Thanks to all for taking the time to engage with it, esp. ShotOne reading late last night. And yes, the LDs official position is risible, though Nick Harvey appears to have modified it in his speech in the Trident debate on 20 Jan.
RP noted
The problem with that 'stand out point', is that money not spent on maintaining a SSBN fleet is highly unlikely to then be considered as 'money now available' for lots of other nice new defence equipment!
This is why we present it as a force package, and make very clear on pages 72 - 73 that the savings have to stay in the MoD budget. We should be holding the Treasury's feet to the fire.
Leon Jabachjabicz said,
You haven't thought of the option of nuke-tipped TLAM from Astute Class. I think this would further disperse our nuclear forces if needed. They already carry TLAM and so this would be a no-brainer for me. You would now have free-fall and submarine based deterrence.
TLAM-N is being retired for the reasons Prof Jeffrey Lewis
sets out on his blog. The other problem is one of nuclear signalling that we don't currently have as all UK CMs are conventional.
FA18
F-35s with nukes can be shot down, assuming they even get off the ground. TLAMs can also be shot down. Tridents with MIRVs can't.
There is no better deterrence than a boomer.
Quite true, but the issue here is of minimum deterrence versus the gold standard, and crucially, of the opportunity cost of SSBNs. Trident will consume 25 - 33% of the equipment budget from 2018-32, denuding the conventional forces. This is why a dual capable model we propose provides a credible minimum nuclear force - but at the same time substantially improves the UK's conventional capability.
rh200
the ability to bring fire from the heavens is the only sure fire way of defending your freedom.
Against what threat, rh200? Trident can't deter ISIL, stop Russia going into Crimea or sort out the Taliban.
Not_a_boffin
Apparently a single RAF squadron is going to be able to hold sufficient targets at risk by delivering 30 weapons. At 2 buckets per Dave, that means a 15 ship successful penetration, so if you factor in attrition from a half decent Russian IADS, that's a lot of cabs launched - and more to the point, a lot of tankers we ain't got. Doesn't smell like a single RAF squadron to me - or a second RN squadron for that matter. Particularly not if launching from UK and proceeding at a sedate 450kts or thereabouts. 3-4 hour run to get to St Petersburg?
The plan is for all RAF and FAA F-35C squadrons to be dual capable. The paper provides nuclear IOC based on one squadron but it would be rolled out across the F-35C fleet.
All of it rests on this rather ethereal idea that the Moscow criterion is no longer valid. Given that nice Mr Putin seems to be a bit short on manners atm, I'd personally want him to be sure we'd be able to entomb him if we had to, rather than just incinerate several million Russian civpop.
Is Putin madder than Brezhnev or his pre-Gorby successors? I doubt it. And that is why we've used the declassified 1978 Duff Group minimum deterrence criteria, which were reaffirmed in 1982 as Duff Mason. The Moscow Criterion has been dead in UK policy circles since 1978, though no one mentioned it until the files were released under the 30 year rule.
There's a limited amount of dispersal options which would be known to opfor. It doesn't take a genius to go after a large part of that subset (by a number of means) which immediately reduces your oppos defensive problem. They're almost inviting an attack on the UK, something you don't really get with CASD.
So we are in a position with 18 ORPs hosting 4 x F-35C each on QRA, with one or both carriers out and about. What are you going to attack them with that is a bolt from the blue that will destroy them all? Oh, and make the US rescind it's NATO Art V guarantee? Nothing credible springs to mind, N-a-B.
Thanks again,
TTr