Trident nuke subs are hackable, thunders Wikipedia-based report

Re: Normal USB Attack Vector

I suppose on the plus side, the Russians have little incentive to hack our submarines to launch a first strike against Russia. Although now I've written that, I can't help but wonder...

Re: Single Point of Failure

In a Real Navy, two to four of the same kind of ship is a 'division', two to four divisions would be a 'squadron', more than four divisions would be a 'flotilla' ('little fleet') and a bunch of squadrons, divisions, not all of the same type, and whatnot a 'fleet'. Alternatively, instead of grouping things by type of ship you could group them by task. A small task would get a 'task group' of 2-7 ships of varying type, typically in these times a few anti-submarine ships and a few anti-air-warfare ships, the ASW ships usually being unable to defend themselves against surface or air threats, the AAW ships being able to hit surface or air threats but not being much good against subs. Real Navies (that would be American, Russian, French, and Indian) would typically have an aircraft carrier or an amphibious assault ship or both in there as well, and might have support ships such as tankers. A 'task force' would be a larger group, often consisting of multiple task groups. In Ye Goode Olde Daze of 1945, British Pacific Fleet operated as Task Force 57 inside the United States Fifth Fleet. British Pacific Fleet had six fleet carriers, four light carriers, 9 escort carriers, four battleships, 11 cruisers (including 2 each New Zealand and Canadian, the Australian cruisers were operating with MacArthur's Navy, a.k.a. US 7th Fleet) plus lots more. Fifth Fleet had over 530 ships, including TF 57.

Four subs isn't even a flotilla.

Re: Single Point of Failure

4 doesn't cut it as a fleet for me either, but we are talking about the politicians / mandarins who gave us aircraft carriers with no aircraft, contracted to buy aircraft that don't work yet but had sold the ones that did before that anyway, etc etc

Re: Boom

In Soviet days it used to be 200 cities in the UK that were individually targeted. Doubt thats changed much.

Re: Boom

"The Russians sensibly refuse to comment but given their known defence budget and known spending their figure is almost certainly closer to 16 than 1600."

The Russians have about 7300 nuclear warheads - like us, they can't test them, due to treaty constraints. However, they do test one of the possible delivery systems every time they send people to the ISS. They have recently tested new delivery systems and newer systems are in development e.g. RS-28 Sarmat AKA SS-X-30 SATAN 2.

Re: The reply will be a quick conversion of most of the UK to a glass lake.

And then, this:

100 Hiroshima-sized weapons would pose a worldwide threat due to ozone destruction and climate change. A superpower confrontation with a few thousand weapons would be catastrophic.

I'm not convinced that 100 13kt weapons would cause the effects claimed in that theory.

I say that because there have been 2053 nuclear tests from 1945 to when the test ban treaty was put in place, many of which have been much larger than 13 kilotons, such as the 57,000 kiloton Tsar Bomba that the Russians detonated. (nice graphical detonation map below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk

(note that many of these tests are not actual detonations, such as testing new warhead designs to see if they would explode if set on fire etc)

However, there have been way more than 100 detonations, and the theory is quite demonstrably incorrect as the effects suggested haven't happened in real world tests. It does however serve as a good way of keeping people scared of nuclear weapons, which helps discourage people from actually using them which in turn achieves the stated aim of deterrence. So it's a good thing, even if the scientific process gets massacred in the process.

Re: Boom

Spartacus,

you're going to upset a lot of my Corbyn-supporting friends.They've been busy going round telling people we have to ask American permission to launch, and here you are, providing information that doesn't support the party line. Oh no, wait, it does support the party line, just not the party leader's line.

Who needs facts and accuracy when we have politicians as an alternative? ;)

Re: Boom

>So you're incorrect. It's an independent deterrent until the US refuse to cooperate on maintenance. At which point the missiles have a ten year rated lifespan, and we usually have 2 or 3 boats loaded at any one time. So we could probably maintain a credible reduced deterrent for 6 months to a couple of years.

So not enough to get a replacement solution in place, but long enough that the US can't cut us off at the knees halfway through a crisis.<

And that maintainance is only a contractual obligation. I'd be VERY surprised if the Navy didn't have people with the required skills available to do the work if needed.