Oops! American Missile to Replace Trident is Too Big for Britain’s Nuclear Submarines
THE US nuclear-armed missile that the Westminster government is hoping will replace Trident may not actually fit into British submarines, creating a “major headache” for UK weapons designers.
The Sunday Herald has seen evidence that US designers are contemplating new missiles too big to slot into the tubes that house Trident’s current D5 missiles.
Tenders to bid for a test-bed for future underwater-launched nuclear missiles issued by the US navy last month specify a missile diameter of up to 120 inches. The diameter of Trident’s D5 missile tubes is 87 inches.
The former prime minister, Tony Blair, won the support of the House of Commons in March this year for his controversial decision to renew Britain’s nuclear weapons by replacing the four Trident submarines, currently stationed at Faslane on the Clyde.
Blair’s plan - apparently endorsed by his successor, Gordon Brown - is to start arming the new submarines with the existing Trident missiles but then to replace them with new missiles being designed by the US.
That is why Blair exchanged formal letters with US president George W Bush on December 7, 2006. “The United Kingdom wishes to ensure that any successor to the D5 system is compatible with, or is capable of being made compatible with, the launch system for the D5 missile, which we will in the meantime be installing into our new submarines,” Blair wrote.
Bush replied by inviting the UK to take part in the D5 replacement program or to discuss extending the life of the missiles. “In this respect, any successor to the D5 system should be compatible with, or be capable of being made compatible with, the launch system for the D5 missile,” he wrote.
Earlier this month defense secretary Des Browne confirmed that UK and US officials had met three times since March to consider missile designs. “Concept studies for the development of a new underwater-launched missile system have been discussed by officials at these meetings,” he said.
But critics are now saying that Bush appears to be reneging on his promise to make sure any new missiles would be compatible with existing D5 launch systems. In November the US navy issued a notice inviting companies to bid for a new test-bed for “development testing of underwater-launched missile systems”.
The notice said the test-bed should be able to support missiles up to 120 inches in diameter and 200,000lbs in weight, although Trident missile tubes have a diameter of 87 inches and the missiles weigh 130,000lbs. This was because “concepts for future submarines may have missile tubes larger than 87 inches in diameter”, the notice said.
John Ainslie, co-ordinator for Scottish CND, said this would going to give the engineers in Barrow responsible for designing Britain’s new submarines a big problem. “Common sense would suggest that if you are designing a submarine you must know the dimensions of the missiles it will carry,” he said.
“But common sense has no place in the government’s plan to build a new nuclear weapon system. The rushed programme to replace Trident could set a new benchmark for ineptitude at the Ministry of Defense MoD.
“Gordon Brown should call a halt to this absurd waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Ainslie argued it was not credible to arm the new submarines with Trident D5 missiles throughout their life because the US would cease maintaining them. The US navy is planning to withdraw Trident completely by 2042, but the UK wants to operate its new submarines until at least 2055.
He also pointed out that when the UK first bought Trident missiles in the early 1980s, it had to change its order to fit US timescales.
“They will be keen to purchase an underwater-launched missile system. But designing a submarine for an unknown missile will be a nightmare.”
A spokeswoman for the MoD said: “We are satisfied the exchange of letters between the previous prime minister and the US president provide us with the necessary assurances that any US successor to the D5 missile should be compatible, or can be made compatible, with the launch system to be installed in our new submarines.”
©2007 newsquest (sunday herald) limited
Maybe these 120 inch missiles would fit into 87 inch tubes if we turned each of them on a lathe?
Any passing Martians could only look at this situation and weep. Not only is it absurd that we still have various warring tribes on our planet (some of which are armed to the teeth with incredibly expensive, planet-destroying weapons), but the very concept of nuclear deterrence is crumbling away.
A nuclear weapon is only effective against a country; no individual and very few, if any, non-national groups can be directly threatened. A terrorist group might be a first-user, but no country would dare to be, unless perhaps they planned on wiping out all the other countries too. Of course, no submarine will deter a crazed suicide (nuclear) bomber half a world away.
And even if every country managed to build up a large nuclear arsenal, this is hardly to suggest that any country that decided to give up its nukes would be at any greater risk. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction only holds when all parties hold the same basic values, such as the basic notions of a state with borders and the idea that life is better than death - in other words when all sides are playing the same game.
Moreover, with respect to Britain, the concept of an *independent* nuclear deterrent is ridiculous. The idea is, I understand, this: the US supplies the missiles and the UK builds the warheads and the boats, and the birds only fly when the British Prime Minister says so. All well and good, except the US not only supplies the missiles, they maintain them too - they come as sealed units - and it is fanciful to think that they could be launched without approval from the White House. The British taxpayer is paying for the privilege of hosting some of the USA’s weapons.
Just imagine how rich we could all be, and what a beautiful, prosperous planet we could build, if we didn’t spend most of our time, and most of our money, on finding better ways of killing each other.
Don’t you just love Military Intelligence.
Nullius: All of what you posted is common sense.
Allow me to illustrate the utter common nonsense of the world that govt. and Parliament espy…
Nullius: “A nuclear weapon is only effective against a country.”
Q. Who is the UK’s closest ally who is prodding hell-for-leather for agressive retaliations from historically quiescent nations?
Nullius: “The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction…”
Q. Who has decided that the world would be better off if only the Cold War never ended, and wouldn’t it be marvelous if only V.Putin could be cajoled into CWII?
Nullius: “Moreover, with respect to Britain, the concept of an *independent* nuclear deterrent is ridiculous.”
Q. Which country (and still 49% of it’s voting eligible population) was the last on the planet to realise that it’s empire longer exists and has attached itself to the coattails of the newest, most petulant empire?
We need nuclear weapons. We need enemies!
Insane.
Putting a 120 inch missile into an 87 inch tube will take a lot of KY.
Planned obsolescence. Now they have to buy new boats too. Just like Detroit!
Will this ‘horribly serious problem’, help with the global warming and acidity of our oceans issue?
The missiles are not big enough. There isn’t a missile big enough to encompass the cost of human stupidity & power & fear & unreason. No missile can defend the world from the future. The size of the missile is only proportional to the size of the egos that ordered them.
Seems like Bush and Blair are in need of some navel lenses.
Chimps and numbers……what a joke!
Oh S**t, how the Commies are gonna get us!!!
In a world in which nuclear weapons exist ( a terrible stupid awful world ! ) submarine based nuclear weapons are the least stupid nuclear weapons, and the last ones that we would want to get rid of… the ones to get rid of only after vulnerable land based systems and more difficult to control bomber based systems are eliminated and absurd “tactical” weapons are eliminated.
Because they are the most secure from attack they are the least likely to be launched prematurely or unnecessarily.
I hate ‘em all, but I hate the submarine missiles less.
As for the details of why the U.S. is playing this game with the UK, I have no idea… probably trying to make it too expensive for them to remain a nuclear power, or to get them to fork over some money for the next model of sub. Planned obsolescence is the oldest trick in the U.S. corporate bag.
The phalic implications of tihs snafu are just too obvious to need much elaboration. This sounds like the ploot to some gonzo hardcore porno flick. Indeed, whatfools is right, it will take a lot of KY to get those babies into their intended holes!
WHATFOOLS
‘military intelligence’ - the biggest oxymoron of all times……………
The definition of insanity!
They like to say that socialism is dead,but with the huge military waste that goes on,I believe that it is alive and well, with the name of “Military socialism”.Just think of all those military families that would have to go out and try and get jobs in the private sector like the rest of us, if they were not supported by the dollars that Americans pay in taxes to the “Military Industial Complex”.
Again, socialism is alive and well.
Hey Rick, please don’t do that to socialism. No socialist that I know of(myself included) has any love for the military industrial complex, nor do any of them advocate fiscal waste or irresponsibility. Only capitalist states and military dictatorships have the need to spend so much on ‘defense’. During the Cold War, Americans were poisoned to the term socialism, due to the Soviet Union’s model, which was a military dictatorship under the guise of socialism. Canada would be a much better example of a working socialist system. A socialist state should be more concerned with the welfare of it’s citizens than the might of it’s military. A social democracy may well be the best possible governmental system that there is(in my humble opinion) and far outsrips the plutarchy that exists in this country.
This is payback by the right-wing to England for “pulling out” of Iraq.
Who says size doesn’t matter?
Wow. I thought I would have a chance at posting some wry wit, some sarcastic quip, some illustration of the sheer insanity of it all, and in a mere 17 posts, you’ve all beaten me to the mark.
Planned obsolescence, KY jelly, numbers (anyone remember the metric-versus-English snafu with the Hubble?), M.A.D. conciliation, the stark silliness of the phrase “military intelligence”…
…would you people please get out of my head?
Missile envy Gap
[Totally off-topic, ho ho hum. No new news today]
Blair’s gone Catholic.
Merry Frigging Xmas 1NL
Hale-bloody-yahoo-ya
I didn’t know countries could just use someone ELSES nuclear weapons. I thought that would be against the NPT. So then, in theory, could Russia supply Irans nukes?
No–the point is this. If you build a submarine and it, ahem, “accidentally,” does not take the larger warhead, then, you now have to buy retrofitting or a larger submarine, which will probably carry MORE MISSILES, which will again mean MORE SUBMARINES down the road.
Can’t they just use the older missiles that fit? I understand the little safer ones, have ranges of several thousand miles and carry multiple atomic warheads, any of which can totally destroy a city the size of London. Understand here are thousands of those available.
They might be able to buy them from Korea, Pakistan, France, India, China, the U.S. Russia or their associates, Isreal, ____ orrrrrrrr Iran,__ they got em, we all know deep down, __ they got em. Those damn Arabs finally got nukes. It’s Armageddon all over again. Go getem Bush, __ for God and daddy.
edit?