Being British "elite" nowadays is not fun. You are the butt of the jokes and constantly embarrass yourself as a military amateur.
Royal Navy submarines have suffered a few mishaps recently, but the country’s Trident programme shows we’re still a potent threat. Despite the vessels’s age, Rear Admiral Chris Parry, who served in the Royal Navy for 37 years from 1972 to 2008, agrees completely with the Prime Minister’s view that despite their age, the Trident submarines really do worry the Russians. “One Trident submarine has the ability to incinerate 40 Russian cities very quickly. That is a lot of food for thought for Putin and that should make any world leader fearful,” he tells The Telegraph.
No, you are not! Because the credibility of a deterrent comes from two things:
1. Its total independence from other party in terms of its production and deployment.
2. Constant confirmation of its technical (euphemism for combat) readiness.
UK does not meet any of these criteria. Royal Navy's SSBNs carry only four SLBMs in their tubes. Obviously, UK doesn't have full control of US produced SLBMs Trident II D5. The latest attempt by RN's SSBN to launch (first time in 8 years) one of its Tridents ended up in snafu. And then, the game of SSNs and SSKs starts (in Biscay as an example) where French and British SSBNs patrol primarily, but there is another thing--it is called Early Warning and ABM--UK has neither. In fact, most of UK command corps doesn't have enough qualifications to grasp that:
1. All 40 MIRVs from UK sub if it manages somehow to survive to launch will have to meet Russian ABM--it ranges from full capability against ICBMs MIRVs as A-235 Nudol to S-500 and S-550, all of which are in serial production.
2. Russia can burn, in her turn, 40 British cities even without nukes, while a single salvo by any Borei-class SSBN can turn every military installation of significance in the Air Strip One into ash.
Russians, unlike British, do not fight civilians and Russia's nuclear doctrine is honed primarily for Counterforce, not Countervalue. But if London insists, 160 hypersonic maneuvering blocks from a single Borei (Russia has 9 of them plus other delivery systems) can multiply UK as a whole (using Russian parlance) by 0. In other words, such a country will simply cease to exist. I am sure Admiral Perry knows what Search Theory and ASW are in the year of 2025 and, frankly, UK will have neither Navy nor Patrol Aviation by the time the only patrolling RN's SSBN will be detected, tracked and sunk. But in the end, Mr. Poseidon has its own ideas on how to deal with that. But what do I know, really. What do I know ...
