Originally Posted by Jimlad
Courtney - if you dig around a little you'll find the HMG paper on this and nuclearising TLAM from a few years ago. The basic research done showed very quickly that going down either the RAF airborne deterrent, or the TLAM on an SSN route was vastly more expensive and wouldnt have the same guarantee of success as the SSBN/ICBM combination. Believe me when I say its been looked at, the sums have been done, and each time Trident emerges as the value for money option no matter how you look at it.
Yep, thank you for all that. If you read my post fully you would see that I carefully stated that I was not getting into the well versed arguments about the whole business of the deterent. I clearly was not advocating the move to aircraft carried deterrent. I never mentioned nuclearising TLAM, I made no mention of success. If I offered any opinion about how aircraft carried deterent might work, I think you will find I mentioned an extant French system - a hypothetical suggestion that occurred to me from reading article. An option that has not been costed.
As I said, even mentioning removing this role from the RN always results in outrage.
To be clear, I expressed opinions on the article posted. My views on the wider UK deterent issue were not expressed.