Retired army generals: Spend Trident money on the army Three long-retired British army generals have written to the Times, expressing their opinion that the UK should not - as the government has said it will - renew the Trident nuclear weapons programme. The three ex-soldiers are Field-Marshal Lord Bramall (87, retired as head of the armed forces in 1985); General Lord Ramsbotham …
...and particularly the linked article, Lewis. While I don't agree that Trident should be renewed, your article just goes to show that a cogent, well-written article is more persuasive than liberal-bashing name-calling.
Thing is, of course, that the Lib Dems don't stand just on the promise of decommissioning the nuclear deterrent - if they did, they would make rather more of a fuss about it, and not let the government keep it nice and quiet to avoid upsetting the proles. They stand for, er, Segways! And marriage to remarkably pert Romanians! And, er.... I'm not sure what else...
We can't decide on individual issues. Every four or five years we can decide between two centre-right parties which have more or less the same policies. We elect one lot until they fuck up the economy, then we chuck them out and elect the other lot. The only time we get a referendum is when the party in power doesn't want to take the blame for the outcome or when it is split down the middle.
"The three generals mutter discontentedly that "our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant except in the context of domestic politics", rather missing the point that this is a democracy and domestic politics is where the issue has to be decided."
I don't think this is missing the point; it is precisely the point. They are claiming that the issue is relevant solely to domestic politics, but the whole reason for a nuclear deterrent is to be relevant to international politics (i.e. to deter someone from doing something). If the British public were deeply concerned about U.K. trade agreements with the moon, it might result in money being allocated, but it still wouldn't make it a good idea. If the programme has no relevance internationally, then it's a waste of money whether it is popular or not.
If you think Trident actually makes a difference to anyone outside the U.K. (other than foreign defense contractors who sell and service bits of it), then you can disagree with them, but don't just dismiss the statement as missing the point.
I can remember the debates in the late 70's about the UK no longer needing large aircraft carriers saying they were no long needed by the UK's defences since we were so focused on defeating the USSR's subs in the north east Atlantic
So we built 3 smaller carriers that could carry 20 harriers each
Then came the Falklands
Then gulf war 1
then Bosnia
Then Afganistan
then Gulf war 2
All where having a large carrier capable of lobbing 60+ planes in the air would be damned handy
Flames... because we'll all end in them
Putting aside the obvious question about who these puppies would ever be used against[1]. the biggest flaw in these guys arguments is the idea that the military could simply divert the money saved into buying more stuff to kill people. It's much more probable that the govt. would merely trouser the cash themselves - having said to the mil. "look what you made us do" - and spend it on something equally unpopular: like more CCTV, or ID cards.
[1] Nukes are not a weapon per. se. they're merely a tool for diplomacy. however, they're a bloody expensive way to say to other countries "look, we should be taken seriously". Especially when everyone knows that they'd never be used. The popular argument that we don't know what the russians or chinese will develop into over the next 20 years forgets the counter-argument that we don't know what the americans will evolve into either. I tend to agree with the "Yes Minister" view, that the only reason we keep them is because the french have them.
These guys are right on track if you ask me. Trident is a massive waste of money that is not needed in today's world.
Yes I know some may argue that if your attacked then you should be able to respond, but lets face facts if the UK was attacked then as a NATO member the remaining members would have to come to assist in such an eventuality.
Its amazing that we preach disarmament to others yet still retain these weapons ourselves (at great financial cost), I too would rather the armed forces got what they truly needed rather than my tax money being wasted on Nukes that everyone knows SHOULD NOT ever be used.
As a deterrent their value is worthless because everyone knows that nobody wants to push the button and bring about nuclear annihilation.
The scenarios in your linked article are lacking context. Does our enemy suddenly decide to fire without our knowledge of their capability, without an existing conflict, without motive?
One other thing:-
"The prime minister has no button to press."
Good, even if we have the response I wouldn't want them to use it, if the missiles are inbound then it's already failed.
"Our" Trident missiles can not be fired without US-supplied codes which can be changed by the US without notice 24/7. Unless the current occupant of the White House agrees with the decision to fire them they're just a heap of iron. As such, they can only be fired at America's enemies when America wants them fired. So why are we paying for them and maning them?
Trident is worthless as a weapon or as a diplomatic lever specifically because it is in no way independant. We can't even fire them in response to a direct attack.
Sir Humphrey: Don't you believe that Great Britain should have the best?
Jim Hacker: Yes, of course.
Sir Humphrey: Very well, if you walked into a nuclear missile showroom you would buy Trident - it's lovely, it's elegant, it's beautiful. It is quite simply the best. And Britain should have the best. In the world of the nuclear missile it is the Saville Row suit, the Rolls Royce Corniche, the Château Lafitte 1945. It is the nuclear missile Harrods would sell you. What more can I say?
Jim Hacker: Only that it costs £15 billion and we don't need it.
Sir Humphrey: [Begrudgingly and exasperated] Well, you can say that about anything at Harrods.
...Well, wikiquote helped.
If that's the case then the question really needs to be 'Is the seat on the council worth £20bn?'
My own feeling, with admittedly nothing to back it up, is that it is. What else does the UK have that could replace the influence with countries that aren't on the council?
How often is our vote bought at the council and how much is that worth to the UK? Two questions that certainly can't be answered by anyone here but I suspect the answers are 'As often as the Americans want to pay.' and 'Significantly more than £20bn.'
I agree that the scenarios presented in your referenced article do make you think "oh no, we must have a deterrent". However, I suspect once a nuclear war starts it's pretty much game over anyway.
I do think the money might be better spent on better ISTAR equipment and a more flexible range of more precise technologies better suited to the most likely threats (terrorist attacks, support to deployed forces, etc.).
Yes, the cold war is over. But it lasted for 50 years, and the current trend for antiterrorism has lasted all of 7 (before that we had the ability to combat terrorism without cowering in corners). So it's more likely that we'll need the WMDs.
If we get rid of them then how do we get them back when they ARE useful? Phone up the 'States and say "Excuse me, good man, but we'd like to buy 100 nuclear weapons of varying descriptions. Could you build them have them over here by tommorrow? We're having a spot of bother with the Ruskies, you see"?
Also, if we lose them then we lose the ability to wipe off the map any country allying it with terrorists. Which is a bad thing as it removes a further obstacle for terrorists- and provides no benefit for us beside a couple of tens of billions of pounds that'll just get wasted shoring up failing businesses or better funding the military.
The Nuclear Deterrant is one of those things that takes a great deal of money and provides no visible benefit. But that's the point- if the benefit WAS visible the deterrant would have failed.
surely the Trident programme is a good thing? Otherwise those 20bn will be spent on ships and equipment and men with the sole purpose of killing lots of people.
The Trident replacement would be a £20Bn lifeline to millions of people- it's money that can't be spent putting our soldiers at risk. It's money that cant be spent killing little children. It's money that can't be wasted on ID cards or shoring up failing businesses.
Not replacing Trident would cause the death of thousands- and that's discounting the deterrant effect that it's very proveably had.
You see that gravestone icon? Buy shares in people who make these if we don't replace Trident.
And @Pete: Yes, we don't know what the Americans will evolve into. But they're less likely to turn into things we don't like than China or Russia with whom there are already tensions.
When this was in the news a while back they said that they were going to make 250 odd new nuclear missiles. We have 4 trident subs each of which has 4 nuclear missiles on board which by my maths = 16 missiles in total, if you have a spare one of each, that's 32, what are the other 220 odd for? Where will they be kept? What is the point in them generally?
I fully accept that I may be missing something here, but my maths is probably right :P
Nukes are old technology. The trident budget should go into developing a Tesla style death ray capable of disintergrating tanks and vapourising troops from distances of up to 200 miles.
Tesla could do it in 1908 with Victorian style tech we should be able to do it more better and as an added bonus, no radiation just lots of electricity traveling at the speed of light.
---------------------------------------------------
Christianity incompatible with nukes
---------------------------------------------------
Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah
----
Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction
----
Sounds pretty nuke-like to me; granted it's Old Testament...
"As even the most passionately committed anti-nuclear general would acknowledge, the armed forces must remain obedient to the civil power."
Why, Lewis, whenever they are so corrupt and so easily corruptible. I would suggest the exact opposite as being a much more agreeable future prospect albeit with it mitigated by a Novel Transparency which would share the Burden and the Decisions Making in an Ambiguous House Propping up and Pimping Democracy rather than Championing Meritocracy..... although in the former is the latter to oft voted down with Ignorance triumphing over Beta Good Sense and Innovative New Proposals....... such as a Dept. of CyberIntelAIgent Research and dDevelopment for NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive Defence Works ...... for Command and Control of Critical Computers and Compromising Communications in CyberSpace.
And that would attract Foreign Investment and not cost a Dime, which is probably also a concern to those with their snout in the pork trough, but that is their concern to have angst about.
spending the money on social welfare or industries that do not inflict pain, destruction and suffering on other sentient beings?
The industrialists, military men, those who profit from the arms trade and their proxies in the media are in the business of inventing, create and talking up threats to justify their existence as a deterent.
Missing the point exactly that the best way to stop war is not to start it.
The Nu Lab government clearly sees the UK as a lesser partner in a great Anglo Saxon political, economic and military superpower, and signing up to the new nukes is part of this political axis. The key factor is that there is currently a world-wide ban on developing new nuclear weapons, but just like the war in Iraq its much easier for the US to go against the international community's wishes if the British are on their side. Quid pro quo - the US gets our political support, we get a new nuclear deterent that would not be affordable if we tried to go our own way.
If we cancelled the Trident replacement, it would really, really annoy the Americans - in my book, this is reason enough to do it.
Sorry, but everything I've read says it is, at some level or other.
Unless you can provide a definitive (ideally independent) reference that this really is an *independent* nuclear deterrent, I'm not convinced.
Re "£20Bn that cant be spent killing little children": er, what exactly do you think Trident is for, or would happen if the button was independently pressed? A lot of little children (and others) would die.
If we put a bit of the £20Bn to truly "thinking of the children", and put some of that through the UN, would that not be better? it might even get us a voice at the UN (if we thought we needed one).
No Prime Minister with any ability to think of the future will get rid of the UK's nuclear deterrent. It's simply a matter of stumping up £1billion-ish / year, or possibly going down in history as the Prime Minister who got rid of them only then to be faced with an unforeseen foreign nuclear ICBM threat. There'd be no recovering from that scale of cock-up. Remember Brown's £2billion splashout on fixing the political damage from scrapping the 10% tax band, just to try and win a labour safe seat in a by-election? £1billion / year is cheap when it comes to safeguarding a political legacy.
It's interesting to note what's happened between India and Pakistan. It was only after both countries demonstrated a nuclear capability (through underground tests) that they sat down and started patching up their relationship over Kashmir (it's not perfect but it's better than it was). The nuclear threat in that case seemed to have a sobering effect on both countries.
...thanks.
I like to think in the event of my death by a nuke being launched against the UK, that the government's reaction would not be to blow up the innocent civilians in another nation. The reason a nuclear deterrent is so useless is that the only people likely to fire on the UK are dictators, who are unlikely to get hit by any retaliation, instead the (realativly) innocent people of said country would. Thusly, no. I don't think we need a nuclear deterrent.
Waste of money if you ask me. Actually that’s a lie, it’s a good idea to have a deterrent. The problem I have with nukes and indeed the armed forces is simply this;
We are an aggressive state, we have been for centauries and for as long as our head is up the arse of the yanks we shall continue to be.
With the exception of the Falklands we've not fought a defensive battle since world war 2 and even then the Falklands was a political move by Thatcher in order to raise public opinion of the Conservatives, it was a war that shouldn't have been fought and could have been fought in the court room.
We're only the target of rogue states because we're complete assholes with utter disregard to said "rogue states" way of life.
Pull all our forces out, keep our traps shut, throw no weight behind Americas continuing reign of terror and hey presto our enemies will disperse.
"Good, even if we have the response I wouldn't want them to use it, if the missiles are inbound then it's already failed."
You exactly summed up the issue with the linked article. The first scenario is the only one that makes any sense at all. We could easily base our missiles on land, and make it part of the deal that allows America to keep Nuclear weapons in the UK that we also are allowed to do the same in the US.
I believe we should have a Nuclear arsenal and accept that any such arsenal will be in some way reliant on the US for full functionality (hell our warning system will be their NMD system). I don't however think we need to maintain a fleet of submarines for this, when we could use a cheaper land system and spend the money saved on say some aircraft carriers that will be of use in the non-nuclear wars we actually intend to fight.
It seems you have been impressively misinformed. The "launch codes" that we see in movies all the time are actually related to arming the warheads - all of which are British. The missiles themselves are American, but we retain operational control of them. We can launch them independently, but would be unlikely to do anything without American support and in reality the missiles will never get used. They are a deterrent and if they are ever actually needed we have already lost.
Falklands, Kosovo, GWI, GWII, Afghan, Sierra Leone - what use was the Vanguard fleet for any of them? Add to that it has a Scottish base so if they get their independence and decide to close Rosyth what then?
Spend the money on more Astutes and Tomahawk missiles if it has to be spent on subs - a far more credible stick to threaten anyone with than an ICBM.
Actually, the US have several layers of veto on Trident, from the hardware, through the software and on upwards. For example, the system simply will not accept an independant attack plan (ie, one adopted by NATO, which means one adopted by the US) and even if such a plan could be forced into the system, the hardware can be locked by the Pentagon at any time. In practise, the system is probably always locked with a special clause to allow test firings, which it is capable of distinguishing. That's all I know about but since the source code for the software is not shared with the UK, there could be absolutely anything else in there too.
That's just the way it is, sorry.
America is not our ally and never was, WE are their ally, following them around like the school bully's sidekick hoping that being sycophantic will spare us their wrath. They would never and have never hesitated to shaft us when it suits them. To say that they are any different from Russia or China is foolhardy and ignorant. All three are superpowers pursuing their goals which are chiefly the control of energy supplies to their economies by a combination of manipulating international treaties, assassination-based regime change, and propaganda-based regime change. Democracy and all the rest of the crap spouted by their politicians is just vote fodder for the people back home.
> And @Pete: Yes, we don't know what the Americans will evolve into. But they're less likely to turn into things we don't like than China or Russia with whom there are already tensions.
I'd suggest that in the future we'll spend a lot more time and money kissing up to the Russians (who could / do turn off a lot of our energy supply at will) and the Chinese (who could turn off all our manufactured goods, equally at will) than the Ameriicans, as the worst they could do is stop selling us crappy TV programmes. As it is, I doubt that we'd rank particularly highly in the considerations of any of these countries either with or without nukes.
>Unless you can provide a definitive (ideally independent) reference that this really
>is an *independent* nuclear deterrent, I'm not convinced.
Right, such a source would have to have detailed technical access to Britain's entire nuclear weapons arsenal and sub fleet without being connected to either government or military.
Conspiracy theorists aside, we can only work with the information available.
The discrepancy is that Trident is a MIRV missile - that is one mind-bendingly expensive missile can do the work of half a dozen older ones, by deploying multiple warheads which each steer their way to a city of *YOUR* choosing.
Honestly, what's not love?
Each Trident missile can carry up to eight warheads which means you could use one to blow up most of London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Edinburgh and still have one left over for Milton Keynes (just because).
How cool is that???
Sorta surprised that no one mentions the option of buying a few B2's; it can be used for the conventional stuff when there's no immediate threat, and graduate to standing air patrols when needed. Having some land based cruise missiles as a bad up would be fairly cheap too
R
Heh, the deterrent inherrent in most arguements for keeping Nukes should be applied to handguns too!
Muggings should stop overnight as would knife crime!
No-one is going to rob a post office, if they don't know who's "carrying heat" in the queue will they?
After all, the Granny second in the queue might be a little deaf, but she can see when that hoodie pushes in, she could pull her 9mm glock from her trolley and teach him a lesson in manners there and then!
But far from being an impolite society, I don't think America has benefited from the inception of the optimistically named Colt "Peacemaker" to these modern times.
And not having nuclear weapons would give the UK a disarming arguement. Just think about the Dalai Lama or the Pope or Mother Teresa or Ghandi. Do you think their messages of peace would have carried as much weight if you knew they preferred high capacity 9mm automatic pistols as opposed to old fashioned but powerful and reliable revolvers?
Your maths is right, but you're missing two very important things. Firstly, each sub has 16 missiles, not 4. Secondly, each missile can have up to 12 separate warheads. By my count that's a maximum of 768 nukes required. Of course, "up to" doesn't mean that every missile actually does have 12 nuclear warheads, so obviously that number will be rather lower, but 250 new warheads doesn't sound at all out of order.
"But the aggressor nation still has missiles left, and it is clear that in the event of any retaliatory strike, Washington or Paris will share the fate of London. France declines to act. In America the debate is longer and harder fought, but in the end the result is the same."
Lewis, what planet were you on when you wrote that? Can you really envisage the American public letting its government leave alone a country that has demonstrated a willingness to use nuclear weapons against the West instead of unleashing over-whelming devastation to neutralise the threat and deter anyone else from trying something similar?
Seriously, JB, what planet did you grow up on? The US has absolutely no intention of allowing us to nuke who we want when we want. For that matter, why would they?
Just for a laugh, why do YOU think they hide the source code to the Trident system we pay them billions for? It's not to stop leaks - US personnel are as (un)likely to leak as Brits.
Oh, talk about nukes? Does anyone really know why nukes are called a suicide weapon?
"call from those who front each other but they the one shall be heard in waters seven whales shall pour their fountains at head and feet of goddess she will find pleasure relief will release the shield will cry her tears away meeting kiss of one was her beloved enemy will open herself for new life"
New Life? New Pharaons, maybe?
- just words, nothing special for them to moder them...
They have this the wrong way round - army spending needs to be reduced (and get the troops out of Iraq), while maintaining nukes as a strategic deterrent so north korea/iran know if they launch 1 nuke they can be hit with several hundred in return, so they don't try it.
Name ONE country with no nukes that can be considered a power...
Yep, none.
>>Actually, the US have several layers of veto on Trident, from the hardware, through the software and on upwards. For example, the system simply will not accept an independant attack plan (ie, one adopted by NATO, which means one adopted by the US) and even if such a plan could be forced into the system, the hardware can be locked by the Pentagon at any time. In practise, the system is probably always locked with a special clause to allow test firings, which it is capable of distinguishing. That's all I know about but since the source code for the software is not shared with the UK, there could be absolutely anything else in there too.<<
This doesn't sound likely to me and I wrote some of the software that went on Trident boats. Admittedly, my involvement was with the Navigation subsystem, so I have no expertise regarding the fire control system, but my experience did give me some insight into just how isolated a ballistic missile submarine on patrol is for most of the time. The reason boomers (as they were nicknamed) make for such good deterrent systems is that they are hard to find. The reason they are hard to find is that the ocean is rather opaque to most of the electromagnetic spectrum. This opacity has downsides as well as advantages, in order to communicate by radio a sub either has to get close to the surface and trail a long antenna behind it (and get lousy bandwidth) or else actually stick a mast up above the surface of the water (and chance giving away its position). Otherwise, the sub is essentially incommunicado for the balance of its patrol. This being the case, just how could the hardware "be locked by the Pentagon at any time"?.
As far as not accepting an "independant [sic] attack plan", I suspect that what you have as an "attack plan" at fire control is the coordinates of the targets (longitude, latitude, perhaps altitude and vertical deflection: longitude, latitude, and vertical deflection is the info that the nav system is responsible for providing to fire control about the point of launch, so I assume that similar info is needed about the points of impact). On what basis a computer could discern an independent attack plan from the above is beyond me.
It seems to me that you not only have a rather paranoid view of the US but a remarkably low opinion of the Royal Navy in that you think that they would be willing to spend vast sums of money on a deterrent system that is so hobbled that it is inherently incapable of performing its role (a deterrent weapon that one can't actually shoot isn't a deterrent, its a bluff).
It is true that without GPS, no UK Trident missile can be *targeted* with any accuracy. GPS can be unilaterally screwed by the US government, and preventing the UK from launching a missile incapable of delivering less than 40x the Hiroshima yield, when the US govt doesn't want it to, sounds like exactly the sort of reason which might cause them to do so.
And to the earlier commenter: yes, there are four missiles on each boat. But each one is able to carry up to 64 seperately-targetable warheads, each one of which has a 16MT yield.
(This is all about the current version of Trident in Britain's possession. I dunno what changes are proposed.)
I would prefer my tax money spent on this rather than paying a fortune to the unemployable lazy population (single parents etc) we seem to have to drag along with us. Amazes me we spend more on these people every year than on investment in infrastructure and military that lasts 20 years. No wonder we are now a second rate nation.
Here is where my involvement with the Navigation subsystem bears more directly: you don't need GPS to fire a missile. The boat's position sent to fire control is based on an inertial navigator. Initially this was SINS (Ships Inertial Nav System) but was later supplanted by ESGN (Electromagnetically Supported Gyro Navigator). Now error pileup in the inertial navigator would require you to do an update from an external fix source every [classified], but while this fix source *could* be GPS, it didn't *have* to be: you could head towards an area where the bottom of the ocean was well mapped and do a sonar fix or do a LORAN (LOng Range Aid to Navigation) fix (this was the area I spent the bulk of my time on). There also used to be a NAVSAT (Transit Satellite) fix source, but this was replaced by GPS.
Now it is possible that the Trident missiles use GPS for in flight corrections, but I would be surprised indeed if the missile couldn't also a celestial navigation backup, should GPS be unavailable or, if all else fails, just depend on the inertial navigator in the missile. At worst what you would be looking at would be degraded accuracy, but when you are talking strategic nuclear weapons you only need to be but so accurate.
Also, your yield numbers for the Trident missiles are way off. The standard warheads are all sub-megaton in yield, less than half a MT in fact (Google W 87 or W 88). The Wikipedia article on the UK Trident suggests that it uses warheads based on the older W 76 design, which had a still lower yield.
I rather liked Lewis' article on the many fantasies that would make an SSBN really useful, they are however fevered speculation to try and prove a weak point. I mean, would France really not be bothered by a nuclear strike on a country 30 miles away as Lewis suggests? And who is the mystery nation with nuclear weapons and ICBMs who is out to get us? Given that the UK is part of NATO and the EU and ideologically aligned to most of the members of the groups which nation would single us out for a nuclear strike ignoring our many allies?
The counter argument tends to run "You never know what might happen in the future, so lets tool up" This arguement is as pointless as it sounds. If you can't divine the future what makes you think sub launched nuclear weapons are a solution? Perhaps the next threat to humanity is an epidemic, bet you'd wish you'd spent those billions on improving hospitals and science education (which would have a benefit anyway unlike an unused SSBN).
Also @bazza, India first tested in 1974 and Pakistan 10ish years later, that didn't stop them fighting directly or indirectly much of the time since. In fact nuclear armed countries seem to get into wars as often as non nuclear ones do. What's the point of a deterent that doesn't actually deter aggressors? I notice Gen. Galtieri didn't seem bothered by the nuclear deterent and his troops had to be removed from the Falklands the traditional way.
Maybe we could spend the Trident replacement money on some of those Chinooks Lewis seems so keen on?
>>On what basis a computer could discern an independent attack plan from the above is beyond me<<
Any sort of digital signing; something as crackable as:
if ( md5( fire_plan.coordinates + pentagon_secret_key ) != fire_plan.checksum ) printf( "bog off\n" );
That said, I really hope we have independent control of our nukes.
The next major wars will not be about resources for production, but overconsumption. As London submerges as a result of climate change, European countries will have to go to war to reduce the amazing over-consumption of oil in the USA. They will use nuclear bombs to destroy places with lots of gas-guzzling cars and air-conditioning, such as Florida or Midland, Texas.
At that point, we will need a truly independent nuclear strike force, since the USA is the only country now which we might need to attack.
>This being the case, just how could the hardware "be locked by the Pentagon at any time"?.
I think AC is saying that it's locked all the time, and only unlocked for test firings.
Probably the biggest issue with a broken system is that we might find out, in which case
the US's strongest ally and a useful second vote in the security council becomes rather hostile.
An independent British missile system actually strengthens theirs as well, an attacker can't assume that an attack on the US that stops the US threat won't be responded to by a British system.
A useless British system would compromise any strategy toward an enemy that presumably knows that it's useless, since AC's posting in the register know this then it's safe to say the rest of the world does as well.
Clearly the US could sneak in code that prevents UK Trident from working, the question I suppose is have they? Given the total destruction of their international relations it would cause, an awkward legal case when Britain tries to get a refund, and the subsequent doubt cast on their own deterrent it's probably more in their interests to hand over a working system.
Yes, they could shaft it with GPS, but it'd still get close enough.
BTW The Vanguard class carry 16 missiles each of which can have up to 8 warheads. In practice there won't be 8 warheads on a missile, since the MIRV footprint is only about the size of the UK limiting the number of different targets one can hit with one missile, besides you might not want to use 8 warheads at once so a spread of loadings will be on the boats.
I still reckon it should be dumped, we could get an airborne capability in a couple of years and with the new euro-cruise coming along that could carry warheads for comfortable distance, enough to put off anyone who cares from trying.
GlobalSecurity.org claims that Trident uses star sighting to navigate the MIRV at least, GPS appears to be a retro fit, Trident itself being based on tech that pre-dates GPS by quite a while.
How they know such things isn't revealed however.
@peter
>if ( md5( fire_plan.coordinates + pentagon_secret_key ) != fire_plan.checksum ) printf( "bog off\n" );
First up, MD5 is insecure, I'd expect GCHQ to be able to bodge it.
Secondly this would require an interface to enter the "pentagon secret key" which might give the game away.
Not because I'm anti-nuke, but because I'm very pro-nuke! Use the money to give all the services a nuke option which would also improve their general military capability. How? Stick a nuke warhead into the Storm Shadow cruise missile. The RAF can already use Storm Shadow, and a naval version is on the way which the RN could fit to the new Type 45 destroyers and actually make them useful, and it could then also be adapted to be launched from Army vehicles like the land-based versions of Tomahawk. We can then also have more Storm Shadows with conventional warheads to flood an enemy's defences with, buy a few more F-35s and a couple of good carriers, some new APCs and still have change left over. We could even buy more Merlins - OK, maybe a Chinook or two as well. Once the Ruskies copy the US ballistic missile shield technology and sell it to all comers Trident will be useless anyway, and a wave attack of land-, sea- and air-launched cruise missiles would probably be the only option likely to get through and therefore deter the bad guys in the first place.
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