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Letters of Last Resort

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Re: Letters of Last Resort

#11

Post by arethuza »

girvo wrote: post #9

Out of curiosity, if some nuclear adversary decided to first-strike and wipe out England, how messed up would the UK be? It's a small, dense country, and (call me stupid), one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right? Would all four, if armed, be able to do much damage back? I find the idea of letters of last resort fascinating...

Worth noting that the UK's nuclear deterrent is based in Scotland, not England.

To get some idea of the likely outcome of a nuclear war for the UK I can suggest watching Threads:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads

One interesting thing about Threads is that it is based on a rather optimistic attack scenario based on an exercise called Square Leg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#12

Post by caf »

girvo wrote: post #9

Out of curiosity, if some nuclear adversary decided to first-strike and wipe out England, how messed up would the UK be? It's a small, dense country, and (call me stupid), one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right? Would all four, if armed, be able to do much damage back? I find the idea of letters of last resort fascinating...

one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right?

No. The idea of ballistic missile submarines like this (and those also operated by the US, France and Russia) is that they should be impossible to find when on patrol.

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#13

Post by caf »

nl wrote: post #8
shin_lao wrote: post #5

After the Hundred Years' War, it's kind of ironic to see that one of the possible orders for the last-resort British weapon is to place itself under French command.

Really?! I guess after that slightly more recent bit of trouble on the other side of the Atlantic[1] it's pretty ironic that one of the possible orders for the last-resort British weapon is to place itself under US command(!?). (As far as I can tell it is speculation that they would place themselves under French command) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War

Of course postdating that is the Napoleonic Wars (and in the middle of that was the War of 1812)...

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#14

Post by arethuza »

caf wrote: post #12
girvo wrote: post #9

Out of curiosity, if some nuclear adversary decided to first-strike and wipe out England, how messed up would the UK be? It's a small, dense country, and (call me stupid), one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right? Would all four, if armed, be able to do much damage back? I find the idea of letters of last resort fascinating...

one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right? No. The idea of ballistic missile submarines like this (and those also operated by the US, France and Russia) is that they should be impossible to find when on patrol.

It's a bit embarrassing that a UK and French ballistic missiles submarines actually collided while on patrol:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vanguard_and_Le_Triomphant_...

A US missile submarine also collided with a Russian attack submarine in 1992:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Incident_off_Kildin_i...

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#15

Post by arethuza »

shin_lao wrote: post #5

After the Hundred Years' War, it's kind of ironic to see that one of the possible orders for the last-resort British weapon is to place itself under French command.

The UK nuclear submarines are based in Scotland, so you could just argue that it is a continuation of the Auld Alliance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Alliance

On a more serious note, there has been talk of the UK sharing aircraft carriers with France, so it isn't a completely daft idea (although certain sections of the UK public would probably prefer to attack France as a last resort - presumably aiming to miss the holiday homes, vineyards and ski resorts).

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#16

Post by eponeponepon »

"There are no nukes. We've just been pretending all this time. They're just big metal tubes full of old laptops. Sorry. Find a nice island and settle down.

Best, PM.

PS: Sorry you've no women on board. One of the warheads is full of whisky and porn."

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#17

Post by arethuza »

eponeponepon wrote: post #16

"There are no nukes. We've just been pretending all this time. They're just big metal tubes full of old laptops. Sorry. Find a nice island and settle down. Best, PM. PS: Sorry you've no women on board. One of the warheads is full of whisky and porn."

Yes, Prime Minister - Nuclear deterrent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX_d_vMKswE

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#18

Post by eroded »

girvo wrote: post #9

Out of curiosity, if some nuclear adversary decided to first-strike and wipe out England, how messed up would the UK be? It's a small, dense country, and (call me stupid), one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right? Would all four, if armed, be able to do much damage back? I find the idea of letters of last resort fascinating...

> one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right?

The one that's in dock for service and repair, yes. But the others could be at sea anywhere in the world, in an unknown location.

> Would all four, if armed, be able to do much damage back?

Each sub can carry 16 x Trident D5 ballistic missiles, with a range of 6,000 mi. Each missile carries multiple warheads, each with much higher yields than those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So certainly the potential to do lots of damage.

The US has a similar setup with their Ohio-class submarines, though I don't believe they carry such letters or equivalent.

Re: Letters of Last Resort

#20

Post by mikeash »

eroded wrote: post #18
girvo wrote: post #9

Out of curiosity, if some nuclear adversary decided to first-strike and wipe out England, how messed up would the UK be? It's a small, dense country, and (call me stupid), one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right? Would all four, if armed, be able to do much damage back? I find the idea of letters of last resort fascinating...

> one armed nuclear sub could be wiped out fairly easily if we're talking about a power like this, right? The one that's in dock for service and repair, yes. But the others could be at sea anywhere in the world, in an unknown location. > Would all four, if armed, be able to do much damage back? Each sub can carry 16 x Trident D5 ballistic missiles, with a range of 6,000 mi. Each missile carries multiple warheads, eac…

To elaborate: each submarine carries 48 warheads (they can carry much more, but don't). I can't find much info on the warheads with a cursory search, but Wikipedia suggests a yield of 100kt, which is entirely plausible. The missile is able to put the warhead into a circle with a radius of about 100 meters.

For a "last resort" use like this, counterforce (i.e. attacking the enemy's military) is probably pointless. I imagine you'd go for cities if you wanted to cause as much hurt as possible.

A single 100kt warhead detonated over, for example, Manhattan would devastate Manhattan and significantly damage surrounding areas. Deaths would probably be in the millions. Add in a few more scattered around intelligently and that's the entire metro region wrecked. If we figure four is enough to do NYC in decently, that means one of these submarines could wreck twelve cities that way. More (up to 48) if you just wanted to smash the core areas. Or you can mix and match.

If it was targeted at the US (don't ask me why), imagine DC, NYC, LA, Chicago, all completely flattened, along with a bunch more. Most of the population of the country as a whole would survive, but the country itself would be pretty thoroughly wrecked.

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