UK goes nuclear weapon free

[Alberon]

Though not by choice.

The test firing of a Trident missile from a Royal Navy submarine has failed, for the second time in a row.

The latest test was from HMS Vanguard off the east coast of the US and was witnessed by the defence secretary.

The missile's booster rockets failed and it landed in the sea close to the launch site.

British tests of Trident missiles are rare, not least because of the costs. The price tag of each missile is around £17m and the last test was in 2016 when it also ended in failure when the missile veered off course.

Both the Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and the head of the Navy were on board HMS Vanguard, which has just had a more than seven year refit, when it fired the unarmed test missile in January.

I bet that was a fun ride back to base after.

A defence source close to the Mr Shapps insisted the Trident "could absolutely fire in a real world situation" if it needed to.

"The issue that occurred during the test was specific to the event and would not have occurred during a live armed fire," the source said.

That sounds like so much bullshit, to be honest.

So the UK is, probably, not currently a nuclear armed country. Not being able to launch such weapons is a good thing, obviously, but it's just another sign of just how absolutely fucked the armed forces, and indeed the country, is.

[katzenjammer]

Aren't they American missiles?

[Alberon]

True, though I don't know if there is any adaption for our submarines. Why can't we seem to launch them?

[idunnosomename]

Imagine if we were supposed to be shooting one at Godzilla. We'd look like right puddings

[The F Bomb]

They should fire them from a plane rather than from underwater. The speed and angle is bound to be affected by the water. I understand it's probably harder to see a submarine than a plane from the ground but if I was firing £17m of arsenal at some hospital or block of flats, I'd want to make sure it did the trick.

[Shaxberd]

Strikes me that the smart thing to do would be to make a big song and dance about upgrading/replacing them but actually just make a bunch of fakes, metal tubes with nothing but ballast in. Then once a decade do a big test with a real one just to give off the impression that we definitely still have nukes.

After all, if we ever really needed to use them not many people would be left to criticise, and it's the show that matters.

[Alberon]

Maybe we should start posting our warheads to the targets. Would have a better chance of getting there even if we used Evri.

[thenoise]

Good job we've got nothing better to spend the money on.

[gabrielconroy]

I demand we nuke something RIGHT NOW!!

[thenoise]

After all, if we ever really needed to use them not many people would be left to criticise, and it's the show that matters.

Ha! If we try and fire a nuke at Russia or Iran or whatever and just end up pissing on our own shoes, do you think they would still retaliate? Or just let us off and point and laugh?

Great Shitstain really is the worst country ever.

[Registering to lurk]

They should fire them from a plane rather than from underwater. The speed and angle is bound to be affected by the water. I understand it's probably harder to see a submarine than a plane from the ground but if I was firing £17m of arsenal at some hospital or block of flats, I'd want to make sure it did the trick.

I agree. You can't set off fireworks underwater and a missile is just a big firework. It's never going to launch. It's just science.

The Royal Navy needs to get with the times, ditch boats and invest in planes.

[shiftwork2]

Strikes me that the smart thing to do would be to make a big song and dance about upgrading/replacing them but actually just make a bunch of fakes, metal tubes with nothing but ballast in. Then once a decade do a big test with a real one just to give off the impression that we definitely still have nukes.

After all, if we ever really needed to use them not many people would be left to criticise, and it's the show that matters.

You're assuming that hasn't been happening since Polaris was scrapped.

[Norton Canes]

What they need is a long, telescopic tube that extends from the sub all the way to the surface, that they can fire the missile through.

[Norton Canes]

Or a bottle of Coke and some Mentos

[Blumf]

So the deterrent is now to make the enemy country feel too embarrassed for us to actually attack. "Oooh, that's just sad, we should leave them to it."

[madhair60]

no nukes! no bloody nukes - end of

[Sebastian Cobb]

So the deterrent is now to make the enemy country feel too embarrassed for us to actually attack. "Oooh, that's just sad, we should leave them to it."

We're like one of those pensioners in a pub who used to be nails and acts like they still are but the only thing stopping them being leathered is everyone knows a sharp prod would turn them to dust.

[Bum Flaps]

Trididn't ?

I reckon Shapps pressed the button too early - before they'd had a chance to remove the plastic cover from the blue touchpaper

[Huxleys Babkins]

no nukes! no bloody nukes - end of

Can we at least keep a little one?

[buzby]

True, though I don't know if there is any adaption for our submarines. Why can't we seem to launch them?

The RN's Trident II D5LE missle fuselages are allocated from a common pool with the US Navy's Atlantic SSBN fleet. Only the ownership of the warheads fitted to them differs. The RN Trident submarines were designed to have identical silos and launch facilites to the equivalent USN SSBNs to make the common pool supply contract possible.

The test was to qualify the submarine's launch systems, which worked as specified (as soon as the missle leaves the tube, the submarine's job is done). In that case, I don't think the failure is an RN issue - the missles are built at the Lockheed Martin facility in Sunnydale, California and maintained at their facility at the US Navy base in Kings Bay, Georgia. The missiles used for 'submarine qualification'  test firings do not come out of the common pool, they are modified by LM to include additional telemetry and instrumentation systems.

The ignition of the booster after the missile breaks the surface is part of the internal sequencing system of the missile. I've seen it reported that it's suspected the telemetry datalink failed to connect once it's surfaced, and the failsafe action in the missile in that event is to not ignite the booster, otherwise there would be no way to destroy it downrange if required.

The previous failed test in 2017 was a failure in guidance/navigation system (which again was linked to the telemetry system) which led to the decision to destroy the missile in flight. There were 4 previous successful test launches in 2000, 2005, 2009 and 2012. Between the USN and RN test launches, there has been a failure rate of about 6% (this was the 192nd launch in total), so it seems the RN is just unlucky having 2 failed launches in a row.

[Hank_Kingsley]

It's great, in a nuclear showdown we'd puff up like an angry cat and pretend our missiles worked and we'd really use them and we were dead serious. Then our enemies would simply activate their sleeper agents (Lozza Fox, Farage) to detonate their nuclear suitcase devices and wipe us off the map without even triggering a radar or anything.

[madhair60]

Can we at least keep a little one?

ok. we can have one small nuke.

[Sebastian Cobb]

As a side note I was thinking the other day how grim being on one of the subs was. There's the obvious isolation, no daylight, chance of cabin fever. But I was thinking how just being there must play on you. In the ideal and most likely scenario you're a deterrent that won't be fired so your existence and ceremony is pointless. If it goes badly you could be one of the few cunts still alive stuck in a can while the outside is completely fucked, at which point you might as well just ground the sub, it's probably preferable to trying to survive.

[shiftwork2]

The Trident subs operate with those famous Letters of Last Resort in the event of total loss of command and control structures.  The United Kingdom is presumed to no longer exist when they can't get Jamie Theakston's Breakfast Show on Heart FM.

[Blumf]

As a side note I was thinking the other day how grim being on one of the subs was. There's the obvious isolation, no daylight, chance of cabin fever. But I was thinking how just being there must play on you.

The adverts suggest you get to play a bit of footy on (what's left of) the Arctic ice sheet. Looks like a laugh, so please sign up, young people with no prospects, stuck in dead end towns.

[Shaxberd]

As a side note I was thinking the other day how grim being on one of the subs was. There's the obvious isolation, no daylight, chance of cabin fever. But I was thinking how just being there must play on you. In the ideal and most likely scenario you're a deterrent that won't be fired so your existence and ceremony is pointless. If it goes badly you could be one of the few cunts still alive stuck in a can while the outside is completely fucked, at which point you might as well just ground the sub, it's probably preferable to trying to survive.

Submarine crews have to go through psychological screening for exactly that sort of reason, if you're at all prone to ennui you'll have a terrible time. Plus nobody wants to be stuck in a tin can deep under the ocean with someone who gets cabin fever and starts biting people's ears off a few months into the mission, or starts saying things to people like "eh, remember what happened to those blokes on the Kursk". I'm surprised there haven't been many horror films set on subs.

I imagine they get through with a lot of guff about 'duty', and a rigorous rota for when it's your turn to go have a wank.

[WhoMe]

You have to remember that these tests aren't at all to see how the missiles would perform in a real world scenario, it's to, er, do something else. It's very secret go away.

[jamiefairlie]

......for an hour!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Submarine crews have to go through psychological screening for exactly that sort of reason, if you're at all prone to ennui you'll have a terrible time. Plus nobody wants to be stuck in a tin can deep under the ocean with someone who gets cabin fever and starts biting people's ears off a few months into the mission, or starts saying things to people like "eh, remember what happened to those blokes on the Kursk". I'm surprised there haven't been many horror films set on subs.

I imagine they get through with a lot of guff about 'duty', and a rigorous rota for when it's your turn to go have a wank.

Ah yeah I assumed there would be a lot of screening to make sure nobody goes tonto, but even still it must gnaw away at anyone who isn't brainwashed or a robot.

[Mr Vegetables]

I guess this is strategic ambiguity in a very stupid way