tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5467119.post114321664765792516..comments2023-10-24T10:09:22.146+01:00Comments on The Yorkshire Ranter: How Not to Write About the UK Nuclear DeterrentAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17153530634675543954noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5467119.post-1143230684709897862006-03-24T21:04:00.000+01:002006-03-24T21:04:00.000+01:00"So, what about independence of operation? Could B...<I><BR/>"So, what about independence of operation? Could Britain fire Trident if the US objected? In 1962 the then US defence secretary, Robert McNamara, said that the British nuclear bomber force did not operate independently."<BR/></I><BR/><BR/>Yes, but McNamara was easily fooled.<BR/><BR/>He rightly insisted on Permissive Action Links for the US Strategic Air Command Minuteman missiles and bombs - so that they could only be armed and detonated by the the correct codes from the President or the rest of the chain of command.<BR/><BR/>However, it turns out, that whilst McNamara was nominally in charge, that SAC decided to secretly order all the <B>PAL codes to be set to eight zeros</B>, so that there would not be any delays caused by communications problems during a nuclear war.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm" REL="nofollow">Keeping Presidents in the Nuclear Dark<BR/>(Episode #1: The Case of the Missing “Permissive Action Links”)</A><BR/><BR/><I><BR/>"Let us say that Britain wanted to fire Trident and the United States opposed this. What would happen? For one, the entire US navy would be deployed to hunt down Red-White-and-Blue October; it would know roughly where to look, starting from the last position notified to the US and Nato while on normal patrol. "<BR/></I><BR/><BR/>Surely Dan Plesh knows that the range of a Trident II D5 missile is around 6000 km ?<BR/><BR/>They could be launched from Holy Loch and they would still be able to hit <BR/>Moscow (about 2500 Km) or Washington (about 5500 Km)<BR/>in his stupid domesday scenario.<BR/><BR/><I><BR/>"Meanwhile, the prime minister would be trying to find a radio that was not jammed, hoping that none of the software had a worm and that the US navy wouldn't shoot the missiles down with either its Aegis anti-missile system"<BR/></I><BR/><BR/>That would be the Aegis anti-missile system which the Chinese managed to copy simply by investing in one of the defence sub-contactors ?<BR/><BR/>Since when is Aegis capable of destroying an incoming ICBM re-entry vehicle ? It can be no better than Patriot missiles at destroying SCUDs although it might be of some use against subsonic cruise missiles.<BR/><BR/>Aegis is deployed on ships, which is a bit of problem if you are trying to defend anywhere except the coast.<BR/><BR/><I><BR/>"or the self-destruct radio signal that is used when missiles are test-fired."<BR/></I><BR/><BR/>Which is only fitted as part of the telemetry package on a test flight, not on real weapons.<BR/><BR/>What makes Dan Plesh think that United Kingdom weapons engineers <BR/>could not build their own triggering mechanisms or detect and circumvent any US installed "secret destruct codes" which they were not already privy to ?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com