There seems to be a fair bit f overlap between certain current British programs here too. The patrol boat requirement seems to have been copy and pasted from the C3 requirement. And HMAS Success’ replacement would be similar to MARS i’m guessing.

Brazil is the 5th largest nation in the world in land area. It is also the world’s tenth largest economy*, 2 slots higher than India.

India is not in the list of the top 15 contributors to the UN budget, despite its overall economic strength… making India an “over-payer” in troops, but an “under-payer” in monetary terms.

*currency-neutral GDP 2008… the World Monetary Fund & the CIA World Factbook both rank Brazil #10 and India #12, while the World Bank ranks Brazil #8 and India #12.

The first paragraph of yours is irrelevant for the security council. Land area means nothing in terms of military power.

India contributes a massive number of troops to UN missions which is much more relevant than Brazil paying money to the UN in general. You can’t buy a place on the council. India shows a willingness to to act by deploying large numbers of troops.

Again economic power means nothing if you won’t spend on the military or use the power. That is why both Japan and Germany are borderline cases and not yet members.

Brazil, like India, is trying to stretch beyond their current “regional power” role… that is the issue, and SSNs and carriers are an integral part of that for both nations.

SSNs (and carriers) represent the ability to operate effectively beyond their own areas, and to provide major parts of multi-national coalition forces… which further enhance that perception of “more than a regional power”.

I totally agree that’s what they’re going for, but India just seems to be about 20 years ahead of Brazil (if we ignore SSN’s, 5-10 years for SSNs). India also has a much larger force currently and does use it on a global scale in the form of UN peacekeeping. Brazil has a lot further to go, so if in the next 5 years they were to go for a new security council system, I think India should have a place, Brazil might need longer unless they drastically increase spending.

There’s really some areas where Brazil and India could cooperate. SSNs, carrier, corvettes, fighter/interceptor etc.

Both are trying to develop there own industries, cooperation would split likely split work between the two leaving crucial gaps. The reason both nations are cooperating with foreigners here is to gain experience, working with each other they gain little.

Sometimes govenrments need to make decisions without asking the masses. If you left running the country up to the population it’d never work. Most people would vote no on nukes, no on the EU, no on being in Afghanistan, no on nuclear power. They would say this without thinking about what it really meant, they’d leave that up to the meida, which is entirely useless on serious issues in Britain now. If you don’t like a policy, vote for a different party and force the old guys out, don’t just call for a referendum on every issue.

On the One Show last week I actually heard the argument that we shouldn’t use nuclear power because most people don’t understand how it works! What kind of reasoning is that, but it is what the masses get fed and most simply accept it.

Flubba, one SSGN doesn’t need to take on a whole country, we have carriers, FAA the RAF and surface units for a reason. Can’t give one vessel all the fun.

So we need a Vanguard replacement first boat to be in the water in 10 years? I know the Trident was being Sleped but i didn’t think it was that long. I would think though that the new missile will need to be designed and starting to test at least by 2025-30. Is this the last trident is retiring in 2040 or the 1st? I think HMS Vengeance came into service in 2001 so a 30 year life would take her to 2031. i think the first HMS Vanguard was 1994 so that will take her 2024. If the new missile is ready and in production by 2032-2036 maybe we could get the first ones off the line.
The main worry i have is making sure the new subs can carry trident and the new missile. There needs to be the final missile compartment design in place before barrow starts designing/building. I think the Americans won’t be using the tridents in their new submarines as they are running the Ohios with trident until the new missile and submarines are ready. This means the UK is left with trying to get or build a compartment that can hold 2 different types of missile or swapping the missile compartment when the trident retire. These both sound like they could be expensive and a bit risky and time consuming.
Maybe an option could be build 2 new Vanguards now plus SLEP and put in reserve 2 of the current boats for 10-15 years and then 4 boats should last till 2040 no problem.
12 tubes sounds a bit low as the UK will only have 1 submarine on patrol and if a full strike was necessary is 12 missiles enough. Remember they aren’t carrying 8 warheads on each missile on 48 per boat. Would that be enough to stop any of the nuclear powers from wiping Britain out. i don’t think big countries like Russia, China, India even Pakistan would think there country was going back to the dark ages with that amount of warheads. Remember 2050 is a long time away and a lot can change. Oil running out, Putin got dementia, Taliban in power in Pakistan. Iran, Brazil and lots of other countries now have nuclear weapons. Or hopefully we all live in a peaceful utopia and don’t use weapons anymore.

So what will we see the RN with? probably an updated Vanguard. Any thoughts on what the names will be? HMS Big slice of the Budget, HMS bankrupt, HMS Britian for sale, HMS Brown, HMS Blair, HMS blackout, HMS Bomber, HMS blake, HMS Big boy.

With the SLEP, the first Vanguard replacement needs to be in the water by 2023. Without it would be 2017. It takes 17 years to get a new SSBN class into serivce, which is why they had to make the decision in 2007.

The new missile probably would need to be start being designed by 2030 yes, giving time for adequate tests. I’m not sure which Trident would be going in 2040 (actually 2042), I assume all of them.

Again, a final missile compartment design WILL be in place by the time we start building, work was begun on it last year.

And no the American’s won’t wait for the new missile for their next class either, the first Ohio goes out of service in 2029. Hence the reason they decided to design a joint missile compartment, we have the same problem as them, the need to build a compartment capable of firing Trident and the next missile. For the second time now, the Americans and British are JOINTLY designing the new missile compartment, to be used on both of our future SSBN projects. So if the new missile doesn’t fit our class, they won’t fit the American’s either.

12 missile tubes should be sufficient. If necessary they can always increase the number of warheads aboard to give them the capability to fire upto 192 warheads at once. If you don’t think that is enough to seriously mess up a society then you seriously underestimate the power of a nuke. With the current limit of 48 warheads per boat, it makes more sense to deploy 12 instead of 16 missiles, it means more warheads per missile. That’s the same destructive power, but a little cheaper. If 12 aren’t enough to deal with a country then we are pretty screwed anyway, 4 more missile wouldn’t make the difference. You’d just launch the reserve boat and have them send another 12. Remember that it’s basically a policy of MAD, if we have to launch then they will launch, it’s not about stopping another nation from destroying Britain, its about deterring them from attacking at all. In any of the nations you mentioned we could do enough damage to that end with 12 missiles.

As a side note, the Taliban will never be allowed to come to power in Pakistan as long as they have Nuclear weapons. No one cared enough about Afghanistan to stop them, but the thought of nuclear jihad would spur either India or the USA or the international community at large to stop them.

And I wasn’t aware Brazil was after the nuke, they were pretty strong advocates for a nuclear free South America weren’t they? Even by 2050 I can’t see it happening.

EDIT: Kev, you’re right, that thought occurred to me too. I guess people assume we’d just slap them on a Typhoon, which would be the worst deterrent we could have quite frankly.

Costs in an air launched weapon would be massive now too, there’s the stealthy long ranged cruise missile we’d need to design and build, the building of a decent stealthy bomber to deliver it, the purchase of a dedicated refuelling fleet, the complete move of all our current nuclear storage facilities, reacquiring lost techniques for delivering the weapons etc. And to top it all off it is acknowledged as a less effective deterrent.

– Extremely costly to guard a SSBN in nearly reserve/”stand by”
– Some of the actual & futur training were conducted ashore in training center (simulator, ect…)

– and french SSBN were not a chicken:rolleyes:

The cost of guarding a sub on stand by shouldn’t be used as an argument, if a government is committed to C.A.S.D then a boat has to be kept on standby.

Simulators can’t make up entirely for real training, you wouldn’t expect a pilot to get into a fighter jet having only ever flown on a simulator before that, it’s just not the same. Your idea had no provision for training at sea. There is a reason both Britain and France have 4 subs, it’s because 3 can’t be made to work.

I think if we could SLEP the vanguards so they can run until the US navy needs to replace Ohio class that would be a step in the right direction. I can’t believe the UK is trying to design the ships just now when we don’t even know what kind of missile they will carry or how wide long it will be. I think i heard we only need to SLEP them for 5 years and then the missile design will be complete. The RN can’t rely on the US saying the missile will probably be 130 inches wide we need to wait and see what the design looks like. To build new boats that will run with Trident for 5 years and then will be refitted with a new missile is costly and has a big chance of going wrong.

The deterrence is important but if needs be i would prefer to not have the 365 days a year capability for a few years than to build a ship when we don’t know what it’s going to carry.
The best situation i can think of is that the Vanguards are SLEPed until the missile design is finalized and then we build 4 new SSBN’s.
Another situation could be we run the Vanguards into the ground and hopefully we still have 2 running when the new ships are launched. We could put vengeance out of service just now and then as Vanguard gets retired bring Vengeance back and she should have 10 years left. Maybe 15-20 with a Major SLEP. The boats shouldn’t need a major overhaul when they are in the last few years so 3 should hopefully be enough.

Hopefully the US missile project doesn’t get delayed or we are all up clyde without a paddle. Thank goodness the MOD ain’t running the project it would be 10 years late and cost 10 times as much. Then we would only be 10 missiles cause they offer a quantum leap in capability.

Do we think the US boats will go with 16 or 24 tubes or maybe more? Has the UK commited to how many tubes we will have on our SSBN? Also has the US said we can have the Trident replacement? These boats will be the biggest ever seen in the US navy and RN as i’m thinking the missile will be bigger and will take a bigger sub to carry them.
The boats should also be able to get a reactor to run for hopefully 30 years without needing refueled. This is one thing i’m not keen on the Astute reactor for is that it can run for 25 years. I’m guessing we will need it in service for longer than that going by the MOD previous record of getting subs in service. Look at Swiftsure class. Heading for over 35 years in the water!

It was my understanding that Britain was joining the US in SLEPing the Tridents to extend their missiles lives out to about 2040 at this point. That meant the we’d have to keep the Vanguards in service for 17 years longer than expected to meet that date.

What is actually happening is that the Americans and British are jointly designing the new missile compartment already. The Americans aren’t then going to build a new missile for 2040 that won’t fit any of their subs either.

And current planning assumptions actually include a Vanguard SLEP to increase life by 5 years, otherwise we would have to have started the project over 5 years ago to meet the OSD of the first Vanguard class vessel. There was a study that said that anything more than a 5 year SLEP would be infeasible, I don’t know the reasons but it has been said, so to assume we can extend them by another 7 years after that to meet the first Ohio OSD is simply wishful thinking.

And yes the government has confirmed that the new class will have 12 launch tubes instead of the current 16. I’m not sure how many the Americans will use, I assume that the new missile compartment being designed can be extended or shortened as necessary for Britain and the USA to get however many they want aboard.