Trident

smudgedj said:
Erm yes. In fact there is a lad who posts on here who is a crew member on one of the subs.
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I don't know who that is but my stepsons best mate is on one as we speak, I think. He's been based in Faslane for a few years now,
and is a weapons technician, and just to terrify any and all bigots, he is a muslim of Pakistani descent.
Not to worry though, my lad and his mates regularly taunt him that his after piss-up pizza was laced with pepperoni before he crammed it
into his glassy eyed face, which means another virgin telling him to swivel when he finally shakes hands with Allah.
Lovely lad, we went to his wedding in Troon, he married a Jock girl and the celebrations were unbelievable, funded by a very wealthy and happy as fuck
father of the bride,who screamed ME!! when the vicar asked 'Who gives this woman to this man?'
 
BobKowalski said:
we lease the missiles from America and they would never be used without American approval
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Are you suggesting the Americans have some kind of technical control over them? If so, I don't believe that for one second. First of all, the UK wouldn't be so incredibly stupid (even by our own standards) to spend such a huge amount of money on an independent deterent, only to find it's not independent at all. Second, the worries over cyber-threats and these devices being hacked and launched maliciously is so great that I am certain we have every single line of source code and GCHQ have scrutinized it to the nth degree.

Of course if you simply mean it's unlikely we would strike without the US' agreement, then yes probably that is unlikely. But it is not impossible. The US were dead set against our taking back the Falklands by force, you may recall, but we did it anyway. Further, I think it's hard to imagine a nightmare scenario where our weapons are being used as a last resort with the UK in the gravest of danger. But in such an extreme scenario and with us contemplating killing hundreds of thousands of people, I don't think "not upsetting the Americans" would be high up in our thinking.
 
The Patriot Missile had a bug that cost many lives A rounding error on a time calculation causing it to miss a scud missile by a good half mile.
Every line of code IS reviewed, but there are bugs - always.

If we were under considerable attack (and I would assume a single nuke would be deemed considerable) I don't think there'd be a lot of time to start asking for American permission.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Are you suggesting the Americans have some kind of technical control over them? If so, I don't believe that for one second. First of all, the UK wouldn't be so incredibly stupid (even by our own standards) to spend such a huge amount of money on an independent deterent, only to find it's not independent at all. Second, the worries over cyber-threats and these devices being hacked and launched maliciously is so great that I am certain we have every single line of source code and GCHQ have scrutinized it to the nth degree.

Of course if you simply mean it's unlikely we would strike without the US' agreement, then yes probably that is unlikely. But it is not impossible. The US were dead set against our taking back the Falklands by force, you may recall, but we did it anyway. Further, I think it's hard to imagine a nightmare scenario where our weapons are being used as a last resort with the UK in the gravest of danger. But in such a scenario, I don't think "not upsetting the Americans" would be high up in our thinking.
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Technical control no. Political control yes. A scenario where we use Trident without American consent is a scenario where two thirds of the planet is already a smoldering cinder.

In my view we do not have an independent deterrent. We have a leased deterrent dependent on the grace and favour of the US. And we pay a bleeding fortune for it. And it's a 20th century solution to 21st century problems. But it does allow us to pretend we hunt with the top dogs. And that is important to people who decide these things.
 
If Trident was used, the most likely scenario is it would come down the submarine commander at the time.
There are specific instructions locked away in each sub on what the course of action is to be - as the chances are, London wouldn't actually exist anymore, and there's no telling what state comms would be in. Quite how the commander is determine that London is no more - I don't know.

There are some underwater communications plus the more obvious radio / sat, and maybe some other technologies, but logically, in order for the sub to know that London is gone, it must either a) be specifically told so, or b) assume so due to a lack of communication. How long the commander would wait after communications failed, I don't know, and how he'd know which nation attacked us, I don't know (unless he's getting downlink information from some tracking satellite.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Are you suggesting the Americans have some kind of technical control over them? If so, I don't believe that for one second. First of all, the UK wouldn't be so incredibly stupid (even by our own standards) to spend such a huge amount of money on an independent deterent, only to find it's not independent at all. Second, the worries over cyber-threats and these devices being hacked and launched maliciously is so great that I am certain we have every single line of source code and GCHQ have scrutinized it to the nth degree.

Of course if you simply mean it's unlikely we would strike without the US' agreement, then yes probably that is unlikely. But it is not impossible. The US were dead set against our taking back the Falklands by force, you may recall, but we did it anyway. Further, I think it's hard to imagine a nightmare scenario where our weapons are being used as a last resort with the UK in the gravest of danger. But in such an extreme scenario and with us contemplating killing hundreds of thousands of people, I don't think "not upsetting the Americans" would be high up in our thinking.
Click to expand...

Actually, they weren't. They presented an air of studied neutrality, as on the one hand they had their closest ally (who coincidentally is also their oldest enemy) and on the other they had the organisation of american states and they did not want to offend either.

Behind the scenes, the US did as much as it could to help within those parameters. We took as much US fuel as we could from Wideawake Airport on Ascension island. They provided us with Sidewinder missiles for the Sea Harriers which were invaluable. They provided us with such intelligence as they had and much more besides.

It was largely as a result of this that Thatcher allowed (amongst other things) the USAF to take off from USAF airbases within the UK to launch strikes at Gadaffi's Libya in 1986.
 
Since we've not fired a nuclear weapon in over 70 years, does anybody know which drawer we put the keys in?
I've found sellotape and an old Rubik's cube so far...
 
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