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Given the increasing financial constraints in the UK on public expenditure (all of which is about to become blindingly obvious as we clear the General Election), I thought members may benefit from contemplating the future of major UK defence projects in the light of their illustrious recent forefathers

SampanViking said:

Given the increasing financial constraints in the UK on public expenditure (all of which is about to become blindingly obvious as we clear the General Election), I thought members may benefit from contemplating the future of major UK defence projects in the light of their illustrious recent forefathers

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1. Linking to Wikipedia is generally a bad idea.
2. The category does not differ for projects canned for different reasons, so it's not that helpful.
3. Do you have a point other than the fact that some projects will be cancelled or changed? That's not exactly a new idea. I might as well produce a list of projects that went ahead and imply that some things will go ahead despite the state of the budget.

I am only trying to be inclusive as I would hate to be accused of being selective. If you think my source has left out any important or relevant projects, please feel free to draw them to my attention.

Well, big news today!

The MOD not only has to take outs it overspend and then cut its budget by up to 20%, but the Chancellor has ruled that the MOD must also pick up the £20 Billion Tab for the Trident Replacement as opposed to the Treasury.

Axes are definitely being sharpened tonight, the open question is where exactly they will have to fall now!

Please let at least one of the carriers survive...cut some of those Tridents or something. And remove the last military units from Northern Ireland, that should save some money. Just don't let the Royal Navy, the greatest navy in all history, fall to such second rate status that it doesn't have carriers.

Don't for a moment think Osbourne will smugly get his own way on this. The simple fact is if he imposes the level of cuts he wants AND lumbers the MOD with the capital costs of Trident, then one of the three armed services will have to be disbanded completely. No salami slicing, we are talking complete amputation! Amalgamating isn't even an option at this level, and that is why this is far from the end of the matter. The fight is only just beginning, trust me on that. The Navy has shown consistently that they will fight tooth and nail for BOTH carriers, cutting back to a single one is unworkable as the French have found out the hard way. Expect the Navy to offer up cuts from just about every where else to keep the carriers, as they have done for the last ten years. Already they are talking about axing half the remaining minesweepers and the last T42s may go early (of course any cut right now is a really really bad idea, but that's what happens when you put an imbecile in at no. 10 and no. 11...).

The most sensible question I have heard raised by the Trident cost issue, is whether the UK still needs to support the expense of a CASD?

I think it has a point. Where is the enemy that requires a 24/7 watch that could attack out of the blue and require an immediate retaliatory response?

In the case of a rogue state, which of them are bothered enough by the UK to make it the priority target, let alone have a delivery system with the range to hit us?

In most events, of non state actor or a rogue state that might want to target us, would the nature of the attack be such that the identify and responsibility of the attacker would be so apparent that an immediate counter strike would be possible, let alone feasible?

Lets keep a nuclear deterrent by all means, but maybe its time to be a bit more creative and cost effective in the type we use.

Out security environment against WMD attack is currently very good and unlikely to deteriorate overnight, which means that we would have plenty of warning to activate a deterrent to operational status.

One of the best ideas I have read would be to have a fleet of duel use subs that can operate conventional weapons under normal circumstances, but which can be rapidly equipped as Boomers in times of increased threat.

To me such an approach makes sense, as to maintain the old Cold War strategy does; to be honest, appear to be grandiose, somewhat pretentious and rather out of touch with current reality.

I agree Sampanviking, a new cheaper less capable system is what is required,

perhaps a mixture of land based ICBM's and nuclear tipped cruise missles to be launched from SSN's, like what Israel has managed to get hold of

samba said:

I agree Sampanviking, a new cheaper less capable system is what is required,

perhaps a mixture of land based ICBM's and nuclear tipped cruise missles to be launched from SSN's, like what Israel has managed to get hold of

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Land based ICBMs are a complete non starter. Where would you put them in the UK? Where could you put them that wouldn't raise serious opposition from the local community? It would be impossible to hide tham from satellite observation, so they would be targetted by enemy ICBMs before they were even completed. That's why we never built any in the UK in the first place and switched from air launched Nuclear weapons to SSBNs. ICBMs are currently as close to invulnerable as any weapon can be, whereas planes and cruise missiles can be shot down with existing weapon systems.

The only 'cheaper' way to preserve the Nuclear deterrent would be if a smaller SLBM could be developed that could be launched horizontally from existing torpedo tubes, that way existing and building SSNs could take on the role and then we'd just have to add a few more hulls to the Astute class to cover the committments. Redesigning the Astutes to accomodate either an SSBN style missile launch compartment (with between 4 and 12 tubes) or a smaller VLS for cruise missiles will be hideously expensive IMHO. Finding solutions with existing systems and designs will be the most likely and workable way to go simply because there is no money for anything else.

samba said:

I agree Sampanviking, a new cheaper less capable system is what is required,

perhaps a mixture of land based ICBM's and nuclear tipped cruise missles to be launched from SSN's, like what Israel has managed to get hold of

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Yeah, but how many SSNs would the Royal Navy need to have global coverage? A large number would also have to be on continuous deployment because of the time it would otherwise take to get them into position. ICBMs would be hard to organise. The only suitable area for them to be deployed would be Scotland and the Scottish Executive could throw up all sorts of obstacles to that.

But it's right that arguably we don't need 24/7 coverage. Maybe 3 SSBNs would do the job.

The MoD is lucky that they have Fox in charge. He's no wet blanket. I think Osborne miscalculated his statement somewhat.