If they are obsolete why has SCALP/Storm Shadow been developed?

I’v kinda wondered about that myself………national pride aside. A question to ask may be…….were the Soviets detered by the one or at most two Polaris subs the RN may have had at sea at one time, or were they detered by the scads of minuitmen(sp), titan IIs, BUFFs, and Poseidons the US deployed? As for the present time……..I dont know whos being detered anymore.

Another good point there…….but……..would China or Russia deem a nuclear strike on Iran a trigger for retatiation on the US?

Would it be possible to have conventional warheads on SLBMs? This would, I think, make SSBNs a bit more flexible, giving them more situations in which they would actualy be used.

19K11 you can’t hide behind the whole “I am allowed a different point of view to you” thing, and then say I have no clue or am blind to the facts.

You either argue nicely or come out and give it everything you have.

I and others saw the writing on the wall months before the change to the F35B. Driven in part by the view that from a political perspective, the government could not tolerate the inevitable delay in getting the flawed F35C.

As long as we are dealing with the same government then this is a decision that will stick. And if you bear in mind the opposition party have long espoused the use of the B on the carriers I think the switch back to cats and traps is as likely as selling the carriers to India or Brazil.

I suggest that you don’t understand the politics of the situation which are a distinct (if not unique) feature of this decision making process.

Now, other than disliking the B, what reason do you have to think it is still on the verge of cancellation?

And can we do this in the UK F35 thread rather than here please?

Well I’m sorry you feel that way….but I CAN do that and theres really not a whole lot you can do about it. I’v tried to remain civil about it but you seem bound and determined not to be. But you DO need to understand: I DO NOT AGREE WITH YOUR POINT OF VIEW. There is NOTHING you can do to change that. I dont know why that “gets” to you the way it does, but your just going to have to deal with it. I’m really quite flattered that my opinion matters to you so deeply, but still, you are not going to change it. This is the last I will write on this matter, and I strongly sugest you move on. If your not happy with my point of view , well…..tough.

How so? We’re contractually committed to paying for the carriers, so they will be built. Once built, it would be politically far more damaging to scrap them than it was the Nimrod MRA4, where the Tories could blame Labour for cocking it up. Both main parties are up to their necks in the carrier purchase. And there’s no realistic alternative to the RN getting them. No other navy which can handle them has a requirement for big STOVL carriers, & after the latest fiasco, offering them for conversion to CATOBAR is a complete non-starter. It’s RN service as is, or scrap metal.

Dont sell the British short. If there is a way to be rid of these ships, they will find it. You are using logic in arguing for these ships, something the British seem sadly lacking in for the last 20 years or so. Again I do hope I’m wrong, but I just cant see them going into service.

The maintenance of an independent nuclear deterrent is pretty much all down to the Suez crisis. In that crisis a Super power (the USSR) threatened a nuclear strike if we didn’t back down and our main super power ally (the USA) backed the Soviets and offered no support to us…actually told us to back down as well!

As for what system, an SLBM based solution is the only affordable and politically acceptable solution.

A SLCM based solution would need vast expenditure in huge numbers of cruise missiles and submarines to make it a true deterrent.

An ALCM based solution would again procurement of huge numbers of cruise missiles plus a new strategic long range bomber and tankers. The launch aircraft would also be vulnerable to first strike attacks.

A land based ICBM solution would require a new missile to be developed from scratch, it would also be vulnerable to first strike and finally the biggest problem…where do you site them? When locations were surveyed for the cancelled British ICBM program the only suitably remote place with the correct geology was a national park!

SLBM are impervious to first strike and can maintain a credible deterrent with a minimal number of submarines, missiles and warheads.

The only problem I see with that is that, while France went its own way an developed its own independant SSBN force, Britain went with the US Polaris system, which kinda defeated the idea of British independance. I’m aware that the launch codes and such were totaly under British control, but, still……….