XPost: uk.d-i-y   
   From: steve@walker-family.me.uk   
      
   On 17/09/2021 01:11, Pancho wrote:   
   > On 16/09/2021 20:34, Steve Walker wrote:   
   >   
   >> The whole point is that having nuclear armed submarines at sea means   
   >> that no-one can attack without potentially suffering a retaliatory   
   >> attack. Hospitals are of no use if someone decides to obliterate your   
   >> country, knowing that there will be no response.   
   >>   
   >> While it would be better if no countries had nuclear weapons, while   
   >> some potential enemies do, it makes sense to have your own response of   
   >> last resort.   
   >   
   > I thought nuclear armed subs were essentially a first strike weapon.   
   > They can hide just offshore of the target, reducing warning time to a   
   > few minutes.   
      
   No, although they can be used that way, that is not the purpose of them.   
   The idea is that once out at sea, no-one knows where they are, so they   
   cannot be targetted to be knocked out before an attack on their home   
   country and will remain available to respond.   
      
   Indeed, they may not even respond - each Prime Minister gives a letter   
   to the sub commanders, to be opened *after* an attack on the UK. That   
   letter tells them whether to fire back or not in such an event. The idea   
   being that an enemy won't know whether we would respond or not, but the   
   PM has that control.   
      
   > ICBMs are just as effective for retaliation, and much cheaper. They can   
   > be mobile and so hard to destroy. The problem is they take much longer   
   > from launch to arrival and give the target nation time to react to an   
   > attack.   
      
   But subs hide much better. Time taken to arrive is not a problem for a   
   retaliatory weapon though.   
      
   > But we aren't giving the Aussies nuclear bombs are we? We are just   
   > giving them nuclear powered subs.   
      
   Agreed.   
      
   > I was more intrigued by the idea of nuclear powered container ships.   
      
   Although not used much, there have been commercial nuclear ships before   
   - and a number of icebreakers.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)