What is the point of trident?

[Ouroboros]

With Russia displaying hypersonic missiles, that could destroy a target in 6 minutes, nearly 2k miles away, what is the point of a nuclear defence system that wouldnt even be launched by the time the Hyper sonic missile has hit
its target?

Edited by Ouroboros on Sunday 20th March 00:13

[mikebradford]

Pretty obvious
Even if those hypersonic missiles land, trident has the potential to wipe out huge areas of whoever attacked.
Thus being the detergent it's intended to be.

[Ouroboros]

mikebradford said:

Pretty obvious
Even if those hypersonic missiles land, trident has the potential to wipe out huge areas of whoever attacked.
Thus being the detergent it's intended to be.

Not how it was envisaged, what 40 years ago. Clearly the display by Russia was more than destroying a token target, it was a very clear message to the west.

Trident is a ''detergent'' yes, but when the damage has already been done, before a nuke could even be launched, clearly makes it moribund in this current climate.

[saaby93]

mikebradford said:

Pretty obvious
Even if those hypersonic missiles land, trident has the potential to wipe out huge areas of whoever attacked.
Thus being the detergent it's intended to be.

It's only a deterrent if you use it as such.
As soon as Putin suggested that anyone interfering may be subject to Nuclear attack the rest of the world said 'ok we'll keep out of it'
It should have been ' if you fire any Nuclear missiles Moscow is a wasteland'

[Ouroboros]

These hypersonic weapons are the stuff of nightmares.

The Avangard (hypersonic glide vehicle), 7km a second, 6 minutes 2k. Destroy London in 6 minutes..

No defence system on the planet could stop it, or detect it, well known systems.

It just seems like having a sub with nuclear weapons out in the ocean, is now pretty pointless. Who would it deter? Russia, China all have advanced hypersonic weapons.

Just looking online we don't even have any hypersonic missiles ourselves...

Edited by Ouroboros on Sunday 20th March 00:41

[monthou]

Ouroboros said:

With Russia displaying hypersonic missiles, that could destroy a target in 6 minutes, nearly 2k miles away, what is the point of a nuclear defence system that wouldnt even be launched by the time the Hyper sonic missile has hit
its target?

It's to deter someone launching nuclear missiles at the uk or our allies.
You launch, we launch.
No?
Nothing to do with which ones land first - if they launch we're all fked, hence MAD.

[saaby93]

Ouroboros said:

It just seems like having a sub with nuclear weapons out in the ocean, is now pretty pointless. Who would it deter?

Providing you state its purposes, it deters whatever youve stated.
No ones said they'll use the sub in response to hypersonic ( unless it has nuclear on the top of it)

[dogma6]

Assured mutual destruction!

Can’t target a nuclear Sub if you don’t know where it is.

[NMNeil]

Ouroboros said:

these hypersonic weapons are the stuff of nightmares.

The Avangard (hypersonic glide vehicle), 7km a second, 6 minutes 2k.

No defence system on the planet could stop it, or detect it, well known systems.

It just seems like having a sub with nuclear weapons out in the ocean, is now pretty pointless. Who would it deter?

A submarine is just another target.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2020/12/russi...

[mikey_b]

You've illustrated the whole point of Trident. Trident is a submarine launched system, the boats with the missiles move around the world hidden underwater, and virtually no-one knows exactly where they are at any given time. These Russian hypersonic missiles, as capable as they seem to be, would be of no use whatsoever to eliminate the UK's nuclear deterrent.

[dvs_dave]

I’s be very skeptical of the veracity of the claims being made by Russia about the true functionality and performance of it’s supposed hypersonic cruise missile. I’d go as far as to say it’s BS propaganda.

[monthou]

dvs_dave said:

I’s be very skeptical of the veracity of the claims being made by Russia about the true functionality and performance of it’s supposed hypersonic cruise missile. I’d go as far as to say it’s BS propaganda.

It's definitely probably capable of hitting a target the size of Ukraine.

[Ouroboros]

People seem to miss the point, trident envisaged 40 years ago as a nuclear defence system, based on tracking a nuclear threat. These hypersonic missiles are untraceable using the system.

The UK doesnt even have any, yet Trident is worthwhile, really doesnt make sense on this current climate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyUTNRIuAqc
Hypersonic Missile Nonproliferation

''We don't know how to defend against hypersonic missiles''

Edited by Ouroboros on Sunday 20th March 01:09

[monthou]

Ouroboros said:

People seem to miss the point, trident envisaged 40 years ago as a nuclear defence system, based on tracking a nuclear threat. These hypersonic missiles are untraceable using the system.

The trident system travelling around the seas, fires a rocket 13k* miles a hour. These hypersonic do 420k* miles an hour. ( *at peak speed)

The UK doesnt even have any, yet Trident is worthwhile, really doesnt make sense on this current climate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyUTNRIuAqc
Hypersonic Missile Nonproliferation

''We don't know how to defend against hypersonic missiles''

You miss the point. Completely.
And what difference does the speed make exactly? Are people less fked if they're killed by a slower missile?

[Previous]

As others have said, trident isn't a defensive system per-se.

It won't stop our cities being turned to dust.

The point is it does the same back to anyone who tries.

Therefore acting as a deterrent.

Others having upped their game with their own missiles doesn't change that.

[dvs_dave]

Ouroboros said:

People seem to miss the point, trident envisaged 40 years ago as a nuclear defence system, based on tracking a nuclear threat. These hypersonic missiles are untraceable using the system.

The UK doesnt even have any, yet Trident is worthwhile, really doesnt make sense on this current climate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyUTNRIuAqc
Hypersonic Missile Nonproliferation

''We don't know how to defend against hypersonic missiles''

Fortunately we don’t need to be able to. Russia’s claims about their hypersonic missile are at best misinformation, as is their MO. Just look at their current military performance and equipment quality. You think there’s any chance that they’ve been able to engineer and produce multiples of a bonafide long range hypersonic cruise missile, as they claim? One of the hardest aeronautical engineering challenges out there. The US (as far as we know) hasn’t even been able to make them. So it’s laughable to think that Russia has.

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Folks need to realise a reality here. This capability is largely irrelevant.

Russia can't defend its land forces against a fleet of prop driven drones.

So they'd have no chance against a wave of TLAMs, followed up bybB-21 / B2 etc. strikes. The fact the west doesn't have them doesn't matter.

Yes they're harder (almost impossible to shoot down) but they're very very expensive, not as manoeuvrable, or as accurate as a say a cruise.

The politics of this is simple, western analysts froth about supposed capability - because that sells the trade news. The senior bods in the affected military branch tells Congress / Gov that the sky is falling in. Congress / Gov panic... And kerching, branch boss gets a few billion to buy a new toy.

It was like that through the cold War, and it's not changed now.

Take Alfa class as an example... was going to make western subs redundant - 50+mph underwater, more manoeuvrable, deeper diving, blah blah. Even the Russians called them the golden fish as it was joked it would have been cheaper to build them out of solid gold.

They'rebmost effective capability was getting western governments to open their wallets. They were unreliable, noisey as hell, and required massive shore side services to keep running - and the cores still froze solid.

Another example... Burevestnik....Russia's project pluto analogue. Scared the st out of the west. Blew up during testing and killed a chunk of the engineers designing it. Did a great job of opening some wallets.

Trident et al do the job they was designed for just as well today as yesterday. They will only be obsolete if an aggressor finds a way to preemptively disable all of them in one go. Hypersonic cruise are not that capability.

[saaby93]

Not sure what this is about but some food at 4:00 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtnQh9r8t0
Whats the opening British ship?

[Dr Jekyll]

Hypersonic missiles are untrackable in the sense that you can't yet track them well enough to shoot them down. It's perfectly possible to trace where they've come from and who to retaliate against.

[TEKNOPUG]

Ouroboros said:

With Russia displaying hypersonic missiles, that could destroy a target in 6 minutes, nearly 2k miles away, what is the point of a nuclear defence system that wouldnt even be launched by the time the Hyper sonic missile has hit
its target?

Edited by Ouroboros on Sunday 20th March 00:13

Trident missiles have a terminal speed and range 4 times greater than a Russian hypersonic missile.....so what is the point of Hypersonic missiles if they wouldn't even be launched by the time the Trident missile has hit it's target?