One question: would the UK be better off with two CVFs and a pair of LPH/LHAs (Ocean and Ark Royal initially, hopefully followed by a pair of the Schelde LHD designs), or a third CVF? Ignoring the budgetary issues (i.e. assuming Gordon Brown has been abducted by aliens and replaced by someone willing to fund the forces). Assume the UK operates three full carrier air wings anyway, to allow rotation, so there is no issue of needing more aircraft. Which is more attractive?

I seem to remember that the customer was the French Navy, though this may have been incorrect.

I have already said the system is vulnerable to pre-emptive strike, I do not dispute that. The question I ask is whether this is genuinely as much of an issue now – when it was the Soviets we faced, the threat of them wiping out the first strike force was very real. Now the threat would be mostly from countries without this real capability – and in the event that someone like Russia tries to strike, then the US would be obliged to use its second strike capability. Is it necessary for the entire UK nuclear deterrent to be second strike?

(I actually agree that it is, and think they made the right decision in choosing SSBNs, I just think that the alternatives might have had benefits worth discussing!)

As for the supposed need for high capability self defence capability (beyond that already fitted, which is actually quite capable), this ignores the fact that launch is not happening anywhere near hostile territory! The launch would happen out over the North Atlantic or the UK itself, so there is nobody there to shoot down the aircraft! As for being an ‘orphan system’, this is only partly true, since the basic missile design would almost certainly be a modified version of an existing rocket (i.e. either an ICBM conversion of the Falcon launcher already tested, or a slightly modified Minuteman). The modifications to the missile are actually not very major, and the physical missiles would be reasonably cheap. In terms of the missile handling at Faslane, this is in part because the missile are around 60 tons, and need to be put into a submarine. In air launched form, the missiles would simply sit on a platform in a hardened structure for storage, with part of the C-17 fleet sitting loaded with missiles, ready to go at short notice. Logistics for a smaller air launched missile would be a lot easier than for the sub launched missiles.

One thing to remember is that the ICBM the C-17s would carry would be the same size as the Minuteman missile, which has a range of 8000 miles. With that sort of range, the entire globe could be covered just from the UK and Diego Garcia, which would not require anyone to agree to it (UK basing is a non-issue, and Diego is also a non-issue). From the UK alone, a large percentage of the world is covered (the coverage stops somewhere around Malaysia!).

As I mentioned before, the primary weakness of the C-17 based force would be the vulnerability to first strike. The question is really whether the UK can ensure second strike seperately, for instance with a submerged missile barge, or simply relying on US SSBNs. One thing to note is that the UK nuclear deterrence has two possible uses – firstly in response to a national crisis, in which case it is highly unlikely that the first strike force would have been destroyed. In the second scenario, where there is the possibility of the primary force having been eliminated, it would be a global nuclear conflict, so the US would be firing their missiles anyway. Even just introducing a few mobile launchers might do – a small force of 16 road mobile missile units could still put 48 MIRVs on anyone within a few thousand miles!

The fleet would have to be ringfenced, so that a certain percentage of the fleet is always assigned to nuclear deterrent, probably around 16 (giving the same number of missiles available for launch as an SSBN). This still allows the other 48 to be used for transport duties normally, without any perceived reduction in the deterrent (only one of the four SSBNs is normally at sea, so one quarter of the bomber fleet should be acceptable). The aircraft would only ever fly deterrent missions from the UK, so there should be no real problems operating them elsewhere (with a 6000nm range missile, you don’t need to fly far from the UK to strike anyone!).

As for the adaptation, I disagree – the C-17 has already been demonstrated as a launcher for large space launchers, and these are exactly the same size as the ICBMs you would launch. The aircraft are just normal transports, with no modifications, just with a slide-in module for holding the missile.

As for the shipbuilding part, this would be preserved by buying more SSNs – basically doubling the expected Astute fleet to 16 (in place of 8 Astute and 4 new SSBNs).

Perhaps an alternative would be an air-launched ballistic missile. The C-17 is capable of launching the Falcon space launch rocket, which is the same size class as the smaller ICBMs, and the C-17 could easily be used to launch ICBMs. For the cost of the Trident SSBN fleet, the UK could buy 64 C-17s, and 64 ICBMs for air-launch (all capable of carrying MIRVs), and boost the SSN fleet to 16. The C-17s would be able to be used as strategic transports as well, and the increased Astute class fleet would make the RN very happy. The RN can even keep their deterrent role to an extent by getting nuclear cruise missiles (preferably a hypersonic Tomahawk follow-up).

I am not against the Trident replacement at all, but the opportunity to boost the SSN fleet, and get a massive boost to the strategic transport fleet should be examined too!

This thread is turning in to a flame war, and for no good reason. Sealord probably shouldn’t have said ‘muslim’, he should have said islamic extremists, but that does not make him a racist or anti-muslim. Kursed’s remarks, however, were completely unreasonable, and he should apologise. No more flaming please!

It is arguable though that the UK could support one or possibly two major shipyards, no more, and would probably be better focussing on maintaining two good yards than drip feeding work to more, and seeing them all fail.