...my first job was to do with hiding submarines between hot/cold currents in the ocean for the Royal Navy. The people I worked with were not the sharpest 'kniv

...my first job was to do with hiding submarines between hot/cold currents in the ocean for the Royal Navy. The people I worked with were not the sharpest 'knives in the drawer' (whereas the civilian scientists I worked with on other projects most certainly were). There were only so many bits of the ocean that we looked at, I imagine that given the range of the missiles and the likely targets there are only so many places the one active nuclear armed submarine actually goes. Although I have a passing interest in the UK deterrent that has 'protected me all these years', intellectually I lost interest after learning at an early age that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. (For starters, me being given any involvement with no skills whatsoever was a sign of such flakiness.) I know that GCHQ are mostly about reading people's Facebook posts and emails these days, but, they are the 'government communications headquarters' and, compared to the chumps I got burdened with, they are from the drawer with slightly sharper knives. I have no real idea what they are up to in Ascenscion, however, the guys sent out from Gloucestershire were far too far along the Civil Service road to retirement on final salary pension to be 'catering staff'. However, most of those 'submariners' are doing things like catering, polishing boots and all those things that happen to keep things 'ship shaped'. I am sure the brains are in 'the doughnut' (GCHQ) and not in the tin can doing as it is told somewhere beneath the waves. Although GCHQ people work in a giant doughnut instead of at sea, GCHQ came out of the Royal Navy. It is a vital part of the setup and not this 'email-stalking identity that does ship to shore communications on the side'. Obviously without photographic evidence of a Russian undersea drone the idea that someone could theoretically follow the Royal Navy's solo operational nuclear armed submarine is pure speculation, but, with secretly muttered gossip from Gloucestershire, articles in the mainstream news and my own appreciation of 'how to hide a submarine', I personally feel that the nucular deterrent is not all it is cracked up to be.