn't hinge on a single test failure. The failure in question was and is absolutely irrelevant to the debate regarding nuclear deterrence.
Finally, and the point has been made already, it is dumb to trumpet successful tests on you tube etc. This sort of activity should be conducted discretely, which would have created a more accommodating backdrop for occasional failures.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 14:24
  #51 (permalink)  
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It isn't the first time a retired VSO has cast a light on that which should be kept secret. Sadly I guess Parliamentary privilege applies to the upper house too.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 14:39
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I though the story was published first in the Sunday Times -

West just jumped in as rent-a-quote
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 16:28
  #53 (permalink)  
 
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As I said in post #3, West should keep his trap shut. He knows the situation. His actions must call into question the merit of his (considerable) retired VSO pay.

Basil, yes the PM is weak on this sort thing, like most pollies!

OAP
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 18:45
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ORAC, just a minor point; you are spot on about the King's Bay pooled servicing arrangement but our 2D5s are fully bought and paid for, as per the Trident Amendment to the Polaris Sales Agreement. The missiles in the post Upkeep Outload just don't necessarily have the same Serial Nos as those landed pre Upkeep.

My, how we miss Adml Alan as 1SL. I wonder if his documentary security skills have improved since '86?
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 19:20
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Quote for the day: "A unilateralist complaining about Trident is like a eunuch complaining about Viagra."(M Gove Esq).

(...and, yes the UK Labour Party under present leadership is de facto unilateralist since Mr Corbyn (contrary to party policy) has publicly stated he would not use the deterrent even in the face of a nuclear attack.)
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 19:39
  #56 (permalink)  
 
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On a lighter note.

QUOTE: However, the tactic of not answering any question seems to be totally ingrained with all politicians,

Not only politicians, my wife, for example.

Being deaf [I have deafaids] I always always craft questions to SWMBO very carefully so as to elicit either "yes", "no" or "dunno" or "mind your own business".

The answer is never less than the length of The Lords Prayer, and therefore incomprehensible in whole or in part.

This does not make for domestic bliss.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 20:47
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So who are our enemies ? I still don't know

No use saying its a sort of general deterrent because it doesn't deter terrorism . Of the people on my list none of them are enemies at the moment and saying well it can be targeted at some future foe doesnt make much of a case. At the moment the two most likely foes would be the Eu- silly because its on our own doorstep or the USA because they have a megalomaniac president but I suspect we cannot fire them without his say so and he likes the Russians.

As to the anyone who fires a missile at us scenario , no good because its already to late.

So who are the tridents targeted at today - or are they all aimed at Ascension Island like the alleged mis fire. They must be targeted at someone otherwise they could hardly be called operational on one hand and if it isnt targeted at something how do they know it went off course.

As for the national security issue please ....,in todays post truth world everyone knows no comment means yes .

Its a lot of money that we havent got; to defend ourselves from enemies when we do not know who they are or what form they take and the biggest threats to UK security are:-
1 Serious terrorism incident
2 Cyber attack on Infrastructure or financial system
3 Another Wall St inspired financial crisis.

The response to none of these is 'launch nuclear missiles'

Dump the whole shooting match and with the money saved pump £350M a week into the NHS...have I heard that somewhere else tho'?
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 21:40
  #58 (permalink)  
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PB, how much space do you have in your room with that elephant in the corner.

Seriously I guess the only valid target is another State. That it is already too late if someone has fired a missile at us is true, but that is what deterrence is about; retaliation is a secondary aim.
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Old 23rd Jan 2017, 22:55
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Originally Posted by pax britanica
I suspect we cannot fire them without his say so
.

Another popular myth Mr PB. Again part of the Polaris Sales Agreement, as amended, the deterrent is independent. The US has no more say over how we deploy and use our missiles than they do over our TLAMs or Harpoons.
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Old 24th Jan 2017, 04:47
  #60 (permalink)  
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Collating two reports, the Times and CNN, this would seem to indicate the missile itself was performing nominally, it was a failure in the range safety abort system which triggered the self-destruct mechanism.

Times: "The £17 million unarmed D5 missile is believed to have been obliterated in an automatic self-destruct sequence when it went off course after being launched from HMS Vengeance off the coast of Florida. A failure in the data communications system of the US-made weapon system has been blamed."......

CNN: "Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported that the missile veered towards the US coast, but the US official told CNN that this trajectory was part of an automatic self-destruct sequence. The official said the missile diverted into the ocean -- an automatic procedure when missile electronics detect an anomaly."
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