The verbosity of the post by Modern Elmo either misses the point or is so obtuse that I missed it.

When we got Polaris from the USA it was said that it had to have a white ensign on it but a target country would not be able to distinguish between a 'friendly' US missile or a UK missile. In other words we were firmly wedded to the US trinity.

A similar concern must attach to a conventional BM. Does it have a conventional or nuclear warhead? If it originates from a nuclear power, can you afford to sit back an wait to see whether it is nuclear or conventional?

If it be assumed that detrrence will not work the only other option is to eliminate the nuclear option before it is developed. To use a CBM once the target country has its own nuclear capability is to risk armagedon.

847NAS
 

One serious advantage is that subsurface systems have complacent neighbours: fish don't lobby MPs and Congressmen to dig the silo someplace else.

Land-based missiles make local populations nervous, particularly when East/West tension rises and they start wondering how good their suntan lotion when the payback payload drops in.

Come election time, they vote for the wimpier candidate too.

And in between, military installations make natural lightning rods for demonstrations you can't always keep off the front pages.

Glad Rag
 

I understand that France and the UK jointly developed the Chevaline warhead.

Manuel de Vol
 

China cottoned on a long time ago. Read the books "1421" and "1434" by Gavin Menzies, incidentally ex-captain of a RN Polaris submarine, where he describes the naval expeditions of Adm. Zheng He and lays out the evidence that (1) China made the world's first world map in the early 15th century and (2) its technology transfers in that timeframe triggered the Renaissance. Obviously, this is so mind-blowing that it meets fierce criticism.

On the Chinese ICBM fleet, see Federation of American Scientists. It has a total of about 200 warheads, mostly tactical. Same as France, India, Israel, Pakistan and the UK -- Russia and the USA are the only loonies to have thousands.

Pity they didn't make it a few years earlier and sell a copy to that klutz Columbus.

... But had they done so, the Americans wouldn't be celebrating 'Get Lost' day today.

There might not've been a strong market for maps in the 15th Century, but the Chinese have certainly found a market for clothes, shoes, furniture, electronics, etc. It's getting difficult to find things that are not 'made in China'.

Perhaps see 1421exposed to see what credible historians think of Gavin Menzies fantastic history of the world.

Quote:
Was there not some kind of British/French deterrent interface last year?
I understand that France and the UK jointly developed the Chevaline warhead.

Hmmmm thinking something more intimate than that....:p

That is one argument I have never understood. A single missile, even with a few warheads, won't take out anyone's ability to strike back. Yes, you can certainly afford to wait! Why would anyone adopt a launch on warning strategy against a single inbound missile? :confused:

Several million voters in the cities the warheads are likely to be aiming at may well argue the point ;)

I know it's make no difference, but people tend not to think too logically when warheadds start raining...

They won't be voters in the next election anyway... ;)


Yeah, I know, really bad taste...

going back to the "Trident is crap and the Bomber is as niosy as a Megadeth concert" poster. I have a question. If they are so bloody loud how did they not hear each other prior to impact and take evasive action?

I do not think that trident will be so easy to destroy as is made out.

In fact, I will put my salary on it. (it's a win win, coz if I am wrong we are all going to get a real good tan)

I think we need a more moderately priced solution, multiple strike weapons on a mix of air, surface and sub launched platforms.

Indeed your correct, The British SSBN in it's patrol area couldn't hear the French SSBN in its patrol area, the French SSBN couldn't hear the British one, and the first they knew of thier patrol areas overlapped, was when they collided (thankfully at a very low speed). Rumour has it that a national red top was offering lots of money for good photos of the damage to the British boat. BBC play on the incident here

We don't need and cannot afford a Trident replacement - get a sensible no. of Astutes and let the world know we have the choice of conventional ( much more likely to be used, I hope ) or nuclear tipped Tomahawks.

Get 3 modern CVS style carriers, operating Harrier 2+ with AMRAAM ( and Sea Eagle, if anyone's sprayed them with WD40 or not sold them to India ) - and a decent no. of Type 45 ships and Harrier 2+ ( great deal of commonality with the GR9 bomber, and it can actually provide fleet or other defence with AMRAAM !

The carriers need to be more versatile as in amphibious warfare capable, and as for the chap who suggested we ditch the Marines, there are 2 choices; mad, or hooting mad...

Don't worry, there will be a Trident replacement. If the Government got rid of the nuclear deterent, it would lose its place on the UN Security Council. They would not countinence that, so there will be an update...

CVS Carriers - the modern battleship. Look what happened to the battleships when the balloon went up. :rolleyes:

The bigger the ship, the bigger the target. Remember the Atlantic Conveyor? Eggs and Baskets spring to mind. Meanwhile, you can launch a cruise missile from almost anything, including a lorry, and you can't see them coming until they're almost on top of you.

... The proposed missile ... offering the war fighter an extremely accurate, no-notice prompt global strike capability from an undetectable, highly mobile platform that is on station around the clock.

In November 2007 Aerojet, a GenCorp company, recently conducted a critical static fire test of an innovative, low-cost large booster in support of the U.S. Navy's Submarine Launched Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (SLIRBM) demonstration. ...

With U.S. Navy personnel in attendance, the 12-foot, 32" in diameter, high-performance demonstration motor was tested, and achieved a peak thrust of over 50,000 lbf. Post-test inspection and data will be used to compare component performance and ballistic performance to analytical prediction models. Primary ballistic and structural composite case performance goals were met. Test data will be used to improve design margins in areas where performance fell short of analytical prediction models. Aerojet incorporated several state-of-the-art modeling and analytical tools throughout design, fabrication and testing.

The Aerojet team will use the results from the SLIRBM test to advance rocket motor design options for the Submarine Launched Global Strike Missile (SLGSM) concept.

Submarine Launched Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (SLIRBM) / Submarine Launched Global Strike Missile (SLGSM)

Modern Elmo

I may have asked you this before, I have certainly asked a few times in here. Is it possible that you might like to think about posting links to all this stuff that you find, rather than cutting and pasting pages of stuff that fill up PPRuNe's pages? Thanks.

FJJP: UK's seat on UN Security Council, like France's, USSR's and (Nationalist) China's pre-dates its nuclear status, and derives from the Allies' victory,1945.

ABorges: UK's nuclear weapons competence is wholly derived from licences of US products. Chevaline, TK-100 penetration-aids enhancement of US W68 warhead, was done with no link to France, which persists in wholly-solo nuclear work.

British warheads: Britain’s Next Nuclear Era

The Warheads

The type of warhead deployed on Britain’s D5 missiles will last at least into the 2020, according to the White Paper. But the U.K. government says it doesn’t yet know whether the warhead can be “refurbished” to last longer, or whether it will be necessary to develop a replacement warhead. The next Parliament will have to make that decision, the government says, an option that of course will be harder to reject if a decision has already been made to build the new submarines.

How British are the warheads on the British SSBN fleet? The Ministry of Defence stated in a fact sheet that the warheads on the D5 missiles were “designed and manufactured in the U.K.” Even so, rumors have persisted for years that the warheads are in fact modified U.S. W76 warheads.

Now a U.S. Department of Energy document – declassified after eight years of processing – directly links the warhead designs on U.S. and U.K. Trident missiles. The document shows that the “U.K. Trident System,” as the British warhead modification is called, is similar enough to the U.S. W76 warhead to make up an integral part of the W76 engineering, design and evaluation schedule (see figure below).

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/images/W76req.jpg

Specifically, the document shows that between 1999 and 2001, work on five of 13 “W76 needs” involved the “U.K. Trident System.” These activities included vibration and point shock models, impulse models, impulse and point shock tests, vibration tests, as well as “TSR [thermostructural response] and Blast Models.”

The activities listed in the chronology are contained in a detailed database that “maps the requirements and capabilities for replacement subsystem and component modeling development, test, and production to the specific organizations tasked with meeting these requirements.”

The “U.K. Trident System” is thought to consist of a 100-kiloton thermonuclear warhead encased in a cone-shaped U.S. Mark-4 reentry vehicle. The W76 is the most numerous warhead (approximately 3,200) in the U.S. stockpile. Built between 1978 and 1988, about a third of the W76s are being modified as the W76-1 (see figure below) and equipped with a new fuze with ground-burst capability to “enable the W76 to take advantage of the higher accuracy of the D5″ against harder targets. Delivery of the first W76-1 is scheduled for 2007 and the last in 2012. The W76 is also the first warhead scheduled to be modified under the proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead program.

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/images/W76-1.jpg

I'm afraid you've been hooked by one of the biggest urban myths out there.

The UK is not just a member of the UN Security Council but a permanent member of said security council, and the permanent members set themselves up quite a little cartel when it was formed.

In order for a permanent member of the UN Security Council to be voted off all current members must agree to it in a vote. As the UK has the power of veto any vote taken would fail unless the UK voted itself off. The words 'turkey', 'voting' and 'Christmas' might be apt here.

Ownership of nuclear weapons is not what gained the UK its place as a permanent member, rather its place was gained by being one of the 5 major allied powers at the end of the second world war. The fact all the permanent members have nuclear weapons is a 'happy' coincidence that came about by being the major nations involved in the Cold War.

It really depends on which end of the ball court you are.

This presupposes an element of rationality by both, or all, players.

In the US they had a system called NUDETS. Any strike in the Continental US would be detected an a lamp would illuminate, and I guess a klaxon sound, in the SAC Bunker. What happened next would have been carefully scripted and pre-planned.

Now, suppose as a result of a bit of WMD activity on some of our property our leader decided that a CBM delivered some 30 minutes later to their MOD would serve as a suitable chastisement and warning. The enemy might assume it to be, a dud, then on the principle of use it or lose it they may launch a nuclear counter-strike.

There have been many instances of power play where in cold analysis afterwards the play was irrational.

Ballistic missiles are hard-wired in our psychic as deliverers of doom and gloom. If the enemy has the means then you cannot assume a rational "let's sit and wait." Look at the tensions in Israel when they did just that; it took lots of cajuns and lots of persuasion when Scuds started to drop in.

But let's not forget that we have gormless Gordon in charge, and he would probably consider it if he can save £20, so that he can give an extra £3,000,000 to impoverished 3rd world countries:rolleyes:

Manuel,
 

Columbus sailed to Hispaniola (DR+Haiti today) in 1492; the maps date from 1421 onward.

It is indeed argued that he used copies of Chinese maps.

What I don't grasp is how, if he had such a map, he mistook the American continent for India.

An alternate explanation that comes to mind is that he sooner trusted the Norsemen's Vinland map, which has now been confirmed as authentic.

On Columbus himself, he was not a nice man.

Carnage Matey
 

It's only fair the author's own website: 1434 Gavin Menzies | 1421 | Chinese Voyages | Renaissance history |medieval history | maritime exploration |Chinese Exploration | Admiral Zheng He | Chinese Junks

Wikipedia trashes him lavishly for not speaking Chinese, ramming a US minesweeper when in command of HMS Rorqual and lying about the routes he sailed.

Somehow this helps prove that Admiral Zheng He's fleets did not circumnavigate the globe, I guess.

Although you can dig it up under "Discussion", the Wiki frontyard entry also omits that he served on HMS Resolution, a Polaris submarine. Um my guess is that the RN screens for reckless liars when assigning folks to duties involving nuclear weapons, so I'd say he was sane. Or at least he didn't let politicians do a whale jump with his submarine and sink a Japanese trawler over half a century after the end of World War II!

I see three reasons that "professional" or "credible" historians come down hard on Menzies (1) He lays down the evidence like a story teller rather than an academic versed in the norms of academic literature (2) His evidence requires a complete rethink of world history, viz Zheng He pioneered most of the world's trading ports and distributed world maps, followed by a period of Chinese isolationism, which allowed Britain, Portugal and Spain to expand as rapidly as they did, and (3) Christianity loses lots of points because Christopher Columbus was on God's mission and the Renaissance has been sold as a very Christian achievement.

By the way, some nitpicker researched the names of Columbus' three vessels Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. There was indeed a Nina and a Pinta but the closest match to any Santa Maria was the Maria Galante.

All three names would inspire any sex-starved sailor: La Maria Galante = The Gallant Maria in the sense of a lady who obliges anyone's every wish; La Pinta = The Painted (Woman) in the sense of a sidewalk sex worker; and La Nina = The Cute Little (Woman). Addiion of "woman" is justified by "La", which is the feminine pronoun.

The shift from Maria Galante to Santa Maria traces back to Columbus' spin doctoring.

1. The Micronesians were using coconut sextants circa 2000 BC. - By the time Colombus set sail, it was well known that 1 minute of arc subtended 1 nautical mile on the surface of the earth.

2. Columbus believed the earth was round. 360 degrees in a circle and at 1 nm per minute of arc if the earth was indeed round, its circumference was approximately 21,600 nautical miles. - Simple sums.

3. He knew where he was starting from. He knew how far it was (on an easterly route) to 'the Indies'. Had he subtracted that distance from 21,600 it would have given him a rough idea of how far he would have to sail to reach the same point on a westerly heading.

4. He knew the average speed of his ships and he should have known how many nautical miles he could expect to cover in a day.

5. He knew how many days he had been at sea when he arrived at the 'West Indies'.

Brave man? - Certainly.
Intrepid explorer? - Certainly.
Navigator? - Hardly. He made the biggest DR error in history.

As for 'discovering' America, well it already had people when he got there, so he could hardly claim to have discovered it.

If you sail west from Europe (and if you don't sink) then eventually your ship will stop sailing - You will run out of sea. He didn't 'discover' America, he ran into it.

He named the land he 'discovered' after his sponsor. Fortunately for the inhabitants of that continent, Columbus appears to have been an informal sort of bloke and he named it after that sponsor's first name.

Otherwise, they would be Vespuccians.

The American Federal holiday named after him is 'Get lost' day.

Remind me, what is this thread about?

Or, why, when we had atomic bombs did we have a nuclear deterrent? Another case of the USA using a different English word from the one we use ourselves?

Viz - Bonnet = Hood and Boot = Trunk.

Nuclear weapons (deterrent) = Atomic (fission) bombs + Hydrogen (fusion) bombs.

Or as Caspar Weinberger was wont to say: "New, cooler weapons."

What, they need the better thermal properties of CS95?
Or they hang around the beach with long hair talking about the tube and it being super gnarly rad?

So what is the fission-fusion-fission weapon in Spam-speak?

Surely they just invented the word 'nuclear' so that the world could laugh at that ******** GeeDubya's inability to pronounce the word?


EDIT: The net-nanny didn't like 'd ick h ead', hence the asterisks...:rolleyes:

Are you talking about what you would expect someone to do, or what one should be doing? In this case, I think one can act rationally no matter what one thinks the opponent would do.

But you can! If it turned out to be a nuke, you act accordingly. If it turned out not to be a nuke, you act accordingly. Nothing you can do at that stage would affect what the missile would do to your territory. Whatever it does, a single missile would not materially affect your war fighting ability, so no action has to be taken before impact.

Consequently, you can be rational, even if your opponent is not, if the scenario is a single incoming missile (or even a couple missiles). You can go to whatever your national equivalent of Defcon 2 is, you can start generating if you have a bomber force, you can start dispersing whatever should be dispersed, you can do whatever it is you need to do given what particular nation you are running, but you don't need to launch until after impact.

I think it's far too simplistic to assume everyone would automatically go dumb as soon as nukes are involved. Yes, things were scripted, but there were several scripts to choose from, and all had a play button that had to be pushed manually. Nothing was automatic, right?

What one would not do, however, is to launch a single conventional missile against a nuclear armed opponent with an early warning capability, because then you would have to assume your opponent was doing what you would consider rational. But maybe that was what you meant all along...

Modern Elmo - Mathias Rust
 

Rust was intercepted and tracked during his flight within Soviet airspace.

YouTube - Mathias Rust INTERVIEW May 28, 2007

The Notorious Flight of Mathias Rust | History of Flight | Air & Space Magazine

TJ

Whatever it does, a single missile would not materially affect your war fighting ability, so no action has to be taken before impact.

Consequently, you can be rational, even if your opponent is not, if the scenario is a single incoming missile (or even a couple missiles).

Great, so if that single missile track is closing on the city where your family lives, there's no need for panic. Just stay cool and rational. It's easy.

( Replying to another line of thought: )

What one would not do, however, is to launch a single conventional missile against a nuclear armed opponent with an early warning capability ...

Why do you keep saying single missile? The plausible and realistic scenario is a pre-emptive, spoiling attack using dozens of very accurate ballistic missiles with nonnookleer payloads against Foe XZY, which has a limited number of nuklur installations and IRBM or ICBM launch sites -- say, North Korea or Pakistan or Iran.

They have an early warning capability? How much reaction time will submarine-launched IRBM's allow?

Maybe some of Foe XYZ's fission or fusion weapons carrying systems survive the surprise attack. A quick situational assessment says no nookloor weapons were used.

But the attacking side is known to have newkalur weapons, nukes which are presumably ready to launch on short notice. Furthermore, the attacking side also has active ballistic missile defenses!

So, what's Foe XYZ's decision: counterattack with nukes -- or is XYZ deterred from doing so?

ME, wrong abacus.

We are discussing, you may have missed the point, nookleer deterrence by UK. We have just 5 dozen launch tubes in total. We may not even have 5 dozen missiles of any flavour. We certainly don't have the capacity to launch even one boat load of CBM and then retain a nuclear capability. Certainly that deterrent would disappear in a flash if any CBM failed to work.

Quite.

I was not suggesting that a rational or irrational opponent would send a single missile against us, but that we might be tempted to send a single missile against them. I was going to mention the BMEW case but then considered that the unannounced arrival of a supersonic conventional penetrator might be confused not with an exploding gas main but with a dud nuke.

On irrational foe might then react on the use it or lose it principle. The say of course applies if fleets of stealth bombers start to pick off his missiles one by one.

The rational-irrational argument is very similar to the assymetric warfare issues too.

Wader
 

So this is about getting stuck thinking inside the same box?

Sorry, but I have a hard time believing in the irrational madman with a leer on his face every time he fingers a bright red button. This is a myth.

What I also find interesting is the ideological inconsistency in US thinking: on the one hand there is mythical faith in the privately-owned firearm as the Great Equalizer (81 or 90 such firearms per 100 inhabitants there) and total opposition in the Great Equalizing powers that come with having your own set of nuclear weapons. After all, why shouldn't "little guy" countries be as equal as "little guy" Americans?

After all, why shouldn't "little guy" countries be as equal as "little guy" Americans?

If they're enemies of Christian, patriotic America, they deserve no equality.