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Theresa May 'faith' in Trident after test 'malfunction'

24 points by Alex3917 10y ago

hoodoof 10y ago
"England nukes Florida." That would be one of the most unlikely collection of words ever strung into a single sentence, but hey in this topsy turvy Trumpy world, anything is possible I guess.
- pasquinelli 10y ago
  i disagree, because since "Florida" is one of those words, anything could happen.
  - krapp 10y ago
    "England nukes Florida - United States responds with a collective sigh of relief."
    - hoodoof 10y ago
      Trump declares that England has always been the deepest enemy of the U.S.A, receives instructions from Putin to retaliate. U.S.A. nukes London.
- gumby 10y ago
  If the US retaliated the UK would truly have a "hard Brexit".
sergers 10y ago
Title a bit misleading... And not title of article its linked to. Details are sparse, but they were test firing off the coast of Florida. The missile veered to the mainland instead of the intended target in the water. Malfunction was in flight and raises issues with their system, that's hardly tested.
- mikeash 10y ago
  To elaborate, it's misleading because no nuke was involved. The missile was (of course!) not carrying a nuclear warhead for the test.
Theodores 10y ago
Where this gets interesting is that the British Prime Minister may or may not have known about this before the vote went to parliament to renew/upgrade this white elephant. The funny thing is that the nuclear deterrent of the UK is obsolete for reasons not widely discussed. Nowadays anyone with enough money to bother can make themselves a 'drone submarine' to track the nuclear subs out of Scotland and to wherever they hide in the ocean depths. This is a game changer and the people in GCHQ really are not pleased with this. The other thing about the 'British' nuclear deterrent is that the U.S. holds the keys to the launch buttons, so the UK would not be able to 'nuke Trump' (or take out the Pentagon for the good of the world...). Anyway, keep watching this story and the political ramifications, if the Prime Minister did know that Trident was not working before the vote to waste more money on this 'preparation for war' then that could be a sackable offence...
- gushie 10y ago
  So if some global thermonuclear war started and the US communications were wiped out, the UK would be effectively left defenceless on the nuclear front? Although if it got to that stage, I guess it wouldn't matter much.
- edblarney 10y ago
  " Nowadays anyone with enough money to bother can make themselves a 'drone submarine' to track the nuclear subs out of Scotland and to wherever they hide in the ocean depths." This is not true. If it were, they'd have been made a long time ago and would be commonplace.
- gerdesj 10y ago
  "Nowadays anyone with enough money to bother can make themselves a 'drone submarine' to track the nuclear subs out of Scotland and to wherever they hide in the ocean depths. " Your drone is going to have to quite a piece of kit: * This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lyubov_Orlova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lyubov_Orlova floated around the Atlantic for some time and sort of vanished. A sub goes somewhat faster than a drifting ship and has three dimensions to play with. * It will have to surface to relay the tracked sub's position or deploy buoys or something * It will have to be able to match the tracked sub's endurance There are probably some mitigations for the above but if your drone loses its quarry it is useless. If it is detected then it will be useless and in pieces - it will almost certainly end up in a fishing net or some other plausible accident. I doubt GCHQ are really fussed with your drone given that they are not part of the Royal Navy. I doubt the RN are too bothered with your drones but mitigate for it anyway as part of the broader effort to secure the effectiveness of the subs.
cameldrv 10y ago
There appears to be a recent reliability problem with the Trident. There seem to have been at least two failures in the past 35 launches. Lockheed often issues press releases after successful tests. Up until 2012, with the 135th, all of their press releases talked about the "XXXth consecutive successful launch." Starting in 2012 with the 137th, they all say "the XXXth successful launch." I take this to mean that #136 was unsuccessful. Their latest release talks about the 161st successful launch.
synicalx 10y ago
I wonder what would happen if by some bizarre twist of fate they accidentally nuked Florida? As in, same scenario but someone forgot to take a nuclear warhead off first. Even if it was a demonstrable accident, a stupid number of people would still die. Would America be somewhat obliged to retaliate, even if just to show the rest of the world that they don't have a free pass to pull off an 'accident' of their own? If anyone wants to turn this into a book, I'll buy it!

24 points by Alex3917 10y ago

"England nukes Florida." That would be one of the most unlikely collection of words ever strung into a single sentence, but hey in this topsy turvy Trumpy world, anything is possible I guess.

pasquinelli 10y ago
i disagree, because since "Florida" is one of those words, anything could happen.
- krapp 10y ago
  "England nukes Florida - United States responds with a collective sigh of relief."
  - hoodoof 10y ago
    Trump declares that England has always been the deepest enemy of the U.S.A, receives instructions from Putin to retaliate. U.S.A. nukes London.
gumby 10y ago
If the US retaliated the UK would truly have a "hard Brexit".

sergers 10y ago

Title a bit misleading... And not title of article its linked to. Details are sparse, but they were test firing off the coast of Florida. The missile veered to the mainland instead of the intended target in the water. Malfunction was in flight and raises issues with their system, that's hardly tested.

mikeash 10y ago
To elaborate, it's misleading because no nuke was involved. The missile was (of course!) not carrying a nuclear warhead for the test.

Theodores 10y ago

Where this gets interesting is that the British Prime Minister may or may not have known about this before the vote went to parliament to renew/upgrade this white elephant. The funny thing is that the nuclear deterrent of the UK is obsolete for reasons not widely discussed. Nowadays anyone with enough money to bother can make themselves a 'drone submarine' to track the nuclear subs out of Scotland and to wherever they hide in the ocean depths. This is a game changer and the people in GCHQ really are not pleased with this. The other thing about the 'British' nuclear deterrent is that the U.S. holds the keys to the launch buttons, so the UK would not be able to 'nuke Trump' (or take out the Pentagon for the good of the world...). Anyway, keep watching this story and the political ramifications, if the Prime Minister did know that Trident was not working before the vote to waste more money on this 'preparation for war' then that could be a sackable offence...

gushie 10y ago
So if some global thermonuclear war started and the US communications were wiped out, the UK would be effectively left defenceless on the nuclear front? Although if it got to that stage, I guess it wouldn't matter much.
edblarney 10y ago
" Nowadays anyone with enough money to bother can make themselves a 'drone submarine' to track the nuclear subs out of Scotland and to wherever they hide in the ocean depths." This is not true. If it were, they'd have been made a long time ago and would be commonplace.
gerdesj 10y ago
"Nowadays anyone with enough money to bother can make themselves a 'drone submarine' to track the nuclear subs out of Scotland and to wherever they hide in the ocean depths. " Your drone is going to have to quite a piece of kit: * This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lyubov_Orlova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lyubov_Orlova floated around the Atlantic for some time and sort of vanished. A sub goes somewhat faster than a drifting ship and has three dimensions to play with. * It will have to surface to relay the tracked sub's position or deploy buoys or something * It will have to be able to match the tracked sub's endurance There are probably some mitigations for the above but if your drone loses its quarry it is useless. If it is detected then it will be useless and in pieces - it will almost certainly end up in a fishing net or some other plausible accident. I doubt GCHQ are really fussed with your drone given that they are not part of the Royal Navy. I doubt the RN are too bothered with your drones but mitigate for it anyway as part of the broader effort to secure the effectiveness of the subs.

cameldrv 10y ago

There appears to be a recent reliability problem with the Trident. There seem to have been at least two failures in the past 35 launches. Lockheed often issues press releases after successful tests. Up until 2012, with the 135th, all of their press releases talked about the "XXXth consecutive successful launch." Starting in 2012 with the 137th, they all say "the XXXth successful launch." I take this to mean that #136 was unsuccessful. Their latest release talks about the 161st successful launch.

synicalx 10y ago

I wonder what would happen if by some bizarre twist of fate they accidentally nuked Florida? As in, same scenario but someone forgot to take a nuclear warhead off first. Even if it was a demonstrable accident, a stupid number of people would still die. Would America be somewhat obliged to retaliate, even if just to show the rest of the world that they don't have a free pass to pull off an 'accident' of their own? If anyone wants to turn this into a book, I'll buy it!