Originally Posted by
Lomon
What we don't know is how many test article missiles have been launched successfully or not by the USN in that time?
Just because we have had two failures in 8 years the USN could have launched 10, 20 or even more with a 100% success rate. The weapons all come from a shared pool so it really could be just bad luck that we got two faulty units.
The U.S. rate of test successes (or failures) is not directly extensible to the UK. A Trident missile test is the ultimate end-to-end test (minus the “boom”) that depends on the entire system, not just the missile. While the U.S. and UK systems overlap almost entirely in hardware and software, there are also the system components of maintenance and operation where the U.S. and UK systems largely diverge. Any of these components can contribute to a missile test failure.
As to the quip in post #34 (it’s not our problem…), what a wonderful attitude from a partner in a 60-year program critical to UK strategic security. But the reality is that the U.S. likely will recover the dud missile simply because the U.S. can and the UK can not.