Nuking the Yanks

[98elise]

JawKnee said:

Dr Doofenshmirtz said:

Tests sometimes go wrong...that's why they're called tests.

Non story hyped by left wing media.

It wasn't the test which went wrong, more the missile. We learnt from it our very expensive nukes can hit the wrong country. More than a non story if you think about it.

Which country did it hit?

The missile malfunctioned, it was detected, and was dealt with. All weapons have a missfire procedure.

The Weapons Engineering Department on a ship is quite big. They spend 99% of their time maintaining or fixing weapons systems, and 1% firing them.

[RobDickinson]

98elise said:

All weapons have a missfire procedure.

Apparently not trident..

(apart from that one)

[JawKnee]

mybrainhurts said:

JawKnee said:

We learnt from it our very expensive nukes can hit the wrong country. More than a non story if you think about it.

Don't quite understand what you're getting at. Do you think any other country's missiles are fault free?

So all the others are also faulty? You're really selling this Nuclear Weapons idea.

[RobDickinson]

You lease the missiles yes? Cant you ask for a refund if they are faulty?

[Yipper]

It is embarrassing for the UK. But nothing particularly unusual.

Nukes are complex beasts, never used in real operations for 72 years, and tests often go wrong.

The US makes a (known) nuclear mistake ("Broken Arrow") on average about once every 2 years. The US has lost at least 6 nukes and never recovered them. The US famously crashed two nukes over their own people in North Carolina and the bombs were just one click away from killing perhaps 10,000 lives. The UK is not alone in its buffoonery.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Almanac/Brokenarrows_...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-5...

[Halb]

Yipper said:

...The US has lost at least 6 nukes and never recovered them....

Fuuuucckkkkkkkk...

[don4l]

V88Dicky said:

RobDickinson said:

Ayahuasca said:

An interesting point for me was that they were able to make it self-destruct.

Is that capability only installed on test missiles? If so, its circuitry is not the same as an armed missile. If it is installed on armed missiles too, it means that a nuclear launch can be overridden, which I always believed was not possible. If it can be self-destructed by a radio signal, how hard would it be for an enemy power to so do?

It'll be on all of them. Its not that hard to make a missile explode.. And its always good to have an abort.

Every western rocket has this feature. Russian rockets (at least the space program ones) dont.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. There's no ability to 'abort' once the WEO pulls the trigger, certainly not on a live Trident anyway.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Anyone who knows about the "abort" procedure will have signed the official Secrets Act. Therefore they would not come onto a public forum and discuss the issue.

I am going to suggest that you are full of ste.

[HD Adam]

BIANCO said:

It scary how people still don't understand the concept of nuclear war. If trident ever fires it relay doesn't matter if one or two missiles goes astray trident is like a pump action sawed off shotgun in a small room with 16 cartridges.

If trident fires in anger the world will be already burning and you me and everyone you know will be either already dead or soon to be so.

Yeah but no but yeah but Thatcher but no but Corbyn but yeah but won't somebody think of the children etc.

[RobDickinson]

AFIK there is usually only one trident boat out on patrol and they have 8 missiles on board.

Loosing 25% of your nukes when you launch a first strike weapon is pretty rough..

[alfie2244]

RobDickinson said:

AFIK there is usually only one trident boat out on patrol and they have 8 missiles on board.

Loosing 25% of your nukes when you launch a first strike weapon is pretty rough..

25% lost?

[RobDickinson]

BIANCO said:

They can have 16 missiles each with 8 warheads up to 128 in total.

They can. They dont. They usually have 8 on board. I'm not convinced they all have nukes on either...

Loosing 2 out of 8 is 25%..

(UK has 58 missiles and 160 warheads according to the internets)

[Ayahuasca]

don4l said:

V88Dicky said:

RobDickinson said:

Ayahuasca said:

An interesting point for me was that they were able to make it self-destruct.

Is that capability only installed on test missiles? If so, its circuitry is not the same as an armed missile. If it is installed on armed missiles too, it means that a nuclear launch can be overridden, which I always believed was not possible. If it can be self-destructed by a radio signal, how hard would it be for an enemy power to so do?

It'll be on all of them. Its not that hard to make a missile explode.. And its always good to have an abort.

Every western rocket has this feature. Russian rockets (at least the space program ones) dont.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. There's no ability to 'abort' once the WEO pulls the trigger, certainly not on a live Trident anyway.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Anyone who knows about the "abort" procedure will have signed the official Secrets Act. Therefore they would not come onto a public forum and discuss the issue.

I am going to suggest that you are full of ste.

I suppose the 'abort' mechanism could be on-board (maybe all missiles) and is automatically triggered if a missile deviates from its programed course, as opposed to someone on the ground pressing an abort button.

[V88Dicky]

don4l said:

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Anyone who knows about the "abort" procedure will have signed the official Secrets Act. Therefore they would not come onto a public forum and discuss the issue.

I am going to suggest that you are full of ste.

No need for that Don.

I served 23 years in the RN as a Weapons Engineer, six of which were onboard an SSBN maintaining our deterrent.

But hey, what do I know, right?

[don4l]

Ayahuasca said:

don4l said:

V88Dicky said:

RobDickinson said:

Ayahuasca said:

An interesting point for me was that they were able to make it self-destruct.

Is that capability only installed on test missiles? If so, its circuitry is not the same as an armed missile. If it is installed on armed missiles too, it means that a nuclear launch can be overridden, which I always believed was not possible. If it can be self-destructed by a radio signal, how hard would it be for an enemy power to so do?

It'll be on all of them. Its not that hard to make a missile explode.. And its always good to have an abort.

Every western rocket has this feature. Russian rockets (at least the space program ones) dont.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. There's no ability to 'abort' once the WEO pulls the trigger, certainly not on a live Trident anyway.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Anyone who knows about the "abort" procedure will have signed the official Secrets Act. Therefore they would not come onto a public forum and discuss the issue.

I am going to suggest that you are full of ste.

I suppose the 'abort' mechanism could be on-board (maybe all missiles) and is automatically triggered if a missile deviates from its programed course, as opposed to someone on the ground pressing an abort button.

My point is that nobody who knows anything about it will discuss it on a public forum.

[Elroy Blue]

Reports are it was a telemetry problem and not a fault with the missle. Whatever the reason, the decision not to report it seems entirely justified, if only to stop the bks that gets spouted by people with no idea.

[ThunderGuts]

don4l said:

My point is that nobody who knows anything about it will discuss it on a public forum.

Correctomundo.

[alfie2244]

ThunderGuts said:

don4l said:

My point is that nobody who knows anything about it will discuss it on a public forum.

Correctomundo.

I would go further and say I don't think the results of a nuclear missile test firing, successful or otherwise, should be in the public domain whatsoever.

[citizensm1th]

V88Dicky said:

don4l said:

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Anyone who knows about the "abort" procedure will have signed the official Secrets Act. Therefore they would not come onto a public forum and discuss the issue.

I am going to suggest that you are full of ste.

No need for that Don.

I served 23 years in the RN as a Weapons Engineer, six of which were onboard an SSBN maintaining our deterrent.

But hey, what do I know, right?

ahhhh a real lou Reed moment.

[jimmyjimjim]

Tango13 said:

Eric Mc said:

There were quite a few "Broken Arrow" incidents during the cold war. I was only reading yesterday about a Bomarc Missile test that went wrong at McGuire Air Force Base in the 1960s. The area was contaminated and is still cordoned off.

Edited by Eric Mc on Sunday 22 January 16:59

What was the quote by a US President?

'I don't know what bothers me most, the fact that the military have accidents with nuclear weapons or the fact that they have so many as to need code phrases...'

Please tell me you don't honestly believe this is a quote by a President.

[Yipper]

don4l said:

V88Dicky said:

RobDickinson said:

Ayahuasca said:

An interesting point for me was that they were able to make it self-destruct.

Is that capability only installed on test missiles? If so, its circuitry is not the same as an armed missile. If it is installed on armed missiles too, it means that a nuclear launch can be overridden, which I always believed was not possible. If it can be self-destructed by a radio signal, how hard would it be for an enemy power to so do?

It'll be on all of them. Its not that hard to make a missile explode.. And its always good to have an abort.

Every western rocket has this feature. Russian rockets (at least the space program ones) dont.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. There's no ability to 'abort' once the WEO pulls the trigger, certainly not on a live Trident anyway.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you.

Anyone who knows about the "abort" procedure will have signed the official Secrets Act. Therefore they would not come onto a public forum and discuss the issue.

I am going to suggest that you are full of ste.

Test-nukes are certainly known to have postlaunch abort systems. Some say real nukes can be aborted by satellite encrypted-code, ground, sea or air missile -- but the window-of-opportunity for destruction after launch is very short (minutes). Others say postlaunch-abortion risks loss of control by foreign espionage, so only "some" (not all) nukes are self-destructible.

As an aside, an interesting video of how the US (allegedly) used to launch real nukes (if used) at an Arizona museum:

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-process-of-launching...