Wow we must have wanted that treaty really bad. We sell out the Brits.

[nyker96]

Shameful. We have no honor anymore.

well honor has can be bought you know.

 

[Infohawk]

This supposed oldest and best ally mutilated the testicles of our president's grandfather.

Aren't you always whining about how Americans shouldn't be connected to Europe because of family ties? But you seem to like the idea of Obama rejecting the UK because of what happened to his grandfather. Once again you are totally inconsistent.

 

[Darwin333]

I'm not 100% certain on what you're trying to say here, but the logic appears to be pretty much flat out wrong as given.

At this point Russia and China pretty much are the only primary deterrent targets. Given the range of the Trident IIs missiles from typical submarine patrol patterns, both countries can actually be hit from the Atlantic Ocean. Against say North Korea, a potential delay as the sub repositions itself if the UK is handling nuclear retaliation itself is even less relevant. (Its not like North Korea can successfully intercept the sub.)

In general, the difficulty of stopping a SSBN before launch means even if the SSBN has to significantly move its position to hit Russia or China, that really doesn't alter the end result if the targets are cities and the like in retaliation. This means that all the British SSBNs serve as potential deterrents against any nuclear armed country.

At most in a somewhat exchange (i.e. the UK is not yet completely destroyed) where there are still concerns about another country getting involved and a deterrent is needed, one SLBM left unfired on a sub can be quite effective. In fact, even if all missiles are fired off, you could use the "Dirty Harry", approach and almost certainly successfully bluff that the SSBN had at least one missile left.

Keep in mind in the practical big strategic picture, even if China or Russia survives a full blown nuclear exchange just with the UK partially intact, that still leaves other countries like the US fully intact and not directly damaged which makes them still very clear strategic losers overall.

I was really just thinking out loud I guess, I have no friggen clue how submarines operate or their tactics. I just thought that 2, or 3 at most, boats was a rather small number for it to be the entirety of your countries nuclear deterrent. I do understand what a single boat can do but I am also pretty sure that those boats are completely silent/invisible/stealthy and it is possible (maybe not probably but possible) for them to be found and destroyed.

I am enjoying the discussion but in the scheme of things it is rather irrelevant. The UK could lose all 4 subs at once and the United States will provide its nuclear deterrent (I hope). I always assumed that the UK at least had a few land based missile silos as part of their deterrent.

 

[Darwin333]

The OP is about Trident Missiles which are Submarine Based Ballistic Missiles. The number of missiles does NOT tell the Russians how many Warheads. In my previous post each Missile can have a variety of warheads of up to 8. For maximum 8 warheads X 16 missiles X 4 Trident Subs = 512 possible warheads at sea. These are commonly known numbers, the serial numbers mean nothing.

From the sound of things the Brits disagree and the Ruskies obviously think the intel holds some sort of value. Even if it means nothing, if your best ally asks you not to reveal what color they painted the tail fins on their nuclear deterrent, imo, you shouldn't even consider not complying with their request. That goes 100 fold if it is useless information, as you suggest.