I would not be so sure that the Russians do not pose a threat.
Putin and his merry band of gangsters, will do whatever they can, and threaten whoever they need to to maintain power.
The post Soviet streak of ruthlessness was shown in the two Chechen wars, with its aftermath of mass graves and massive civilians casualties. Its dealing with Georgia is another concern.
Although wiki is not the best source, the page on the current Russian navy , shows a decent sized fleet, ships waiting refurbishment and return to the fleet and a healthy new build programme of frigates, SSNS, SSBNs, SSK’s and a build up in amphibious forces. Add new ICBM’S, new SLBM’s, a modernisation of the airforce and we could face quite a threat. They are planning to spend $70 billion on improving their nuclear arsenal in the next decade. No threat? Are you sure? Add their 650 theatre nuclear weapons still west of moscow, their continual paranoia over western technology such as ABM technology, precision conventional weapons that may threaten their security.

The behaviour of the Russians over Syria, suggests that they are still prepared to play political games for Russian interests, a truly democratic country would not do that, it says a lot that it is them and the chinese who object to dictators being deposed.

Other factors of relevance is that 51% of the US populace supposedly see Asia and the Pacific as more important to their security, the USA might not always be there for us.
Fossil fuel stocks in western europe will run down and over the life of the successor boats there could be many new challenges to our trade and energy security.

I don’t think there is anything cosy and cuddly about the Russians, a declining population in a country riddled with corruption, still armed to the teeth.

The current Russian regime, whilst distasteful, does not have the ideological background of the USSR. Russia makes its living by selling Western Europe oil and gas, destroying its custmers would be a poor business model. I don’t trust Putin’s Russia, but nor do I think it poses anything like the risk to us of the USSR with thousands of tanks poised in East Germany to roll west.

mrm: PM Wilson/For.Sec.Callaghan funded Chevaline 9/75 as “‘Govts. did not want (USSR’s capital to be) a sanctuary’ (the nature) of the concept is (to rain) warheads and decoys (to) swamp the target (Its) effect does not come from the contents of (1xFBM but) probably (the 32xwarheads) complement of 1xSSBN (It is hard) to disentangle the system to take on a number of targets at once” L.Freedman,The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy,Macmillan,1981,P148. D.Healey, The Time of My Life,Penguin,1990,P455: (the sole nuclear error of the Labour Administration of 1974-79) “was not to cancel (Chevaline, causing Polaris RV to) penetrate the ABM system (then in hand) to protect Moscow. (For me it was not) necessary (to) be able to guarantee (its) destruction (but) the certain ability to threaten the destruction of (12) cities would be more than enough to deter an attack (if NATO) had disintegrated. (In) a paper on the so-called ‘Moscow Criterion’ (Staff reported) in favour (without) serious argument except that to cancel (would) damage our prestige in (US/USSR)”

A very interesting quote, an an illustration that much “argument” in the nuclear debate consists of notions of prestige and doing things because we have always done them. The money spent on Chevaline could have bought a couple of fleet carriers, how about that for “prestige”?

Can someone point me in the direction of a source that tells us the “Target” was Moscow please?

Also John K, I commend you for trying to move the debate on.

Are you saying that if we have to go the submarine launched route, you would rather see a smaller submarine capable of launching weapons other than its parred down SLBM complement?

Thanks. Yes, we need to build in flexibility I would say. I would prefer a sub able to fire cruise missiles as well as Trident, or a mixture of both.

hmmm?? 2 x 1.2 megatons warheads = 2.4 megatons

vs 3 x 200 kiloton warheads = 0.6 kilotons x 16 missiles =9.6 megatons

Polaris had MRV not MIRVs but that is still 16 different targets that can theoretically be attacked vs 2.

So 4 Vulcan B2’s equal the megatonnage of a Resolution, and you need 8 to survive to target the same 16 targets as a Resolution could deal with.

I don’t think it is simply a matter of fact?

I thought the Polaris warheads were 100 kiloton, but frankly the point is hardly worth making. As for the 16 targets of an R class boat, as far as we know, they were all Moscow.

John K:

You raise a valid point in mentioning that we no longer face a (direct) threat from a major state power. You are also correct to point out our past 21 years of adventurism mostly East of Suez. I too am alarmed by the cuts to our conventional forces, I hope that if the planned level is to be sustained then we as a nation should refrain from the type of costly open-ended conflict we have recently been involved in.

However it is the future threats that we need to guard against and plan for.

By having an SSBN based rapid reliable accurate deterrent in our arsenal we can face the uncertain future with some degree of ‘insurance’.
Putting our own, bought and paid for missiles in a new boat seems the only way to do that.

I think that by cutting the army to 80,000, the government is effectively runing up the white flag. I don’t buy into the idea of 30,000 highly trained reservists making up the difference, in effect we have made sure we will not get into any more long term overseas commitments by virtue of deleting our ability to do so.

It isn’t factual information. That was 48 warheads with a very high chance of getting through, launched from a platform which had a very high chance of surviving a first strike. Compared to what it replaced, it was a huge increase in the effective nuclear strike power.

The difference between kiloton range (ca 200 kt IIRC) & megatons is unimportant in this context. For most purposes, 200kt is overkill, & what matters is the number of deliverable warheads. You have claimed that a single Vulcan with Skybolt, with its two warheads & no chance of surviving a first strike, had more strike power than a Polaris submarine. I think that tells us all we need to know about the quality of your analysis.

You also said that the Polaris force replaced over 200 V bombers, disregarding the fact that the Valiant had been withdrawn years before, a large proportion of the Victors had been converted to tankers, & only 48 Vulcans & Victors were actually equipped with Blue Steel, a missile which required its carrier to penetrate Soviet air defences.

Your statements are not factual. They are counterfactual.

You are misusing the term counterfactual I’m afraid. You might be trying to say I am wrong, but although you are free to disagree with me, you cannot disagree with facts. The total number of Victors and Vulcans manufactured was 217. I have not included Valiants because they were out of service by 1964. Similarly, it is simply a matter of fact that one Vulcan with two Skybolts had at least as much nuclear firepower as a Polaris boat. You seem quite concerned about a “first strike”, as if it would have come out of the blue with no period of tension. As you know, provision had been made to disperse V Force and place it on QRA, but obviously you don’t think much of that. The point I was making, which you seem unable to accept, is that Polaris, and hence the SSBN force, was not our choice, and was forced upon us by the decision of another state.

John, I was once in the skybolt camp as well, had it not been cancelled, it might have worked as advertised and arrived in 2 RAF Squadrons in 1965 (the 28 B2’s that could actually carry it) I also thought that would mean the RN received more money, that was until I read many sources that said it would not.

Polaris was an expensive system, but came with the spin off of putting us at the cutting edge of submarine technology, the Resolutions were extremely good designs. However Skybolt was also going to be expensive. it would need more converted B2’s and new B2s ordered or handing a big trust exercise to UK industry to design the B3 on budget, that is 20% bigger, new 30,000lb Olympus engines, dorsal fuel tanks, new cockpit, new ECM. TSR2 ended up costing £195m, what would the B3 or VC10 Pofflers ended up costing? So the Navy, Army and tactical elements of the RAF would also have been starved of cash, for a deterrent that was viable, but less viable in many peoples opinion to a submarine based one.
I’m assuming you meant the F111 was designed to replace the B52? It wasn’t, it was a totally different role, that at one point was going to be a carrier fighter. By the 1980’s the original Vulcan fleet was pretty much worn out and totally obsolete. In the 1980’s the nation also had to pay for Tornado.
Your point about Skybolt costing just 2% of the defence budget is interesting. Have you a source for that? I only ask because Trident running costs of £1.5billion a year would be just over 3% of the current defence budget, that does not seem excessive to me, considering the investment that will go into the UK.
Iran will join the club, Israel has Jericho, Pakistan, India, Russia, N.Korea all have long range weapons. Successor will still be at sea post 2050, I can’t see why anyone would logically want to abandon the capability?
WW3 is likely to have involved an initial conventional onslaught into western europe by the Soviets, there are all sorts of possible escalations before the MAD button was pressed. NATO dropping a tactical device on west German territory to blunt the lead elements of the 3rd Shock Army may not have invited a similar escalation. Dropping a device in Eastern Germany on the rear echelons of the 3rd Shock army would undoubtedly have provoked an escalation.
RN Buccaneers dropping a WE177 on a soviet arctic airbase might result in a a similar retaliation eg a mainland UK base struck.
The RN using Ikara to drop a NDB on a soviet SSN might not result in the ICBM’S flying, and a nuclear strike on CVA01 , 300 miles off to the north of Scotland, might not elicit a full on strike from NATO. It might be worth the gamble. Win the initial exchanges before demanding a ceasefire/surrender or annexation of more territory. Finding her also depend on the origins of the war. During a sudden international crisis, then yes CVA01 might make a dash for sea and hide in the expanse of the North Atlantic, although a strike carrier sooner or later has to close with the enemy and strike. if it was a sneaky declaration of war, I assume the Soviets would find out where the NATO carriers were before they started shooting.

My point about Skybolt is not that it was better or worse than Polaris, there are pros and cons each way, but that unless the USA had not cancelled it, it would have been the deterrent into the 80s. It was not our decision, and the SSBN force so beloved of some came about as the result of a national humiliation, not a considered act of policy.

As to the Vulcan B2, 89 were built, and it was planned to use 72 for Skybolt. No more were needed. That’s why the extra cost of Polaris was so unwelcome. The B2 was found to be entirely compatible with Skybolt with no problems, no rebuilds were needed. Even the B52 needed expensive work to get its electrical systems to work with Skybolt, but as luck would have it, the B2’s AC systems worked just fine.

F111 was going to do everything, from carrier fighter to nuclear strike. Like most things which are meant to do everything, it did not work too well, but I am sure that in 1965 no-one would have envisaged that the B52 would be flying long after the F111 was retired.

The figure of £55 milion for the annual running cost of the Skybolt force comes from Stewart Menaul’s book on the airborne deterrent. He was an RAF man to the core, but his book is still interesting reading if you take that into account.

It is not that difficult to work out John. Polaris was not on offer in 1960, It was only put on the table AFTER Skybolt was cancelled and the UK snapped the Americans hands off because it was seen as the deal of the century. A state of the art, survivable deterrent that would also mean the UK stayed at the top table of submarine technology.

In post 73 of this thread you said the V force could take out most of the Soviet Union. London to Moscow is 1500 miles as the crow flies. A Vulcan still has to fly 500 miles, lugging 2 Skybolts to 40,000 feet across western europe as nuclear warheads are detonating across the continent to reach the european areas of russia. A Resolution can do the job, some several hundred miles to the west of Spain.

We could afford Polaris, the Resolution class provided a CASD from 1968-1996. The UK would have been hard pushed to replace a fleet of 1950’s designed bombers in the mid 70’s. The V Force was considered a vastly expensive project and a drain even the 1960’s. Can you imagine it happening today? Three independent aircraft companies, being given contracts for three different aircraft, to number a fleet of 200 aircraft. The boards and shareholders of inefficient, bloated companies getting the lions share of the defence budget at the time. Fortunately Victor made a decent tanker and Vulcan was able to drop nuclear weapons at low level.

I still say that CVA01 would not survive long, that is once the tripwire of tactical nuclear weapons had been crossed in Western Europe. 18 Phantom’s, with 1960’s rates of availability would put 2 on CAP, 2 on the deck and 2 readying. Sea Dart, Sea Slug, Sea Cat and 40/20mm guns would not stop a barrage of nuclear tipped missiles . The Soviet Union would just have to kill her, at all costs, simply because the long legs of the 18 Buccaneers (with buddy refuelling), Red Beard, WE177 puts a great many of their naval bases and airfields at risk in the northern theatre. The USN recognised how vulnerable their own carriers were, that was one reason for the development of AEGIS, unless we hugged a USN carrier group, CVA01 would be extremely vulnerable.

All off topic with apologies to anyone bored by it.

I think the Vulcans would have been well up to “lugging” Skybolts 500 miles. They were in many ways a better plane than the B52, and they are still in service. They have outlived the F111s which were meant to replace them, and I am sure the Vulcans would have done the same. Running costs of the Skybolt force were estimated at £55 million pa, which out of a £2 billion defence budget was in the region of 2%, quite affordable.

The problem with Polaris is that not only did it earn the enmity of the RAF, but it meant the Navy was getting a huge investment of scarce funds at the very time it needed money for CVA01. It was never going to happen. As to the survivability of carriers, all I can say is that the Russians would have had to find them first, before they even tried to destroy them. IF WWIII had gone nuclear. the survivability of carriers would have been the least of our worries.