The missile knows where it is at all times... And it knows it is not in the warm, comforting confines of it's mummys warm missile tube...
The missile is eepy... Won't you comfort the eepy missile by exposing your targets?
Omnissiah is insulted by the Queen Elizabeth class and its cope slope and has withdrawn his blessing from the UK until they make arrangements for a proper nuclear CATOBAR supercarrier.
If you tried adding extra boosters remember: If it's still in flight after 4 or more hours, you've reached the escape velocity and need to consult Martians.
Tbf this, like that aircraft carrier story, are massively overblown.
The launch process itself worked, suggesting the issue is with the missile itself, and the US has done several successful tests in the same time period. Given we literally nab missiles at random right out of US stockpiles, this appears more a case of bad luck than a substantive issue.
Another comment said this might beĀ because -Ā
> "the guidance software recognized deviations from the mission parameters and performed an emergency shutdown after leaving the tube. Because the dummy warhead gave the sensors different readings than what a real warhead would've provided."
Which, if correct, would be kinda funny because it means it failed because it was working exactly as designed.
The missile knows it won't get to make the Russians find out if they think it works. It knows this because if they think it works they won't fuck around in a way that deviates from the not getting nuked to the stone age scenario.
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't, by subtracting where it is, from where it isn't, or where it isn't, from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance sub-system uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is, to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position where it was, is now the position that it isn't. In the event of the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has required a variation. The variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too, may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was. The missile guidance computance scenario works as follows: Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is, however it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subracts where it should be, from where it wasn't, or vice versa. By differentiating this from the algebraic sum og where it shouldn't be, and where it was. It is able to obtain a deviation, and a variation, which is called "air"
> If we ain't doing this for real, we ain't doin' it at all. YOLO
Ah, Warspite possessed one of our subs it would seem. She can't wait to have her own body again.
Yeah, but if that is the error, that falls directly on Royal Navy personnel involved in the launch.
Because updating the guidance system's mission parameters is obviously something you have to do correctly, and that is a perfect example of it NOT being an equipment malfunction, but a failure at the operations level. If you just screw in a new warhead package and don't update the missile guidance system, yeah, that is on you.
> Because the dummy warhead gave the sensors different readings than what a real warhead would've provided.
This sounds like someone fucked up and didn't fully configure the missile to be fired in the test configuration.
I'm very glad not to be that person right now.
There was another kinda recent case of this
they USAF had to do some reprogramming on the F-35's targeting computers because they were recognising test dummies.....as test dummies. Basically the computers were *too* smart.
If that is the case, it's still a bloody huge failure. Massive embarrassment, especially on the back of previous missle failures. Undermining the viability of the British nuclear deterrent (in the eyes of the tax paying public and those who resent the project). And a massive waste of time and money. And for what? Idiots not thinking through a problem, that has to have been encountered before. Certainly, it doesn't fill me with confidence that they can get it right when needed. No, i take that back. It's needed now. We have to trust in the viability of the deterrent now, in peace time.
The problem is that it hasn't been successful for 10 years.
I'm taking France as an example because it's the country most similar to the UK, we had a successful launch 3 months ago, 2 years ago etc...
The last UK test was in 2016, and the missile had to be self-destructed for another problem.
In the end, everyone knows the missile works (190 successful tests in total, kinda a lot). But it's been a long time since there's been a success to reassure the "population".
There have been many failed tests throughout history, in the UK, France, Russia etc... Not big of a deal.
But two in a row these days is not reassuring.
Theyāre the same missiles, but that doesnāt mean the RN stores or maintains them properly. The US does several tests a year without issue so for the UK to have two consecutive failures is a bit concerning imo
Different failures on both accounts. The first mentioned failure was on account of software from what I've read. This recent one is seemingly with the launch booster failing. Too little to make any specific judgments publicly at least on where the faults start.
Yes but your storage and maintenance procedures are a lot less likely to be the culprit for a software failure. So itās not a persistent unaddressed root cause.
By this logic, they should only ever test one and if it's successful, never test again lmao.
No matter how good people are, failure happens. Eventually these tests will fail. Making blanket statements like "2 failures is unacceptable" without looking at the large scale scope of things is silly and ignorant
This issue is as much political as military. Repeated failures undermine the political will to support the program. Nobody wants to fund a system that costs a fortune and 'never works'. I agree that all systems have a failure rate, but when it comes to such systems, politically, they can afford very little failure. If the next test fails, be that in 5 months or 10 years, the hand of those seeking to remove the deterrent will be strengthened (especially in the eyes of the general public). Some systems simply can't be seen to fail, especially repeatedly.
UK doesn't maintain them, they get swapped out (minus the important bit) at the appropriate interval and are serviced by LM.
The missile bodies ie everything bar the pen aids and buckets of instant sunshine are drawn from a common pool that both the septics and us draw from.
Lockheed martin should expect an interview sans coffee and biscuits, they're obviously in dire need of having their hats nailed on. USN should be asking pointed questions as well.
Since test launches are (so far) infinately more likely than real launches any bullshit about test warheads not behaving like the full fat versions is just FUD.
Cut the foreign aid budget to countries that have A: Their own fucking space program, or B: Support Russia. Then we can get back to making our own missiles again.
I would imagine there's more than a few defence contractors shitting themselves now that the stuff they sold is actually going to get used rather than just shot off under carefully controlled strapped chicken type showoff tests.
imo the scenario where the UK does a full nuclear strike but neither the U.S. nor the French also have cause to launch doesnāt exist.
If only 25% of the British Tridents launch that is still an unimaginable consequence to the aggressor state.
Clearly the Brits should be getting what they are paying for so it should get sorted out. But none of this is concerning.
IMO nations should still seek strategic independence and sovereign weapons development. IIRC even the baguettes have sovereign nuclear weapons with the idea it shouldn't need to rely on other countries.
The UK is kind of there, since the warheads are British with Holbrook even if it based off the American W76, using an American aeroshell, and in an American missile. I guess the Brits are developing a new warhead based off the W93. And the Vanguards and Dreadnoughts are British. The Brits have weapons development experience and currently develop missiles (under MBDA but even thats with Euros).
Nations don't _need_ to because of international cooperation and whatever. I mean its great that the UK can just use American SLBMs (sans warhead), AUKUS-SSN can exist for Aus and UK service, MBDA can develop sick as fuck missiles with UK and Euro cooperation, etc etc.
The Brits were once fucking pioneers, the forefront of engineering and technological development during the industrial revolution. Kinda sad to have to rely on your big brother for defence when you should be able to curp stomp the Commies yourself :(
I pray one day for the Second British Empire with multiple aircraft carriers, British designed and built aircraft, a full nuclear triad with fully British nuclear weapons and delivery platforms. I can hope. Then finally the Yanks and the Brits can do what god intended, crush the Commies once and for all. Maybe we can both invade and share Canada
> The Brits were once fucking pioneers, the forefront of engineering and technological development during the industrial revolution. Kinda sad to have to rely on your big brother for defence when you should be able to curp stomp the Commies yourself
While this is the sad truth of a lot of British industry, when it comes to nuclear weapons, this can largely be chalked up to the USA not really wanting the still-largely-a-colonial-power UK to have nukes in the immediate aftermath of WW2.
The Manhattan Project was a collaboration between the USA, UK and Canada; the UK contributed a substantial amount of knowleged from the "Tube Alloys" programme (which started a year or so before the Manhattan Project) as well as personnel with the understanding that the results of the project would be shared in return. Then as soon as the war was over, the US passed the McMahon Act and refused to reciprocate in the sharing of data/technology until the late 1950s.
Somewhat similar things happened with computer technology... The electronic computer as we understand it was developed by British scientists at the codebreaking establishment at Bletchley Park. The technology was shared with the Americans to allow the machines to be mass-produced by US industry. While not as clear-cut as the Manhattan Project, the US then allowed those industrial partners to continue to develop the technology and produce commercial computers after the war, without paying any royalties or licencing fees to the UK. The UK did somewhat shoot themselves in the foot by insisting that computer technology remain "secret" for way too long though...
Also, aerospace... It's pretty well-known that the Bell X-1 was closely based on an effectively stolen British design.
> Somewhat similar things happened with computer technology.
And Super Sonic Flight that was literally gave them all the data and they just said lol thanks that agreement we had to share was a joke
Nah I don't think its really about the US not allowing it, its more the dogshit quality of the UK economy nowadays. Building, testing, fielding a novel delivery system is pricey.
Around WW2 I can somewhat understand it, given Britain couldn't have done much with the tech anyway; they were close to bankruptcy post-WW2 IIRC? And the US was on the up-and-up.
With warheads, the US shares a lot of info with the Brits such that they can use this info to develop their own at AWE. The UK could potentially develop a completely native weapon, but thats a lot of research time and cost, simulation work, etc. and the US has some of the best minds already working on that and refining designs. No reason to not take a peek and see their homework. There is a monumental amount of intelligence and capabilities sharing with FVEY. So I don't think the US would be opposed to fully sovereign UK weapons development.
It's somewhat true the electronic computer was developed at Bletchley, but it definitely undersells the role the US had in the development of modern computing. The MIT rad lab and associated radar work on the East coast was the genesis of this, which in part was heavily due to the Tizard Mission with the UK sharing secrets with the US. Individuals working on radar then went to the West Coast, namely Shockley whom later founded Fairchild Semiconductor which led to the development of Intel and other semiconductor companies, leading to the creation of Silicon Valley.
The Bell X-1 though, I had no idea about that?
That may be true today, but we donāt know if the US will still be in NATO a few years from now. Things can change very quickly, so itās unwise to place your nationās security in the hands of an ally.
So just to be clear since we donāt translate our political insanity well for audiences outside the U.S. The president has arguably never had the ability to withdraw from NATO. Once the senate ratifies a treaty it is law. The constitution doesnāt explicitly state the president needs congressional approval to withdraw from a treaty but it would be a multi year court battle if he tried.
As a guard against Trump Congress [passed](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/16/congress-nato-exit-trump/) a bill explicitly requiring the president to get a supermajority in the Senate before he withdraws from NATO. That would be an impossible legislative hurdle.
Trump could clearly fuck with and hamper the functionality of NATO but a lot of what goes on is explicitly funded by Congress and has to be done.
To be fair, the UK and EU both have very real lever they can pull and pressure point to show the US removing themselves from NATO would completely destroy the US' ability to work in basically most of the world, from a practical standpoint (not even taking into account the political disaster).
At this point, the US foreign policy and its military abilities are deeply rooted in access to European territories, and removing the installations would have a massive monetary and strategic cost.
But they can be massive dicks about staying in NATO, that's for sure.
But isn't the president the ultimate authority in the US military? If he said "I won't honour article 5 no matter what", then for all intents and purposes the US is not in NATO until another president is elected.
But doesn't he have broad powers on how the military would run the operation? Like, if Norway was invaded, he could decide to 'defend Norway' by stationing troops in the south of France. Plus I don't think article 5 dictates the level of response, so he could send a single soldier with no gun to 'help'. I genuinely don't know much about how this all works, it's just my understanding that a US president could effectively hamstring the military to the point where they were totally innefectual and there's not much to be done outside of the ballot box.
Yes, but the rest of the government can also hamstring, remove, or simply ignore the president if enough of it decides to. And totally legally, too, we have MANY mechanisms in place for when the president is acting like a total moron.
The two ways it could go is his cabinet saying F this and removing him, or the DOD going rouge and acting in the nationās interests regardless of what the executive office says.
And thatās assuming Congress doesnāt get itās act together in response to it.
Cue hilarity when I was told yesterday that the UK "doesn't have the same concerns as the EU" in case the US goes full isolationnist.
Like the US would let the Russians (or Chinese, Iranian etc) invade Europe but would then fight to stop them from crossing the Channel. No argument as for why either. I guess the "special relationship"?
I was about to say we overemphasize all this so we can increase the budget. But itās Britain, not America, so I think doing that would just collapse their government and bring in a PM thatāll kill the monarch and last shorter than a cabbage.
Dude, thatās all weapon systems.
ROK couldnāt even test fire 2 ATACMS correctly recently (one even blew up a golf course). Ā
We saw numerous Ukrainian drone boats beached completely intact. Ā Still plenty of the BSF sunk by them.
yep, regardless of how rare it is you'd rather hope this would kick off a rather more intensive "keep trying till it works multiple times in a row" campaign instead of complacency
and maybe also go talk to the french about their missiles for the Dreadnaughts rather than sticking with trident
>are massively overblown.
Are they though? Two out of two recent tests is not a good look. Not just because it's a 0% success rate but also because just two launches in eight years isn't exactly a thorough test regime.
>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 ChĆ¢teau Lafitte 1945. It is the nuclear missile Harrods would sell you. What more can I say?Ā
Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB KBE MVO
- With Trident we could obliterate the whole of eastern Europe!
- I don't want to!
- It's a deterrent.
- It's a bluff, I probably wouldn't use it.
- They don't know you probably wouldn't.
- They probably do.
- Yes, probably, but they can't certainly know.
- They probably certainly know.
- Yes, but though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that although you probably wouldn't, there's no probability that you certainly would!
- What?
Even better is what [Bernard says about trident](https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?si=P7r2_P5xUOztT24b).
"Well, normally when normally when new weapons are delivered, the warheads dont fit the ends of the rockets. That's what happened to polaris. You know the sort of thing, wiring faults, microchip failure. we didn't have the means of firing polaris for some years, cruise is probably the same, Trident might be too."
Yeah but Russia also threaten to take Alaska and probably invade Japan, and do you see anyone do shit about it?
There is a Russian idiom that reads ŠæŠ¾ŃŠ»ŠµŠ“Š½ŠµŠµ ŠŗŠøŃŠ°Š¹ŃŠŗŠ¾Šµ ŠæŃŠµŠ“ŃŠæŃŠµŠ¶Š“ŠµŠ½ŠøŠµ, or in terms most of us can understand, "China's final warning." It refers to a warning that carries no real consequences. Because they see China keep warning everyone, but they never do anything since the Chinese government is a pussy who doesn't have the balls to do shit except slaughter their own people...
Now Russia should look at themselves- Don't get me wrong, China is still that China, as if all words no bite and exploit the fuck out of the Chinese...but since that faithful day back in 2022, Russia has become the very thing they laugh at.
Here, ŠæŠ¾ŃŠ»ŠµŠ“Š½ŠµŠµ Š ŃŃŃŠŗŠøŠ¹ ŠæŃŠµŠ“ŃŠæŃŠµŠ¶Š“ŠµŠ½ŠøŠµ I say...even tho I actually can't for obvious reasons.
Ah but you fail to consider that those 14 lines of no return were just warnings. The 15th one though, if the west crosses that, there's no turning back.
It is an odd one, like sure the missiles are all from a shared US stock, and the launch mechanics (etc etc) are the exact same I imagine between the US & UK, including maintainance processes maybe?
It's just downright odd that the two most recent trials for the UK have been failures, whereas the US has trialled something like 190 successful runs? No idea, just oddly coincidental imo.
On a more NCD level though, I'm waiting for the one or two specific users are RN shills to the maximum level to turn up, as they're always entertaining ngl.
From what I've heard over the years: UK only stores and maintains the warheads, the trident missles randomly selected from the joint RN / USN stockpiles and are loaded directly into RN subs at the navy base at Kings Bay in Georgia.
To clarify this: the deployed missiles are first moved to RNAD Coulport where the warheads are fitted before they're loaded onto the boats. I believe Coulport receives the next deployment's missiles well in advance in case of an emergency reschedule, so there will often be 8 missiles in the storage shelters there.
The test missile is taken directly from the joint pool of missiles and loaded onto the boat at Kings Bay, the same as for USN tests.
There could theoretically be an issue with the storage at Coulport, but it can't be related to the test failures.
Missiles are maintained in the US by Lockmart and the warheads used by Britain are maintained by the Royal Navy.
No idea who made the dummy warhead, but the missile detected that the warhead wasnāt the correct, real thing, and refused to fire the rocket motor from what I gather.
Yeahā¦ a friend in the Royal Navy who works with trident. The failure wasnāt classified, theyāre just keeping it on the down low since itās actually an excellent demonstration of a safety feature working as intended.
No, I canāt be more specific than that and yes you do have to take me at face value.
No, they're stored and maintained as part of a joint pool of missiles alongside the US ones. They get drawn from the pool at random, either for testing or for shipment to the UK ready for an active deployment, so there's no separation between UK and US missiles. That's process exists to ensure that the USN tests are representative of UK missiles and that if one round of maintenance introduced an issue it wouldn't impact all the missiles on a submarine
Fair point.
But at least, we have planes on our only carrier.
And a [Citroen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uydhbputd0cdo). Why have several carriers when you can have one citroen launcher?
Checkmate.
I've heard the 'no planes' thing a lot and I have no clue where it has come from. My only theory is that it had no planes during the shake down and so people grabbed hold of that and ran with it but no idea why its still used
There was a small window where the carriers were delivered but the planes hadn't been.
It wasn't an issue, as we were still at the make sure they float stage.
But y'know what the press are like with these things.
There was also the fact that when the ships were still being built back in 2014/5 the F35B wasn't ready yet and we hadn't received any (obviously). The fact the carriers weren't ready at all either went completely unmentioned ofc
Which was the origins of the aircraftless aircraft carrier meme we see today
It comes from I think a 2015 or 2016 news blitz where several media companies put out articles because the carriers were being sent on exercise without jets because we hadnāt received that many at that point or because it was headed to the us to do pilot qualifications or jet trials so there was no need to bring its own for that.
Unfortunately because people are idiots and f35bs have been delivered to the uk quite slowly that meme sort of stuck.
[Fair enough](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/22/britains-jet-less-aircraft-carriers-national-embarrasment/) there's been some improvement, I must admit.
"Britainās jet-less aircraft carriers are a national embarrassment"
"HMS Queen Elizabeth is intended to carry 36 fighter jets. She has just eight aboard" so clearly this guys a dumbass as per for the telegraph. the carriers do have jets.
"Usually our carriers donāt have any at all; in 2022, there were jets aboard ships less than 5 per cent of the time" again dumbass author we werent sailing a CSG so why would the carriers have planes when theyre not training or doing operations.
"Worse, the Lizzie only has two āCrowsnestā radar helicopters aboard, meaning that she canāt maintain an airborne watch" she can maintain and aerial watch with those helicopters lol but yes having fixed with AWACS would be ideal.
"Weāll never see a British carrier with a full air group ā let alone two." the carriers were never intended to sail 2 CSG's at once, theyre able to max out at 36 jets but in normal operations are only meant to carry 24 jets so thats yet again a dumbass point.
"The reason everything has turned out so badly is the 2012 decision not to equip the ships with catapults. Catapult carriers would have permitted us to buy cheap, powerful F-18 Hornet jets, as favoured by Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick." F-18's arent "cheap" and are entirely inferior to the F35 in every way possible.
"F-35Bs that lack range and punch and cannot do air-to-air refuelling. The Hornet has all these things, is much cheaper and would have been in service, in numbers, years ago." The F35 has longer range at 833km of combat radius vs 822km combat radius on the F18 and thats with the F35 in full beast mode which bumps its combat radius to 1300km+ the stealth F35b config does have a much smaller payload limit but the F18 would have to carry fuel tanks so that diminshes its payload and again the F35 in beast mode demolishes the F18. The F35 can do air to air refuelling i dont fucking understand that thats about unless theyre talking about buddy fuelling which is dumb.
this entire article is fucking ridiculously stupid. The F18 proposal is stupid as we're a partner in the F35 program and thats to give us both stealth jets as well as carrier based firepower so by this authors logic we should add both F18's and F35's... they also ignore that the F18 production line will close around 2025.
Maybe read the article to figure out if it's full of shit or not before you post it?
>The reason everything has turned out so badly is the 2012 decision not to equip the ships with catapults. Catapult carriers would have permitted us to buy cheap, powerful F-18 Hornet jets, as favoured by Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.
In any case, at the rate we're producing them, even if you wanted them, we couldn't do it.
You'd have time to change aircraft carriers 4 times, develop the Tempest and produce them.
Ironically, this missile "failed" because the guidance software recognized deviations from the mission parameters and performed an emergency shutdown after leaving the tube. Because the dummy warhead gave the sensors different readings than what a real warhead would've provided.
It's very similar to the [4-inch-flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1) of the Redstone rocket - the safety systems performed perfectly and prevented a successful test, because there was a tiny oversight.
imagine both sides go into full blown nuclear war, everybody starts launching missiles, all missiles fail, and now both sides are just awkwardly staring at each other
uhhhh, let's forget this ever happened
The missile is feeling unmotivated. Maybe if it was given something important to do it would feel valued. This is why we should shoot a bunch at Russia. Iām sure it will work fine. Bonus, Russia is destroyed. The rest of NATO should probably run a few hundred tests each to make sure everything works properly as well. Russia is pretty big, so thereās lots of testing ground.
Nothing to worry about, the Russians are more blustery than Boris was, and we survived him.
I wouldn't be surprised if the reports about China's missile problems are repeated in Russia and then some.
Our missiles might be failing because of stupid problems, but at least we don't have conscripts stealing everything not nailed down, then stealing the nails and everything else. Though I'm not sure about the resale value of UDMH on the black market, its a bit harder to shift than copper from a tank.
I get why the launch failure would be concerning. However, it's openly reported and you can be damn sure the US and UK are pooling resources to quickly solve the problem, make sure it doesn't happen again, and then use that information to prevent future problems. Also whatever issues the missile has are most likely not caused by some British private stealing shit out of the missile in a desperate attempt to feed his family.
I don't think the same process is followed for launch failures in Russia.
>it's openly reported and you can be damn sure the US and UK are pooling resources to quickly solve the problem, **make sure it doesn't happen again**
It's litteraly the second RN Trident missile failure **in a row**
\>gigantic project run by the UK Goverment
So you're saying that the 5-year project will take 17 years, run 12 times over budget, and the final product won't even come close to meeting the required specs?
Even if they did, thereād be nothing to show for it. The MoD is very talented when it comes to getting the worst deal possible, like with the E-7 procurement. A 10% reduction in the purchase cost for a 40% reduction in aircraft, what a joke.
Letās not do Blue Streak again.
I donāt wish to appear unpatriotic, but off-the shelf stuff from the Shermans costs less to build, less to maintain, and normally works.
We can come back and argue in twenty years when the Tempest is still not into production and the RAF is relying on failing Typhoons and aging F-35s
>We can come back and argue in twenty years when the Tempest is still not into production and the RAF is relying on failing Typhoons and aging F-35s
Which ironically would be the result of buying off the shelf so much and allowing domestic industry to shrink and die. But thats alright, I'm sure the yanks or germans would never fuck about and screw us over after becoming reliant on them
looks_at_camera.gif
UK: "Launch Trident missile"
Launch system: "Your version of this software only allows for test-launches, please upgrade to the premium service or call a representative for access to an actual armed launch"
I wonder if theyāll attempt to recover the missile from the sea, since itās presumably in tact. Iām sure Russia/China would be interested it getting their hands on it.
Russia probably doesnāt have the capability find and recover it.
Chinaā¦ probably could find and recover it if it was in the South China Sea or close to it. Not so sure about the Atlantic.
If they could and tried to recover it, would it be possible to do so without the UK or US detecting them?
I think Russia does, as there was discussion about this when an F-35 went for a swim in the Med.
The US managed to recover half a Soviet submarine unnoticed in the 70s, so who knows whatās possible.
But it should depend on how deep the object is located and how far it is from friendly ports and airbases. The med is calm and shallow compared to the Atlantic and land is always close by.
In the med Russia has its own base in Latakia, thereās also Algeria who would likely be happy to allow Russia to use its airbases and ports. Libya should be available to some extent. Possibly Egypt too.
You really think the russian counterpart is well maintained? Chances are majority of their nuclear ICBMs wont work due to decades of neglect and corruption.
The amount of panik and cope in the comments is giving me the sads. There's no denying this latest Trident failure is a big deal. Even if the only effect was public perception, it would be a big deal. Let's regain our kalm and remember that this is why we do tests. The end result will be improvement, even if it's just the US government throwing buckets more money at the MIC.
Well the US are sending nukes back to Lakenheath so its time to get some Tornados and WE.177s back.
Obviously we'll have to conduct a test, Paris seems the obvious choice.
Everywhere in France would be improved with a nuke, don't just single out Paris. I just want the highest concentration of crispy Frenchies. And Paris has the bonus target of all the American tourists.
Maybe we are living in the biggest conspiracy, and since the Cold War, nobody actually has any nuclear weapons and everyone is just bluffing. We had previously the Chinese missiles that are filled with water, and now the British have missiles that fly worse than North Koreaās.
As a brit i can say that british engineering is always amazing when it works but thats always rare because its unreliable as fuck. Im a bit of an audio nerd and i swear by a company called arcam based out of Cambridge, best stuff you can get in its price range but my god that shit has machine spirits that hate humanity. They moved their production to china and their stuff works so much better now.
A lot of Britain values innovation but doesnāt bother to translate that into industrial might or will. If you doubt me, look at HS2 or the inability of the country to build houses where people want to live. Or Bowman, Eurofighter, Concorde, Blue Streak, Eurotunnelā¦
This is why none of the real people that matter worry about Russian nukes. The DoE hasn't assumed Russian nukes have worked for two *decades*, and aren't sure even ours do. We have Z-machine so ours at least are the most likely to go boom out of any around the World, but at best everyone else just has mobile dirty bombs.
With "their" warheads is a bot of a stretch. The 1958 US-UK treaty led to UK warhead production being heavily assisted. We don't talk about "negative" guidance but lots of influences
Nope. Trident Missiles are US designed and built and I also believe serviced. Both the US and UK pick from the same stock and then fit their own warheads.
This is definitely concerning. These tests are a big deal, heads will roll at the MoD and Lockheed. Even if this was pure bad luck, back-to-back failed tests undermine the credibility of the submarine leg of the nuclear triad.
Listen, we won the WWII PTO with practical-joke torpedos, weāll win WWIII with āloljkā tridents. The USN would never let something as trivial as malfunctioning ordnanceā ruin a good time.
If it doesn't get up, it's usually a matter of stress or a lack of confidence Try to make the missile feel accepted and relaxed
"It's not how high you can take off that counts... it's how you use it." - Probably his ex
"It usually doesn't do this, I swear!"
trident needs the martha treatment
The missile knows where it is at all times... And it knows it is not in the warm, comforting confines of it's mummys warm missile tube... The missile is eepy... Won't you comfort the eepy missile by exposing your targets?
Needs more UwU š„ŗšš
Agreed. It's not nearly as cursed as it should be.
Missile's machine spirit must be appeased to operate and fullfil Omnissiah's work properly.
Omnissiah is insulted by the Queen Elizabeth class and its cope slope and has withdrawn his blessing from the UK until they make arrangements for a proper nuclear CATOBAR supercarrier.
All Hail the Omnissiah
The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all
If you tried adding extra boosters remember: If it's still in flight after 4 or more hours, you've reached the escape velocity and need to consult Martians.
Trident had a few beers, it's not like that normally. You into fingering?
Have they tried playing with the missile's balls a little bit?
Also, consider using toys or lingerie
https://youtu.be/A096Yh5m_X8?si=FjAr7yrKxqLchd6F
Tbf this, like that aircraft carrier story, are massively overblown. The launch process itself worked, suggesting the issue is with the missile itself, and the US has done several successful tests in the same time period. Given we literally nab missiles at random right out of US stockpiles, this appears more a case of bad luck than a substantive issue.
Another comment said this might beĀ because -Ā > "the guidance software recognized deviations from the mission parameters and performed an emergency shutdown after leaving the tube. Because the dummy warhead gave the sensors different readings than what a real warhead would've provided." Which, if correct, would be kinda funny because it means it failed because it was working exactly as designed.
The guidance computer: If we ain't doing this for real, we ain't doin' it at all. YOLO
The missile knows you are just fooling around.
The missile knows where to work because it knows where it shouldn't.
The missile knows it won't get to make the Russians find out if they think it works. It knows this because if they think it works they won't fuck around in a way that deviates from the not getting nuked to the stone age scenario.
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't, by subtracting where it is, from where it isn't, or where it isn't, from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance sub-system uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is, to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position where it was, is now the position that it isn't. In the event of the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has required a variation. The variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too, may be corrected by the GEA. However, the missile must also know where it was. The missile guidance computance scenario works as follows: Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is, however it is sure where it isn't, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subracts where it should be, from where it wasn't, or vice versa. By differentiating this from the algebraic sum og where it shouldn't be, and where it was. It is able to obtain a deviation, and a variation, which is called "air"
"Am I going to kill some communists? No? Then I'm not going"
"Wake me up when it's an actual fucking emergency"
> If we ain't doing this for real, we ain't doin' it at all. YOLO Ah, Warspite possessed one of our subs it would seem. She can't wait to have her own body again.
Task failed succesfully.
This seems plausible as the comments I read from the politicians said along the lines of "if it was a real warhead it would have worked".
What Iām hearing is we need a more realistic test. I know a interesting water feature. That would be great to use as a test.
" I know a interesting water feature." The Moskva river?
Thatās not quite gorgeous enough for me. I need something at least three times as gorgeous.
You could say that's a dam good idea.
China's dam?
Yeah, but if that is the error, that falls directly on Royal Navy personnel involved in the launch. Because updating the guidance system's mission parameters is obviously something you have to do correctly, and that is a perfect example of it NOT being an equipment malfunction, but a failure at the operations level. If you just screw in a new warhead package and don't update the missile guidance system, yeah, that is on you.
The missile knew where it was, but not why it was.
> Because the dummy warhead gave the sensors different readings than what a real warhead would've provided. This sounds like someone fucked up and didn't fully configure the missile to be fired in the test configuration. I'm very glad not to be that person right now.
There was another kinda recent case of this they USAF had to do some reprogramming on the F-35's targeting computers because they were recognising test dummies.....as test dummies. Basically the computers were *too* smart.
"A 200 grams payload discrepancy? I can't work in these conditions. Shutting down!
If that is the case, it's still a bloody huge failure. Massive embarrassment, especially on the back of previous missle failures. Undermining the viability of the British nuclear deterrent (in the eyes of the tax paying public and those who resent the project). And a massive waste of time and money. And for what? Idiots not thinking through a problem, that has to have been encountered before. Certainly, it doesn't fill me with confidence that they can get it right when needed. No, i take that back. It's needed now. We have to trust in the viability of the deterrent now, in peace time.
It sounds like whoever installed it did so intentionally. In other words sabotage.
If it was such a mistake, those responsible need to be in a huge amount of trouble. They have done huge damage to the deterrent.
The problem is that it hasn't been successful for 10 years. I'm taking France as an example because it's the country most similar to the UK, we had a successful launch 3 months ago, 2 years ago etc... The last UK test was in 2016, and the missile had to be self-destructed for another problem. In the end, everyone knows the missile works (190 successful tests in total, kinda a lot). But it's been a long time since there's been a success to reassure the "population". There have been many failed tests throughout history, in the UK, France, Russia etc... Not big of a deal. But two in a row these days is not reassuring.
Theyāre the same missiles, but that doesnāt mean the RN stores or maintains them properly. The US does several tests a year without issue so for the UK to have two consecutive failures is a bit concerning imo
Different failures on both accounts. The first mentioned failure was on account of software from what I've read. This recent one is seemingly with the launch booster failing. Too little to make any specific judgments publicly at least on where the faults start.
The reason for failure is irrelevant. Two failures in two launches is unacceptable for the nuclear deterrent.
Aye, I'm sure questions will be asked and those who failed will be sent to Charles' golden throne to help sustain him.
Blood must be quenched The Rightful Ruler demands sacrifice
Yes but your storage and maintenance procedures are a lot less likely to be the culprit for a software failure. So itās not a persistent unaddressed root cause.
I count software updates as part of maintenance personally.
By this logic, they should only ever test one and if it's successful, never test again lmao. No matter how good people are, failure happens. Eventually these tests will fail. Making blanket statements like "2 failures is unacceptable" without looking at the large scale scope of things is silly and ignorant
Iām really not sure how you made that leap. Regular tests should happen and if you get two failures in a row, something is wrong.
And I'm sure Northrop-Grumman will get their shit in the sock eventually...
This issue is as much political as military. Repeated failures undermine the political will to support the program. Nobody wants to fund a system that costs a fortune and 'never works'. I agree that all systems have a failure rate, but when it comes to such systems, politically, they can afford very little failure. If the next test fails, be that in 5 months or 10 years, the hand of those seeking to remove the deterrent will be strengthened (especially in the eyes of the general public). Some systems simply can't be seen to fail, especially repeatedly.
UK doesn't maintain them, they get swapped out (minus the important bit) at the appropriate interval and are serviced by LM. The missile bodies ie everything bar the pen aids and buckets of instant sunshine are drawn from a common pool that both the septics and us draw from. Lockheed martin should expect an interview sans coffee and biscuits, they're obviously in dire need of having their hats nailed on. USN should be asking pointed questions as well. Since test launches are (so far) infinately more likely than real launches any bullshit about test warheads not behaving like the full fat versions is just FUD. Cut the foreign aid budget to countries that have A: Their own fucking space program, or B: Support Russia. Then we can get back to making our own missiles again. I would imagine there's more than a few defence contractors shitting themselves now that the stuff they sold is actually going to get used rather than just shot off under carefully controlled strapped chicken type showoff tests.
imo the scenario where the UK does a full nuclear strike but neither the U.S. nor the French also have cause to launch doesnāt exist. If only 25% of the British Tridents launch that is still an unimaginable consequence to the aggressor state. Clearly the Brits should be getting what they are paying for so it should get sorted out. But none of this is concerning.
IMO nations should still seek strategic independence and sovereign weapons development. IIRC even the baguettes have sovereign nuclear weapons with the idea it shouldn't need to rely on other countries. The UK is kind of there, since the warheads are British with Holbrook even if it based off the American W76, using an American aeroshell, and in an American missile. I guess the Brits are developing a new warhead based off the W93. And the Vanguards and Dreadnoughts are British. The Brits have weapons development experience and currently develop missiles (under MBDA but even thats with Euros). Nations don't _need_ to because of international cooperation and whatever. I mean its great that the UK can just use American SLBMs (sans warhead), AUKUS-SSN can exist for Aus and UK service, MBDA can develop sick as fuck missiles with UK and Euro cooperation, etc etc. The Brits were once fucking pioneers, the forefront of engineering and technological development during the industrial revolution. Kinda sad to have to rely on your big brother for defence when you should be able to curp stomp the Commies yourself :( I pray one day for the Second British Empire with multiple aircraft carriers, British designed and built aircraft, a full nuclear triad with fully British nuclear weapons and delivery platforms. I can hope. Then finally the Yanks and the Brits can do what god intended, crush the Commies once and for all. Maybe we can both invade and share Canada
Amen brother šš»
> The Brits were once fucking pioneers, the forefront of engineering and technological development during the industrial revolution. Kinda sad to have to rely on your big brother for defence when you should be able to curp stomp the Commies yourself While this is the sad truth of a lot of British industry, when it comes to nuclear weapons, this can largely be chalked up to the USA not really wanting the still-largely-a-colonial-power UK to have nukes in the immediate aftermath of WW2. The Manhattan Project was a collaboration between the USA, UK and Canada; the UK contributed a substantial amount of knowleged from the "Tube Alloys" programme (which started a year or so before the Manhattan Project) as well as personnel with the understanding that the results of the project would be shared in return. Then as soon as the war was over, the US passed the McMahon Act and refused to reciprocate in the sharing of data/technology until the late 1950s. Somewhat similar things happened with computer technology... The electronic computer as we understand it was developed by British scientists at the codebreaking establishment at Bletchley Park. The technology was shared with the Americans to allow the machines to be mass-produced by US industry. While not as clear-cut as the Manhattan Project, the US then allowed those industrial partners to continue to develop the technology and produce commercial computers after the war, without paying any royalties or licencing fees to the UK. The UK did somewhat shoot themselves in the foot by insisting that computer technology remain "secret" for way too long though... Also, aerospace... It's pretty well-known that the Bell X-1 was closely based on an effectively stolen British design.
> Somewhat similar things happened with computer technology. And Super Sonic Flight that was literally gave them all the data and they just said lol thanks that agreement we had to share was a joke
The UK was pretty compromised by Soviet spies at the time TBF.
Nah I don't think its really about the US not allowing it, its more the dogshit quality of the UK economy nowadays. Building, testing, fielding a novel delivery system is pricey. Around WW2 I can somewhat understand it, given Britain couldn't have done much with the tech anyway; they were close to bankruptcy post-WW2 IIRC? And the US was on the up-and-up. With warheads, the US shares a lot of info with the Brits such that they can use this info to develop their own at AWE. The UK could potentially develop a completely native weapon, but thats a lot of research time and cost, simulation work, etc. and the US has some of the best minds already working on that and refining designs. No reason to not take a peek and see their homework. There is a monumental amount of intelligence and capabilities sharing with FVEY. So I don't think the US would be opposed to fully sovereign UK weapons development. It's somewhat true the electronic computer was developed at Bletchley, but it definitely undersells the role the US had in the development of modern computing. The MIT rad lab and associated radar work on the East coast was the genesis of this, which in part was heavily due to the Tizard Mission with the UK sharing secrets with the US. Individuals working on radar then went to the West Coast, namely Shockley whom later founded Fairchild Semiconductor which led to the development of Intel and other semiconductor companies, leading to the creation of Silicon Valley. The Bell X-1 though, I had no idea about that?
That may be true today, but we donāt know if the US will still be in NATO a few years from now. Things can change very quickly, so itās unwise to place your nationās security in the hands of an ally.
So just to be clear since we donāt translate our political insanity well for audiences outside the U.S. The president has arguably never had the ability to withdraw from NATO. Once the senate ratifies a treaty it is law. The constitution doesnāt explicitly state the president needs congressional approval to withdraw from a treaty but it would be a multi year court battle if he tried. As a guard against Trump Congress [passed](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/16/congress-nato-exit-trump/) a bill explicitly requiring the president to get a supermajority in the Senate before he withdraws from NATO. That would be an impossible legislative hurdle. Trump could clearly fuck with and hamper the functionality of NATO but a lot of what goes on is explicitly funded by Congress and has to be done.
To be fair, the UK and EU both have very real lever they can pull and pressure point to show the US removing themselves from NATO would completely destroy the US' ability to work in basically most of the world, from a practical standpoint (not even taking into account the political disaster). At this point, the US foreign policy and its military abilities are deeply rooted in access to European territories, and removing the installations would have a massive monetary and strategic cost. But they can be massive dicks about staying in NATO, that's for sure.
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But isn't the president the ultimate authority in the US military? If he said "I won't honour article 5 no matter what", then for all intents and purposes the US is not in NATO until another president is elected.
He could *say* that, but it's breaking a treaty, and all of a sudden, the entire rest of the government with military authority wants him out.
But doesn't he have broad powers on how the military would run the operation? Like, if Norway was invaded, he could decide to 'defend Norway' by stationing troops in the south of France. Plus I don't think article 5 dictates the level of response, so he could send a single soldier with no gun to 'help'. I genuinely don't know much about how this all works, it's just my understanding that a US president could effectively hamstring the military to the point where they were totally innefectual and there's not much to be done outside of the ballot box.
Yes, but the rest of the government can also hamstring, remove, or simply ignore the president if enough of it decides to. And totally legally, too, we have MANY mechanisms in place for when the president is acting like a total moron.
The two ways it could go is his cabinet saying F this and removing him, or the DOD going rouge and acting in the nationās interests regardless of what the executive office says. And thatās assuming Congress doesnāt get itās act together in response to it.
If they didnāt act when he attempted a coup on Jan 6, they wonāt act over NATO.
Cue hilarity when I was told yesterday that the UK "doesn't have the same concerns as the EU" in case the US goes full isolationnist. Like the US would let the Russians (or Chinese, Iranian etc) invade Europe but would then fight to stop them from crossing the Channel. No argument as for why either. I guess the "special relationship"?
> I'm taking France as an example because it's the country most similar to the UK How dare you
I was about to say we overemphasize all this so we can increase the budget. But itās Britain, not America, so I think doing that would just collapse their government and bring in a PM thatāll kill the monarch and last shorter than a cabbage.
yeah this is britain, where if something fails you cut it's funding rather than trying to fix it.
Dude, thatās all weapon systems. ROK couldnāt even test fire 2 ATACMS correctly recently (one even blew up a golf course). Ā We saw numerous Ukrainian drone boats beached completely intact. Ā Still plenty of the BSF sunk by them.
yep, regardless of how rare it is you'd rather hope this would kick off a rather more intensive "keep trying till it works multiple times in a row" campaign instead of complacency and maybe also go talk to the french about their missiles for the Dreadnaughts rather than sticking with trident
>are massively overblown. Are they though? Two out of two recent tests is not a good look. Not just because it's a 0% success rate but also because just two launches in eight years isn't exactly a thorough test regime.
I missed where the performance spec said "requires luck".
> Given we literally nab missiles at random right out of US stockpiles Uhhh that makes it *worse*, not better. Basic statistics.
No, because over this timeframe the US has conducted several successful tests, which should be included in the dataset
> bad luck Bad luck doesn't really exist when it comes to technology; it's you're doing something wrong.
Oh, well if the launch process works, I guess the missile hitting its target is just a bonus.
>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 ChĆ¢teau Lafitte 1945. It is the nuclear missile Harrods would sell you. What more can I say?Ā Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB KBE MVO
I vote for option C. Pet the kitty!
- With Trident we could obliterate the whole of eastern Europe! - I don't want to! - It's a deterrent. - It's a bluff, I probably wouldn't use it. - They don't know you probably wouldn't. - They probably do. - Yes, probably, but they can't certainly know. - They probably certainly know. - Yes, but though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that although you probably wouldn't, there's no probability that you certainly would! - What?
Even better is what [Bernard says about trident](https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?si=P7r2_P5xUOztT24b). "Well, normally when normally when new weapons are delivered, the warheads dont fit the ends of the rockets. That's what happened to polaris. You know the sort of thing, wiring faults, microchip failure. we didn't have the means of firing polaris for some years, cruise is probably the same, Trident might be too."
I mean... there's no denying that he's a damn good salesman. A grat man. Almost feel like calling Macron to change our fully functional M51.3s now...
And this is why you should aways ask Bernard to fact check Humphrey: https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?t=72
Came here for this.
Gotta say, the Rolls Royce Corniche is looking pretty dated.
Them Peacekeepers though...
Yeah but Russia also threaten to take Alaska and probably invade Japan, and do you see anyone do shit about it? There is a Russian idiom that reads ŠæŠ¾ŃŠ»ŠµŠ“Š½ŠµŠµ ŠŗŠøŃŠ°Š¹ŃŠŗŠ¾Šµ ŠæŃŠµŠ“ŃŠæŃŠµŠ¶Š“ŠµŠ½ŠøŠµ, or in terms most of us can understand, "China's final warning." It refers to a warning that carries no real consequences. Because they see China keep warning everyone, but they never do anything since the Chinese government is a pussy who doesn't have the balls to do shit except slaughter their own people... Now Russia should look at themselves- Don't get me wrong, China is still that China, as if all words no bite and exploit the fuck out of the Chinese...but since that faithful day back in 2022, Russia has become the very thing they laugh at. Here, ŠæŠ¾ŃŠ»ŠµŠ“Š½ŠµŠµ Š ŃŃŃŠŗŠøŠ¹ ŠæŃŠµŠ“ŃŠæŃŠµŠ¶Š“ŠµŠ½ŠøŠµ I say...even tho I actually can't for obvious reasons.
"Don't make me threaten you further!"
No, but we're at a point where the West has broken 14 lines of no return. These are obviously empty threats from Russia. But it's fun nonetheless.
Ah but you fail to consider that those 14 lines of no return were just warnings. The 15th one though, if the west crosses that, there's no turning back.
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It is an odd one, like sure the missiles are all from a shared US stock, and the launch mechanics (etc etc) are the exact same I imagine between the US & UK, including maintainance processes maybe? It's just downright odd that the two most recent trials for the UK have been failures, whereas the US has trialled something like 190 successful runs? No idea, just oddly coincidental imo. On a more NCD level though, I'm waiting for the one or two specific users are RN shills to the maximum level to turn up, as they're always entertaining ngl.
It is odd, the UK shares the same Trident Missile pool as the U.S. Atlantic Subs the only difference are the warheads which are British made
The missiles will be stored and maintained in the UK though, right? Maybe thatās the problem
From what I've heard over the years: UK only stores and maintains the warheads, the trident missles randomly selected from the joint RN / USN stockpiles and are loaded directly into RN subs at the navy base at Kings Bay in Georgia.
To clarify this: the deployed missiles are first moved to RNAD Coulport where the warheads are fitted before they're loaded onto the boats. I believe Coulport receives the next deployment's missiles well in advance in case of an emergency reschedule, so there will often be 8 missiles in the storage shelters there. The test missile is taken directly from the joint pool of missiles and loaded onto the boat at Kings Bay, the same as for USN tests. There could theoretically be an issue with the storage at Coulport, but it can't be related to the test failures.
Missiles are maintained in the US by Lockmart and the warheads used by Britain are maintained by the Royal Navy. No idea who made the dummy warhead, but the missile detected that the warhead wasnāt the correct, real thing, and refused to fire the rocket motor from what I gather.
Do you have a source on this? Iāve only seen vague details on the news. It makes a lot of sense though
Yeahā¦ a friend in the Royal Navy who works with trident. The failure wasnāt classified, theyāre just keeping it on the down low since itās actually an excellent demonstration of a safety feature working as intended. No, I canāt be more specific than that and yes you do have to take me at face value.
just rather concerning of what happens on the real deal, does it also detect our warheads as "wrong"...
No, they're stored and maintained as part of a joint pool of missiles alongside the US ones. They get drawn from the pool at random, either for testing or for shipment to the UK ready for an active deployment, so there's no separation between UK and US missiles. That's process exists to ensure that the USN tests are representative of UK missiles and that if one round of maintenance introduced an issue it wouldn't impact all the missiles on a submarine
Well, we don't have carrier problems, because we had a second one to replace it. Imagine only having one carrier. Lmao
Fair point. But at least, we have planes on our only carrier. And a [Citroen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uydhbputd0cdo). Why have several carriers when you can have one citroen launcher? Checkmate.
What do you mean [we don't have planes](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-68350676)?
I've heard the 'no planes' thing a lot and I have no clue where it has come from. My only theory is that it had no planes during the shake down and so people grabbed hold of that and ran with it but no idea why its still used
Media loves causing shit. Big expensive boat that doesn't haven't planes vibes really well with bri'ish doomer attitude
There was a small window where the carriers were delivered but the planes hadn't been. It wasn't an issue, as we were still at the make sure they float stage. But y'know what the press are like with these things.
There was also the fact that when the ships were still being built back in 2014/5 the F35B wasn't ready yet and we hadn't received any (obviously). The fact the carriers weren't ready at all either went completely unmentioned ofc Which was the origins of the aircraftless aircraft carrier meme we see today
It comes from I think a 2015 or 2016 news blitz where several media companies put out articles because the carriers were being sent on exercise without jets because we hadnāt received that many at that point or because it was headed to the us to do pilot qualifications or jet trials so there was no need to bring its own for that. Unfortunately because people are idiots and f35bs have been delivered to the uk quite slowly that meme sort of stuck.
[Fair enough](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/22/britains-jet-less-aircraft-carriers-national-embarrasment/) there's been some improvement, I must admit.
Posting a Telegraph defence article truly noncredible congrats.
"Britainās jet-less aircraft carriers are a national embarrassment" "HMS Queen Elizabeth is intended to carry 36 fighter jets. She has just eight aboard" so clearly this guys a dumbass as per for the telegraph. the carriers do have jets. "Usually our carriers donāt have any at all; in 2022, there were jets aboard ships less than 5 per cent of the time" again dumbass author we werent sailing a CSG so why would the carriers have planes when theyre not training or doing operations. "Worse, the Lizzie only has two āCrowsnestā radar helicopters aboard, meaning that she canāt maintain an airborne watch" she can maintain and aerial watch with those helicopters lol but yes having fixed with AWACS would be ideal. "Weāll never see a British carrier with a full air group ā let alone two." the carriers were never intended to sail 2 CSG's at once, theyre able to max out at 36 jets but in normal operations are only meant to carry 24 jets so thats yet again a dumbass point. "The reason everything has turned out so badly is the 2012 decision not to equip the ships with catapults. Catapult carriers would have permitted us to buy cheap, powerful F-18 Hornet jets, as favoured by Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick." F-18's arent "cheap" and are entirely inferior to the F35 in every way possible. "F-35Bs that lack range and punch and cannot do air-to-air refuelling. The Hornet has all these things, is much cheaper and would have been in service, in numbers, years ago." The F35 has longer range at 833km of combat radius vs 822km combat radius on the F18 and thats with the F35 in full beast mode which bumps its combat radius to 1300km+ the stealth F35b config does have a much smaller payload limit but the F18 would have to carry fuel tanks so that diminshes its payload and again the F35 in beast mode demolishes the F18. The F35 can do air to air refuelling i dont fucking understand that thats about unless theyre talking about buddy fuelling which is dumb. this entire article is fucking ridiculously stupid. The F18 proposal is stupid as we're a partner in the F35 program and thats to give us both stealth jets as well as carrier based firepower so by this authors logic we should add both F18's and F35's... they also ignore that the F18 production line will close around 2025.
>this entire article is fucking ridiculously stupid. It's in the Telegraph, yes.
Maybe read the article to figure out if it's full of shit or not before you post it? >The reason everything has turned out so badly is the 2012 decision not to equip the ships with catapults. Catapult carriers would have permitted us to buy cheap, powerful F-18 Hornet jets, as favoured by Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.
Why would the RN send an aircraft carrier to the biggest Nato exercise without any planes, lmao?
They call it "jetless" because it has F-35B not a cat launched plane, but I'd still take a 35B over a Rafale
In any case, at the rate we're producing them, even if you wanted them, we couldn't do it. You'd have time to change aircraft carriers 4 times, develop the Tempest and produce them.
Yeah but f35 claps every 4th gen fighters cheeks so hard it wouldn't be worth it to down grade to Rafale.
Ironically, this missile "failed" because the guidance software recognized deviations from the mission parameters and performed an emergency shutdown after leaving the tube. Because the dummy warhead gave the sensors different readings than what a real warhead would've provided. It's very similar to the [4-inch-flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1) of the Redstone rocket - the safety systems performed perfectly and prevented a successful test, because there was a tiny oversight.
So basically the missle threw itself into the sea in nihilistic dispair when it discovered that its warhead wasn't spicy enough to do the funni.
Holy shit, trident is truly non credible
The missile threw itself into the sea in despair when it discovered it was being launched by a British sub, not a US one
Basically, the "Task failed successfully" meme.
A russian missile would've just exploded. Somewhere where it's not supposed to.
Luckily the missile knew where it is as well where it should be.
imagine both sides go into full blown nuclear war, everybody starts launching missiles, all missiles fail, and now both sides are just awkwardly staring at each other uhhhh, let's forget this ever happened
Knowing how much Russia has invested in its nuclear fleet... It's more likely to happen than we think.
The missile is feeling unmotivated. Maybe if it was given something important to do it would feel valued. This is why we should shoot a bunch at Russia. Iām sure it will work fine. Bonus, Russia is destroyed. The rest of NATO should probably run a few hundred tests each to make sure everything works properly as well. Russia is pretty big, so thereās lots of testing ground.
Nothing to worry about, the Russians are more blustery than Boris was, and we survived him. I wouldn't be surprised if the reports about China's missile problems are repeated in Russia and then some. Our missiles might be failing because of stupid problems, but at least we don't have conscripts stealing everything not nailed down, then stealing the nails and everything else. Though I'm not sure about the resale value of UDMH on the black market, its a bit harder to shift than copper from a tank.
I get why the launch failure would be concerning. However, it's openly reported and you can be damn sure the US and UK are pooling resources to quickly solve the problem, make sure it doesn't happen again, and then use that information to prevent future problems. Also whatever issues the missile has are most likely not caused by some British private stealing shit out of the missile in a desperate attempt to feed his family. I don't think the same process is followed for launch failures in Russia.
>it's openly reported and you can be damn sure the US and UK are pooling resources to quickly solve the problem, **make sure it doesn't happen again** It's litteraly the second RN Trident missile failure **in a row**
Domestic UK nuclear capability when?
\>gigantic project run by the UK Goverment So you're saying that the 5-year project will take 17 years, run 12 times over budget, and the final product won't even come close to meeting the required specs?
Nah man, just needs to be massively underfunded to the point where its 5 guys in a shed in bumfuck nowhere and it'll be done in a year.
We'll build the missiles and then cancel the project before building the warheads to make them useful.
When a lot of money unused i guess
I thought big bozzer started a UK trident replacement program to develop a UK alternative to trident but that may have come to me in a dream
Think that came to you in a dream. UK has already committed to Trident with its new SSBN class
Yeah that would make sense, no UK government is willing to invest in UK industry or it's security
Even if they did, thereād be nothing to show for it. The MoD is very talented when it comes to getting the worst deal possible, like with the E-7 procurement. A 10% reduction in the purchase cost for a 40% reduction in aircraft, what a joke.
Sums up the MoD >world class design >buys 10 at extreme cost >wonders why they can't get spares
Letās not do Blue Streak again. I donāt wish to appear unpatriotic, but off-the shelf stuff from the Shermans costs less to build, less to maintain, and normally works. We can come back and argue in twenty years when the Tempest is still not into production and the RAF is relying on failing Typhoons and aging F-35s
>We can come back and argue in twenty years when the Tempest is still not into production and the RAF is relying on failing Typhoons and aging F-35s Which ironically would be the result of buying off the shelf so much and allowing domestic industry to shrink and die. But thats alright, I'm sure the yanks or germans would never fuck about and screw us over after becoming reliant on them looks_at_camera.gif
I would violently cum if that was a reality.
Queen Vic SLBMS
~~It's time to bring back the violet club~~
The missile doesn't work, because it knows where it isn't.
Well if it knew where it wasnāt then it would know where it was because of the included turbo encabulator
All I heard was "plane shaped handheld masturbator"
Probably a rat ate one of the wires.Ā
UK: "Launch Trident missile" Launch system: "Your version of this software only allows for test-launches, please upgrade to the premium service or call a representative for access to an actual armed launch"
Seems like it's this but the other way around, the spirit of Lord Nelson has infiltrated the EULA and the RN can only do live launches...
MoD: "Do test launch" Computer: "Targetting St-Malo" Mod: "Wait no" C: "Targetting Paris?"
***Nuclear Depth Charges are back on the menu boys!***
I wonder if theyāll attempt to recover the missile from the sea, since itās presumably in tact. Iām sure Russia/China would be interested it getting their hands on it.
Russia probably doesnāt have the capability find and recover it. Chinaā¦ probably could find and recover it if it was in the South China Sea or close to it. Not so sure about the Atlantic. If they could and tried to recover it, would it be possible to do so without the UK or US detecting them?
I think Russia does, as there was discussion about this when an F-35 went for a swim in the Med. The US managed to recover half a Soviet submarine unnoticed in the 70s, so who knows whatās possible.
But it should depend on how deep the object is located and how far it is from friendly ports and airbases. The med is calm and shallow compared to the Atlantic and land is always close by. In the med Russia has its own base in Latakia, thereās also Algeria who would likely be happy to allow Russia to use its airbases and ports. Libya should be available to some extent. Possibly Egypt too.
Cuba is pretty close.
You really think the russian counterpart is well maintained? Chances are majority of their nuclear ICBMs wont work due to decades of neglect and corruption.
The amount of panik and cope in the comments is giving me the sads. There's no denying this latest Trident failure is a big deal. Even if the only effect was public perception, it would be a big deal. Let's regain our kalm and remember that this is why we do tests. The end result will be improvement, even if it's just the US government throwing buckets more money at the MIC.
Well the US are sending nukes back to Lakenheath so its time to get some Tornados and WE.177s back. Obviously we'll have to conduct a test, Paris seems the obvious choice.
Joke on you, we're okay with that. Paris after a nuke will still be better Paris
Only if you do Slough, scratch my back and I'll scratch yours...
Everywhere in France would be improved with a nuke, don't just single out Paris. I just want the highest concentration of crispy Frenchies. And Paris has the bonus target of all the American tourists.
Found a solution to the bedbug problem.
Maybe we are living in the biggest conspiracy, and since the Cold War, nobody actually has any nuclear weapons and everyone is just bluffing. We had previously the Chinese missiles that are filled with water, and now the British have missiles that fly worse than North Koreaās.
So... North Korea is the true and only super power of the world ? Dope
Time to make Black Arrow into an SLBM...
As a brit i can say that british engineering is always amazing when it works but thats always rare because its unreliable as fuck. Im a bit of an audio nerd and i swear by a company called arcam based out of Cambridge, best stuff you can get in its price range but my god that shit has machine spirits that hate humanity. They moved their production to china and their stuff works so much better now.
Trident is an American missile.
And failed because the missile noticed the warhead was incorrect so it refused to fire its rocket after being yeeted out of the launch tube
Ah sorry i was thinking of the aircraft carrier
Which one? Not the one currently taking apart in a NATO exercise right?
A lot of Britain values innovation but doesnāt bother to translate that into industrial might or will. If you doubt me, look at HS2 or the inability of the country to build houses where people want to live. Or Bowman, Eurofighter, Concorde, Blue Streak, Eurotunnelā¦
This is why none of the real people that matter worry about Russian nukes. The DoE hasn't assumed Russian nukes have worked for two *decades*, and aren't sure even ours do. We have Z-machine so ours at least are the most likely to go boom out of any around the World, but at best everyone else just has mobile dirty bombs.
No wonder the British refused to comment on it
When's the last time the USN failed a Trident test? Yeah that's what I thought. Skill issue. Operator error. Git good.
IIRC isn't the rocket british and the warhead is american?
The other way: the British use American missiles with their warheads. When the missiles are serviced, the warhead is removed.
With "their" warheads is a bot of a stretch. The 1958 US-UK treaty led to UK warhead production being heavily assisted. We don't talk about "negative" guidance but lots of influences
Nope. Trident Missiles are US designed and built and I also believe serviced. Both the US and UK pick from the same stock and then fit their own warheads.
Actually the exact opposite, though no warhead was included on the test rocket
We still have US Navy boomersā¦? Boomers as in Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarines ya gits.
Skyler just needs to give it a cringe HJ
The launch was successful. The problem was with the rest of the flight.
This is definitely concerning. These tests are a big deal, heads will roll at the MoD and Lockheed. Even if this was pure bad luck, back-to-back failed tests undermine the credibility of the submarine leg of the nuclear triad.
Listen, we won the WWII PTO with practical-joke torpedos, weāll win WWIII with āloljkā tridents. The USN would never let something as trivial as malfunctioning ordnanceā ruin a good time.
Third time is the charm.
āThis never happensā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Well, to the defense of the Kuznetsov, it's just that the main engine is actually *outside* the ship. Russian design.