Does the UK need a new nuclear deterrent?
0 voters
Heres a new poll to get you people arguing 
Theres some debate in the UK at the moment about replacing our aging ‘trident’ submarines with a new nuclear deterrent. The cost estimate is £20 billion.
Does the UK need its own nuclear deterrent?
I heard a saying once that applies here
“It would be nice if the government gave schools whatever they wanted, and the military had to hold a cake raffle to buy new weapons”
The cold war is over, I don’t see any need to buy new bombs, £20 billion could go a long way elsewhere, like giving homes to all those newly unemployed foxhounds
Trident are aging? When did that happen?
I must have missed this public debacle.
Wait. Do you have any idea what our present nuclear deterent consists of?
There’s no such thing as a Trident submarine.
Trident is the missle. It’s an American made missile (if it’s good enough for them over-spenders it’s sure going to be good enough for me 8)). It comes with lots of warheads. These missiles are put into subs.
Missile info:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_missile
and more authoratively:
navy.mil/navydata/fact_displ … =1400&ct=2
The UK SSBN (Sub-Surface Balistic Nuclear - it’s what they call nuke launching subs) Are all of Vanguard class.
Frankly I cannot POSSIBLY imagine why they would be discussing replacing these subs as the oldest one is only 13 years old (nothing when it comes to military vessels).
Info about the Vanguard class here:
royal-navy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.2420
We have 4 (that’s right, just four) SSBN’s in this country. I think every other real world power has more nuclear ability than us.
The number $20 bil could only really be in reference to the subs, as I can’t imagine the nukes themselves costing anything like that (the newest missiles are only about $31mil each (exculding warheads)).
I presumed it was just new missiles, maybe it really is new subs, or possibly they are working on a different launch mechanism. who knows? I’m relying on an article in the sunday papers about it.
As far as deterrents go, a single warhead on a single missile is probably a quite good deterrent. You could do a lot of damage to Tehran, Moscow, or for that matter, Paris with a single warhead I reckon.
“Even though the last ship, Vengeance, was commissioned only in 1999, there are practical and political pressures on the UK government to consider whether the system (ship, missile and warhead) should be replaced in about 2024. Obsolescence may arise in all three components, not least because of the computerised electronics which control them, the need for regular (nuclear) re-fuelling, and to update the navigational systems on the missiles. Because of the very long lead-time in development, the UK government has said that it will take the decision whether or not to replace Trident during the life of the current UK Parliament.” - http://www.medact.org/article_wmd.php?articleID=387
I guess that’s why the debate’s going on now. Nice to see a government looking towards the future - that’s getting increasingly rare these days.