Just skimmed the white paper you recommended – interestingly in terms of full costing of options they only compared aircraft carried cruise missiles, land based ballistic missiles, ship based ballistic missile and submarine based ballistic missile. The reason not to include submarine and ship based cruise missiles is not really explained directly but rather by an indirect comparison showing that current at time of publication cruise missiles had about 1/6 the range and were sub-sonic. All of this is rather surprising and is almost suggests that they need to double check the costs of ship and submarine launched cruise missiles.

The fact is that cruise missiles aren’t trusted for this role.
And it is understandable, since air defence systems as advanced and effective as the Russian S300 are spreading rapidly, including in Iran which is trying to acquire the system, in China and so along.

The Tomahawk (and similar weapons) wouldn’t make it far against S300, and even developing a cruise missile with better performances the risk is to see air defence systems improving even more and soon making it outdated.
The truth is that cruise missiles are in any case far easier to contrast than ballistic missiles of the Trident league, and it risks being only a few years before your supersonic cruise missile gets outdated, surpassed by the performances of relatively cheap (in comparison) air defence batteries. (take the S500 in development in Russia as example)

Can I have a link to the review please!

I read about it in here, it is not updated from months by now, but it is still a very good read and still relevant:

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/fsm.htm

The article contains the link to the 2006 White Paper “the future of UK nuclear deterrent”. I’ll never thank Richard Beedall enough for putting Navy Matters up… unfortunately, the last major update on the site dates back to the 2008.

Someone knows what happened to him? He was a formidable source of info on the RN.

i did read that Eurofighter have ditched the Tranche concept of upgrades now anyway (after T3A had been agreed). They aim to provide rolling performace improvements and equipment upgrades rather than linking this to fixed contracts.

Its quite possible that the ultimate Typhoon for the RAF could be a 2 seat electronic attack variant with uprated engines and TVC flying alongside Raptor pod and Stormshadow capable single seaters…

which does cover the loss of the tornado but leaves us all wondering if there are too few airframes.

I do find it hard to believe that any serviceman (no matter how high up in the food chain) can be truly impartial. By definition he will have seen his part of the armed forces as the priority throughout his career no?

If you were senior in the RN, wouldn’t you be rubbing your hands at the possibility of still being able to run carriers, fast jets, SSBNs and attack subs whilst the prized RAF fast jet fleet is eaten away at?

Not being biased, just don’t think its possible to be impartial in those circumstances.

Undoubtedly the First Sea Lord thinks of the navy first… But the fact is that the navy also happens to be the most flexible force for the nation, including the Marines as well. It makes sense for an island to have a powerful navy.
The points he made in the speeches are absolutely condivisible, i find.

As to Typhoons… 160 aren’t enough? Tranche 3B has always been the most logic and expected of cuts. It was in the air from lots of time, and even Tranche 3A risked a lot.
With the Typhoon being the most “relic” of the “cold war relics” for the press and public, we can say that overall it does not seem to be going badly.

As to Tornado, well… What other cut could possibly be made? Harriers are needed because of their unique capabilities to go at sea and allow training to continue for when the STOVL F35 arrives.
Airlift, which is probably going to lose the C130 already, is a very strategic part of the RAF and could not be given up for sure.
Helicopters, surely no! There’s already shortage as it is.
Nimrods? It would have left a bleeding gap of capability, and at this point there would have been no real saving.
Rivet Joint…? Sentinel…? AWACS…? No way, ISTAR and all such assets are in great demand.

If you think about it, i don’t think you can find anything else that, being cut, could have generated as much savings without creating an even worse gap of capability.
I love the Tornado myself, and i’ll be sorry if it goes… But arguably, if something else was to go it would be worse.

The RAF now must join forces with the Navy to ensure as many F35 as possible, on this we totally agree.

The United States deployted the TLAM-N nuclear tipped Tomahawk cruise missile without getting conventional and nuclear versions mixed up, so I don’t really see how this is any different.

I wasn’t being entirely serious about that one, but your points are valid 😉

If the UK and France both required an SSBN and went for the same design, splitting the development costs 50:50, wouldn’t that be a saving over the UK designing it’s own submarine?

The Tomahawk N does not exist anymore. It is a Cold War relic that was removed with one of the first START agreements, and the US wouldn’t allow a revival of such options in the new politic climate of the world.

The UK and France have different timelines for their deterrent. French submarines are not in need to be replaced, and there could not be a serious joint program, much as the option is interesting.
My point is that a sort of joint program is already in place, not with french but with the US, and i don’t see how it could be cheaper to collaborate with one instead of with the other. If anything, there’s more chances to cointain costs collaborating with the US than with france, owner of a UK-similar small fleet of SSBN.

At the most, there can be a reasoning about the Vanguards going until America starts building subs to replace the Ohio, and the UK buys some of these subs. But politically this is inacceptable, and would not happen anyway.

Your proposals risk costing more than replacing Trident in current form, or risk being totally impossible to pursue.

To point out some of the flaws:

1) Land based ICBM are extremely expensive. But moreover, there’s not a single place in the UK where silos (or mobile launchers anyway) could be planted with nukes without the population throwing a fit about it. This option has already been put forward and scrapped uncountable times.

2) Supersonic cruise missile: first you’d have to develop one, and be aware that politically you cannot have the same missile armed with nukes and conventional warhead. It would be a nuke alone, that you’d have to design, produce, acquire and maintain. The risk is the cost of the program spiraling out of control, and it would not be a surprise. Besides, it would have not just to be very fast and possibly stealth, but it should have RANGE. More than the range of the Tomahawk. And in the western world such a missile does not exist and there never was an attempt to buy such a piece of engineering tech. I can see lots of things going bad during development and the program being scrapped well before producing a missile that would be horribly expensive anyway.

3) Scalp, Storm Shadow, Tomahawk or even BramHos based nuclear missiles are not going to be feasible, because the US, France, Russia and India would never allow the UK to have a nuke mounted on missiles they use for all sorts of conventional tasks, with the risks connected to it.

4) UCAV with missiles/nuke bombs. You’d have to design, produce, acquire and sustain both systems, and depending on what are the requirements of the UCAV (ideally intercontinental range, for example, to properly ensure that Trident is decently replaced, plus stealthness) the cost goes up massively. Let’s not even talk of the opposition to have drones with nukes when there’s so much bitching against fearing simple Hellfire missiles!

5) Build a new vessel in collaboration with the french: possibly the same as following US on the current path of collaboration, with the added problem that, while UK has different time needs than US with replacement of Ohio (which will lasts longer than Vanguards since more submarines meant less usage of each of their hulls). There would be savings? Probably not at all. We’d also have to acquire and use french missiles.

6) Using a cruise missile tipped with nukes on Astutes is possible? At the very least, new stowage security measures and possibly modifications to weaponry stowage on the subs would be required.
Again, politically it might not be that feasible to have SSNs at sea with nuclear missiles. After all, as people so loves to say, “cold war is over”.
If problems with nuke-armed Astutes exist, new submarines will be required anyway, and the savings completely vanish all of a sudden. New subs+new warheads+developing new cruise missile = most likely higher cost than Trident.

As for Trident, the UK currently only LEASES a bunch of US Trident II D5 missiles, armed with UK owned, Uk-engineered warheads expected to last to the 2020 at least.
Trident II D5 is expected to last up to 2025 with an upgrade program planned by the USA that the UK could partecipate in, possibly extending the life of its warheads to 2025.
After the 2025, Trident II D5 is expected to be replaced by Trident II E6, new design, more modern and with less warheads. A new UK warhead will have to be designed for it, or the precedent warheads will move from D5 to E6 if they will have already been changed/upgraded.

Design of the 12-tubes missile compartment for the new subs is already going on as joint work between US and UK, which should ensure that the UK has to spend the lowest possible amount on this work.

All things considered, i doubt that there’s an option less expensive and more practical than Trident, while it is most evident that many proposed solutions aren’t half as effective as Trident is.
Most alternatives would be new paths that the UK would have to explore by itself, and the most likely outcome would be tremendously expensive… if not unfeasible at all.

It has been decided this morning that it is definitely coming from the MoD purse, and not the treasury one.
And trust me as someone who works within the Mod/RAF, I’m not optimistic at all, which is what I’m trying to point out.
But I do think if that sort of money was saved from one programme, it would be fed in to the others, not to prevent cuts, but to maintain what’s left.

There’s an official announcement?

That’s just not true, I know people involved with Nimrod since inception, and it was designed as a high tech maritime surveillance aircraft from the start. the overland surveillance how we know it know was very little thought about back then, it has adapted to the overland role very well with various equipment upgrades.
I agree with your last point, in that we should have designed a new ASW aircraft from the start, but I do wonder what sort of priority ASW will now have, I’m guessing a low one.

The Nimrod MR4 is for Marittime Reconaissance. The inland intelligence plane is the soon-to-go Nimrod R1. The Nimrod MR2 and MR4 are excellent ASW platforms designed for ASW warfare, and the MR4 has nothing to envy to the US Poseidon, save for the fact that the Nimrod program was plagued by cost overruns that remain a shame.

The fact NImrod’s sensor suite works well to recon and intelligence work on land is secondary. It was and is an ASW platform.
Even the Sea King ASaC AEW ended up in Afghanistan working on land, but that did not change its nature.