As you say – still a big bang – perhaps more in keeping with any possible usage of the weapon.

Are nuclear capable missiles allowed to be exported? Is there not something in a treaty – perhaps only to non-nuke nations.

How big is an ASMP relative to storm shadow, what is its range.

I would have thought a proliferation of such air launched missiles on the carriers and on land would be a good deterrent as it would be difficult to take them all out in one go. Possible a few nuke tipped tomahawks carried by an expanded fleet of Astutes.

Apparently the big problem is being able to guarantee hitting north korea if required. I assume trident can do this from relatively close to the UK (over the north pole I assume) – a tomahawk based solution would necessitate patrol areas in the pacific. The tomahawk solution should be cheaper – perhaps more boats would be available for multiple patrols.

could a nuke be made small enough to be a warhead on a meteor. If so it would be easy to integrate & carry for both tiffie and f35

No use crying over spilt milk I know…. but the drift I got at the time was that A320 based solutions were thrown out for only having 2 engines.

Surely designing a twin pod to interface with the single pylon on each wing (as per B52) would have been considerably easier than the grief we went through on nimrod. The engines could been RR bizjet engines designed to be hung from the side, thereby maintaining UK work.

You talk of 15 A/C per squadron – my understanding is that its 12 (perhaps plus a 2 seater). Open to correction though.