"UK's Trident Replacement " Topic

This is not intended as a discussion as to whether or not Trident should be replaced, but simply to enquire whether there is a much cheaper / straightforward method of the Royal Navy deploying a strategic nuclear deterrent.

As everyone knows, Great Britain's current nuclear deterrent consists of the Trident II system, deployed in 4 specially built Vanguard-Class boomer subs. There is much debate over replacing these, and the costs involved etc etc.

I have long wondered why, instead of having specially built (and otherwise completely useless) submarines to carry this deterrent, why the Royal Navy does not rather use a nuclear warhead version of the Tomahawk cruise missile.

Not having bought Trident or the Vanguards would presumably have freed-up funds to add a considerable number of extra SSNs to the Royal Navy fleet. All patrolling SSNs could either have all been assigned 2 or 4 Tomahawk nukes, or the Royal Navy might have rather designated one or more boats on a boomer patrol – and just loaded her up with nuclear Tomahawks for that specific tour. Either way, it would have been cheaper and more flexible.

Of course, the Tomahawk nuke is by no means a like-for-like replacement for the Trident (much less powerful warhead plus the missiles have a much shorter range and are vastly slower and therefore, presumably, easier to knock down) but surely the whole point of a nuclear deterrent is just that you have it and it scares the hell out of people.

An argument against this might be that, by deploying nukes in smaller numbers on a greater number of platforms, you would lose control and there would be a greater chance of an accident – but this doesn't seem realistic, given that until relatively recently, the RAF had tactical nuclear bombs as did the RN aircraft carriers – and I believe I am right in saying the British army had tactical nuclear weapons too.

So is the big factor quite simply that Trident is a 'better' system and therefore considered a more effective deterrent?
I'm by no means pro-CND and feel the UK needs a nuclear deterrent, but I just wonder if sinking such a huge portion of the ever-shrinking defence budget into a Rolls-Royce system is logical. Surely more cost effective (and yet still utterly devastating) options could be investigated? Or would these be too easily countered by (eg) Russia / China and therefore not act as a deterrent at all?

Royal Mail? No, I hear they refused the job. Something about the weight and size of the parcel.

Just as well really, they're not what they were in terms of service or cost.

Issue one: Range

The missiles on the Vanguard are good for at least 3 times the maximum range of a Tomahawk missile, and are capable of delivering multiple warheads and decoys over a fairly wide area.

Issue two: Capability

A single Vanguard at sea can ruin any country that its warheads can reach, with over 30 warheads pretty much ruining even the largest country. If the deterrent was two or three – or even six smaller warheads, would MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) be possible?

As mentioned, Tomahawks are too slow, and short-ranged to do the job, so they won't work for a strategic nuclear deterrent.

A shame really, but it appears our cruise missile development hasn't kept pace with those of the Russians.

I suspect that is part of the reason why we are now looking to kick the hypersonic missile programs (Mach 20), into high gear.

I doubt you will find a less costly option to Trident, when looking for a replacement.

New weapons systems programs always cost more money than the older ones they replace. That's pretty much a law of physics, in the weapons development realm.

Sure, a new system will be expensive, but think of all the highly trained peoples' salaries to develop and deploy the weapon(s) that it will employ. Therefore, I submit that not all will be lost on that, since a large portion, if not a majority of those salaries will come straight back to the government in taxes on earnings, to fund other programs.

What about a totally fake deterrent? If you did it well enough how would they ever know the difference? And who exactly are we/they trying to deter anyway?

The Trillions saved could be secretly invested somewhere or just lost in the accounts.

Issue three: nuclear tomahawks being EOL.

The warheads were decommissioned and are (IIRC) currently sat awaiting disposal.

The UK does not have a suitable warhead and probably now lacks the capacity to design, test and manufacture one.

"Tomahawks are too slow, and short-ranged to do the job, so they won't work for a strategic nuclear deterrent."

It's questionable whether we NEED one.

Would we ever launch without the agreement of the Americans anyway? If not… then we might as well give them some money towards the deterrence force and have it be a formal major/junior partnership with us getting some input into the launch decisions.

I don't really see why we need an expensive completely independent force when we're not going to use it independently anyway.

IIRC it is not a Trident replacement… more of an update to existing hardware.

VonTed

I don't think it's just that – money has already been assigned to start research into a new generation of nuclear reactors for the replacements to the Vanguards.

@KatieL-I think it is a National pride/sovereignty issue. Would a formal understanding that clearly put the UK as junior partner be acceptable to the British people?

Plus, I'm fairly certain your government wants to have the option of nuking the US. Everyone else does.

The role of an SSN and an SSBN are completely opposite. The goal of an SSBN is to remain undetected until it can launch its ballistic missiles. By having a long range, it greatly expands the area from which an SSBN can hide and still be in range to hit targets thousands of miles inland.

The role of an SSN is to detect and if necessary, kill the SSBN before it launches. An SSN tracking an SSBN with active sonar, by default is not hidden and is therefore susceptible to being targeted and sunk – not a situation you want to put your nuclear deterrence in. In, addition, if your SSN's have to remain close to a coast to hit inland targets, then they can't be out in the deep water hunting enemy SSBN's.

SSBN's are the cheapest, most effective nuclear deterrent available – mobile, hard to detect, and massive payload – under current MOD rules up to 48 nuclear warheads plus decoys per boomer.

In MAD, you have to advertise your first strike capability, otherwise the other side won't be intimidated enough to back down from a confrontation. If they think they can take you, they might try. For an SSN to match the firepower of an SSBN, you'd need 3-4 SSN's equipped with a dozen nuclear tipped cruise missiles congregating near a single country that happens to be within 1,200 of an ocean. In, addition the warhead on a tomahawk is only 200kt compared to the 475kt W88 warhead of a Trident, so a much smaller boom.

-Binhan

Sure, a new system will be expensive, but think of all the highly trained peoples' salaries to develop and deploy the weapon(s) that it will employ. Therefore, I submit that not all will be lost on that, since a large portion, if not a majority of those salaries will come straight back to the government in taxes on earnings, to fund other programs.

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though i'd think that compared to other weapons systems/military units, nuclear systems employ relatively few people – and as to a large portion/majority of salaries coming back in – 20% on annual earnings above the PAYE tax threshold and up to £34,370.00 GBP Higher tax rate, 40% on annual earnings from £34,371.00 GBP to £150,000.00 GBP (Lt Cmdr scale £47.00 GBPk to £57.00 GBPk, Captain £81.00 GBPk-£89k and how many are there of latter and even they would be paying a max of approx £28.00 GBPk in tax)so I doubt that many service personnel, even in the nuclear side, are earning enough to pay most of their salaries back in tax – that's the logic used for massive salaries for the bankers etc by their old school chums in govt.
And on the civilian defence contractor side (re the development of the systems), my understanding from friends who worked for big defence companies was that people are often brought in as self employed contractors, with all the means that gives to mitigate tax liabilities as much as possible.

We continue to waste MOD funds on a weapon system we will never use whilst at the same time reducing our army to the size of a stadium crowd. The first requirement of a government is the defense of its people. I know where I'd prefer the money was spent.

Ahhh, I was thinking of the missile. Not the entire SSBN!

The salaries bit ("getting it back") is based on Keynesian economics. The engineers with the big salaries use them to buy cars and houses and Playstations, and each transaction is taxed, so that when the folks they bought stuff from buy things, it doesn't take very long for the government to get it back. Some economists agree, some don't. There wasn't a Great Depression in the USA after WWII, and the UK was on rations until 1952. I'd say that it works under certain conditions but isn't a panacea.

Binham's already touched on the big reason why a nuclear-armed fast-attack sub is not a strategic deterrent.

The other note is that an SSBN is actually an attack sub with missiles. Means that once the missiles are gone (or the Gummint decides that it's worth exposing a that a sub is in the area), those ships can also go hunting.

Just build a Doomsday machine and inventory the mineshafts.

Binhan Lin

In their current configuration / deployment, you are absolutely correct. But there is no reason why an Astute Class SSN cannot be sent on patrol and told to act like a SSBN and remain hidden etc. Just because it was originally designed as an SSN doesn't mean it HAS to go about lashing its active sonar around and searching for other subs.

Your points about the mis-match in capability between the two systems are spot on, though I wonder if any nation is really going to be happy to be whacked by a dozen nuclear-tipped Tomahawks: would it perhaps be enough of a deterrent, even if no where near as big a one as Trident?

"The UK does not have a suitable warhead and probably now lacks the capacity to design, test and manufacture one."

IIRC the UK has a VERY capable nuclear warhead design capability, courtesy of the AWE at Aldermaston.

It's a lot easier to shoot down a tomahawk, and they have a much shorter range.

You almost might as well ask "why not just use nuclear torpedoes".
-Kle.

David Manley wrote:

IIRC the UK has a VERY capable nuclear warhead design capability, courtesy of the AWE at Aldermaston.

The last British nuclear warhead design that I can recall was Chevaline. The project was still active when I joined HEL in 1990, but I think design was by then pretty much over. I doubt that many of the people who were working at AWE then are working there now. Any future British nuclear warhead desing, like any future British tank design, will be carried out laregely by people who have never done it before.

All the best,

John

I'm going to add that the biggest reason the Astute-class subs were so delayed was the reactor design.

All the previous Brit reactors were based off of the old US S5W reactor design used in the Skipjack, Permit, and Sturgeon classes.

I also assume that the box on the side of the hull is some kind of alignment point.

Klebert L Hall

I realise that a strike against China / Russia (for example) would be a very different proposition than where they've been used, but have Tomahawks really proven easy to shoot down over the last 20+ years? That is not really the impression I have of the weapon system.
Does anyone know how many have been shot down in operations?

Wow, I got my wires crossed… the last line in my last post should have been on the QE carrier thread!

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Here's the other issue with a submarine using lots of tomahawks: They take up space that would be used for torpedoes! A single Trident missile can deliver (many) warheads, let's say 4 plus decoys for the sake of argument.

To deliver the same number of warheads using Tomahawks would mean sacrificing a ninth of the submarine's payload, per Trident-equivalent. How many times do you think a nuclear strike is going to be less than massive?

The Vanguard class can each carry 16 Tridents. You'd need to have several times more submarines carrying cruise missiles than the 4 Vanguards, and the Vanguards themselves are not significantly more expensive than a fast-attack. You *might* be able to buy 5 fast-attack subs for the cost of 4 Vanguards. Might.

I don't know how many have been shot down, but I know at least a few were shot down over Iraq.
-Kle.

A second issue is continual, round the clock, 365 manning. AFAIK the US and British SSBN's have had at least one boat on station for the last 30 years. Counting in transit times and at least one spare in case of emergency, you need at least 3-4 boats to cover each area. Since the Tomahawk has only as 1200 nm range, you need quite a few more on station to cover potential opponents such as Russia, China, India, Iran, etc.

So just to keep constant coverage of 1-2 key opponents, you'd need to commit 8-12 SSN's just to have minimal coverage. For comparison of range – London to Moscow is 1559 miles, out of range of a Tomahawk. A Trident is estimated to have a range of 4,600 miles – enough distance to cover London to Mumbai (4477), Cuba (4663 miles), and only about 500 miles short of reaching Beijing (5071 miles). Thus from a position in the North Sea or even in the Baltic, a single Vanguard can strike at Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran (and all of the Middle East), etc. To replicate this coverage with an SSN would require deployment of subs to the Baltic, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific. To maintain continuous coverage of all these threats, you'd need to have at least 8 on station/transit and probably 2-3 more backing them up if there is a delay or mechanical issue. Running 10-12 SSN's instead of 4 SSBN's doesn't seem to be particularly cost effective, since an SSBN in port is still probably a threat due to the sheer range of a Trident, thus even SSBN's in transit can still be considered "on station". Thus opposing nations are faced with not a single SSBN worth of warheads, but 2, 3 or 4 loads – up to 192 warheads in a single strike. Certainly enough deterrent for any nation to consider.

Also, an SSN playing SSBN and running quiet and out of the way is not performing its intended job – hunting down enemy SSBN's – thus you give up defense for possible offensive capability – each enemy (Russian) SSBN you allow to roam free is potentially 120 warheads raining down on your country (re-instated Typhoon class – 20 missiles, possibly RSM-56 Bulava w/6 150 kt warheads + decoys, 8000 km range).

A third issue is missile speed – a ballistic missile can strike its target within 30 minutes of launch. A Tomahawk at max range takes about 3 1/2 hours to reach its target – plenty of warning time to take military shelter, evacuate airfields, launch retaliatory bombers, missiles, etc. Again if someone thinks they can get away with a clean blow and only be partially damaged in retaliation, they might take a swing at you.

-Binhan

I suspect that we will have 3 replacement SSBN with smaller crews [due to automation] and possibly less missiles per sub [to keep costs down]

@Kabrank: No, you really do need 4 hulls. You could make the hulls smaller and automate them more, but in order to have the rotation of 3 months out at sea, one month in port, you simply must have 4 hulls. 3 out of 4 are always out at sea, the 4th is in port for maintenance.

The only way you could get away with fewer hulls is to have a shorter rotation.

Hi Lion

I am aware of that but I suspect if the cost pinch becomes too great then rotations will be extended [possibly with a crew changes at sea compromise]and "on station" will increasingly mean in transit to and from station as well.

I would love to see 4 hulls but the general public response to defence and nuc weapons for those below about age 35 appears to be such that I suspect 4 hulls may be too difficult to get approved.

Sometimes I think the Cold war was easier for all this!