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Or our space based kinetic bombardment weapons are better value :-)

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Yeah but he was morbidly obese.

Thats why the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain.

And here was me thinking the RAF had something to do with it.

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Well they did and they didn't.

 

The Nazi's lost the battle of Britain is the most accurate description.

When they switched from bombing airfields and military targets to bombing London it gave the RAF the breathing space to rebuild, regroup and overcome the Nazi's.

 

Had they continued to bomb the RAF installations into oblivion it all could have ended very differently.

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Well they did and they didn't.

 

The Nazi's lost the battle of Britain is the most accurate description.

When they switched from bombing airfields and military targets to bombing London it gave the RAF the breathing space to rebuild, regroup and overcome the Nazi's.

 

Had they continued to bomb the RAF installations into oblivion it all could have ended very differently.

But it didn't, that's all that mattered. By making the surviving Luftwaffe crews scared to continue day strikes, the RAF made Goering switch to night bombing, and as it happened Sheffield paid the price on December 12th and 15th 1940.

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We need Trident, to aid the destruction of Iran for a start, one never knows when a nuke or two will make those religious leaders realise it's the developed nations that do th ewill of GOD.

 

Then in a decade there is China, and how else might one want to murder million with little effort, we love striking first and asking questions later, as we did in Iraq. Didn't Tony Blair do well, all those millions for oil and financial interests. Anyway the last time we went to China we forced them to allow their populations to become opium addicts. We love diplomacy where we hold a gun up to a potential victim we intend to exploit, its the British and now American way.

 

GOD made us technologically strong so we could act like gods and bully lessor developed nations into buying our weaponry, as it would not be right for them to find themselves on the wrong side, as many nations have and are finding out.

 

We know best, and its time for a nuke or two, as people will have forgotten what they really do, and need reeducation, into their effect and who rules the world.

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However, this is not the sort of the situation where the nuclear deterrence is effective by a long long way, but every weapon has it's own strength and/or weakness so I feel that it's wrong to judge one on a situation where it was never meant to be used.

Exactly.

 

So, back to trident, can we collectively conceive the details of any circumstances where it would be used?

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Iran/North Korea launch one first?

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Both of those countries are at least 15-20 years away from developing a nuclear tipped ballistic missile with the range to reach the UK, if ever, and if they are developing ICBMs, it's certainly not with the primary purpose of nuking the UK. Iran doesn't even have a working bomb.

 

NK has the bomb, but nothing like an ICBM or a warhead suitable for use on an ICBM.

 

Any other likely candidates? India? Pakistan? Israel? France? USA?

-edit

I forgot to mention, maybe Russia, China or Ukraine. They'd nuke us if they could, but trident is stopping them, or something else?

Edited by Phanerothyme
see edit

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Are you only worrying about fighting todays conflicts?

 

Maybe it's a failure of your imagination to imagine a situation similar to the cold war developing again in the future.

Obviously we all hope it won't, but then nobody wanted that situation in the past and it developed then.

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Are you only worrying about fighting todays conflicts?

 

Maybe it's a failure of your imagination to imagine a situation similar to the cold war developing again in the future.

Obviously we all hope it won't, but then nobody wanted that situation in the past and it developed then.

 

The past isn't really a useful indicator of future performance, especially in regard to the nuclear arms race that is now mostly over, with only a few also-rans still on the course.

 

If we start fighting conflicts, today or tomorrow, with Trident, then I'll give you a banana.

 

To have a "cold war" you need strategic nuclear weapons in the first place. There's a limited number of countries to choose from. Unless the country (Russia, China, India say) changes their posture overnight, there's no-one to have a cold war with.

 

Territorial conflicts aren't fought with nuclear weapons. A strategic, knockout nuclear strike is about the only use for them. Of course Trident could be retrofitted with a non-nuclear, kinetic option, but then how would people tell the difference when we launched?

Edited by Phanerothyme

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I really don't know what your trying to get at. I don't think trident will ever be used, that's sort of the point of a deterrent. But if you throw away your deterrent, well, then you don't have a deterrent anymore.

 

Nuclear disarmament is a laudable goal, but to think that we should just unilaterally give up our weapons is dependant on very optimistic and wishful thinking about the future of geopolitics IMO.

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If we didn't have it, would we buy it?

 

Why do we feel we need it when only one other European country feels the need?

 

We don't have a vast empire to defend any more, it wasn't a deterrent the last time one of our territories was invaded and we didn't threaten to use it as a result of the invasion.

 

If we wouldn't use it unilaterally, and we wouldn't, (other than in retaliation, in which case it obviously failed as a deterrent) why have it?

 

I can see there are benefits in terms of employment and investment in economically deprived areas, assuming the replacement submarines are manufactured in the UK, but I'm not convinced by the arguments in support

 

Is Holland more at risk from attack than we are because they don't have a "deterrent"?

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