Today the Prime Minister formally laid the keel for HMS Dreadnought. This is a ceremonial occasion only as much of the boat has already been fabricated.
The effects of Covid combined with political turmoil probably explain why this ceremony has been so delayed. Modern submarines are assembled in sections so actual ‘keel laying’ is not really part of the process anymore. The first steel was cut for Dreadnought in as far back as October 2016 and construction of the boat is far more advanced than this event might suggest. The boats are being built in 16 sub-units around the Barrow site which are then grouped into three mega blocks and moved to the Devonshire Dock Hall for assembly. The first mega block of Dreadnought was delivered in the autumn of 2023.
The MoD will not provide a target date for her to enter service other than “the early 2030s” but information suggests before 2032. The Dreadnought class are designed from the outset to have a service life of 35-40 years. This is a significant increase over their predecessors which should reduce through-life support costs but has contributed to the high initial price tag of at least £31Bn for the four vessels.
Despite being one of the largest public spending projects and involving some of the UK’s finest engineering and manufacturing talent, the Dreadnought project has been underway largely out of sight until now. The ceremony today helps shine a light on the the scale of the achievement and celebrate the efforts of the workforce and supply chain involved in this vast and critically important national endeavour.
The Dreadnought programme will support more than 30,000 jobs from the shipyard to SMEs across the country. The workforce at BAE Systems’ Barrow facility has expanded by over 1,000 people in the past six months, with employees in the defence nuclear sector earning around 20% more than the national average wage. His Majesty the King has agreed to confer the title ‘Royal’ to the Port of Barrow in recognition of the town’s special role in guaranteeing the nation’s security.
Cameron and Osbourne have a lot to answer for in delaying this moment and even more so in transferring the cost to the defence budget.
Amen
They should be dragged in front of the submariners and their families and be forced to apologise for them having to endure 6mth patrols because of their idiotic decisions…
Sadly, they’re not the first and certainly not the last to shaft defence. Look at the current government; we’ve finally got commitments to increasing defence spending, but that includes counting the security services budgets towards the total goal.
Doesn’t matter the colour of the tie, successive governments of all stripes have stripped this country bare of defences. The last time we had any sense of stability in defence spending was approximately 1970 to 1984; before that decolonisation meant a fairly rational decrease in spending, after that its been in effective free fall.
1984 – you are joking. There was no stability after John Knott’s review pre-falklands.
Yes. The Thatcher years were a deliberate 1% of GDP reduction in defence spending , the Falklands caught them out but it was only a short period of replacement RN spending
Based on defence spending as a percentage of GDP, fluctuating a little around 4.5% for that period, according to the IFS.
It wasn’t until around 1984/5 that defence spending actually started plummeting (again). Aside from 1991, it dropped significantly until 2004, then began a gentle rundown from 2.5% to 2% in 2015.
Know your history — 1980 / 81 Thatcher was in Snatcher mode regarding public spending and Defence was part of the exercise.
Thatcher wanted to be known for her house keeping skills.
The Treasury wanted cuts / savings.
Defence was part of the exercise.
NATO focused RN wanted an easy life.
So they offered up the Falklands guardship / Endurance.
1974/76 onwards the BA junta had started sabre rattling over the Falklands.
After Sunny Jim had scared them fartless with “nuclear” sub talk / over the horizon ASW exercises they were all ears when the withdrawal was announced in 1981.
And the rest is painful history dressed up as farce.
The IFS were still doing their O levels at the time.
You’re more than welcome to look at the actual spending levels.
https://ifs.org.uk/defence-spending
https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_defence_analysis
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/united-kingdom/military-spending-defense-budget
I’m certainly not denying that there were cuts coming at the end of the period of stability; that’s WHY it’s the end of the period of stability.
However, it’s a clear pattern: from 1970 til roughly 1984, defence spending averaged out at roughly the same proportion of GDP. That isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s backed up by factual data.
Lies / damned lies / Statistics — take your pick.
People of my vintage have their lived reality and the Falklands omnishambles to back them up.
Thatcher was fishing for spending cuts in 1980 / 81 as her economic policy collapsed around her and all she had left was political dogma with Defence in the mix.
She was looking for cuts to the defence spending in 1980/81 to suit her economic agenda and keep the Treasury off her back. The RN offered up the Endurance for the chop and the politicians thought it was a great idea.
The rest is tragedy wrapped up as farce — starting with scrap metal dealers.
So your stats as you want to present them are just total tripe in the context of 1980/81/82 reality.
Apologies for the directness but this is the re-writing of history in a particularly grotesque fashion.
Remember there is data.
Then there is information.
Then there is knowledge.
Followed by expertise.
Finally there is wisdom.
This is a data analysis fail.
Thatcher gave the forces an eighteen percent pay rise in 1980 if I remember my pay packet correctly for which I was grateful.
2% was 2023.
The ukraine aid to get to 2.3% is added now ( even though technically Ukraine isnt a formal ally (nato) like rules say has to be to be counted) but that isnt helping the armed forces , nor its ongoing money.
Its like the Treasury contingency funding for the ME land wars, not under the direct control of the military spend authority, but instead its Downing St.
The cost of the deterrent has always been in the Defence Budget – at the very least since the mid-80s. The idea that it was somehow held outside that is simply untrue.
It’s amazing how this piece of misinformation is so pervasive. You hear it trotted out time after time.
Thats because even Secretaries of defence have said it. Williamson 2017-19 had to retract that claim
I might add the falsehood of the RN only ‘leasing’ the Trident missiles from USN- spread by CND- is another in that category.
https://www.naval-technology.com/news/us-dod-awards-3-3bn-for-us-uk-trident-ii-support-through-2031/?cf-view
“The contract includes a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to the United Kingdom, showing the continued collaboration between the US and the UK in maintaining their nuclear respective deterrent forces.’
and the second contract
‘This award also includes an FMS component for the UK and stretches work completion through 29 September, 2031.’
I agree.
That said various other bits of what is now DNE were part of AERE and other non military bits.
Scratchy and Sniffy changed the reporting of the deterrent in 2012’ish.
From memory the put the line item under the RN header instead of reporting it as a separate line item. There was a change something along these lines.
No matter the RN was put under more pressure.
Defo not when I was on the R Boats and I specifically remember an argument over the capital cost of Trident being included which was a very large chunk of the cost which made a mess of the Budget for the RN and I would say that argument remains valid.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. When they were confronted with a completely bankrupt government as a result of both new Labours profligacy and laissez faire attitude to regulation, they had some very difficult choices. Deferring the costs and hoping for better days probably seemed logical. Obviously as we know it has cost the Navy dear across both replacing our submarines as well as the dilapidated state of the Escort fleet. If there is a ray of light it is that these – and the T26 and T31s are on order and being built.
Hindsight? It was known at the time. !! The Global recession – GFC- was the intial cause of financial difficulties, there was no ‘prolificacy’ . The Conservative austerity measures prolonged the recession as the standard route is for the government to maintain its spending during a short business correction. Thats what is commonly known about 1930s Great Depression worsened with government cutbacks
Drat — second again but I will say it anyway.
2008 / Credit Crunch / GFC — happened because the US had nothing left to sell apart from their debt. And when the good stuff ran out they put lipstick on the Provvy Cheque debt and sold it as A Grade stuff anyway.
Nothing to do with public spending in the UK.
If you are a Fifer you could claim that Brown saved the Western World.
Not sure I would go that far but he saved us from the Bank of England.
Mervyn King should have been sacked for his laziness / stupidity / trad ways.
Scratchy and Sniffy in 2010 delivered to dog boiling austerity to scare the plebs fartless and to get the poor / sick / underemployed to pay for the bankers mistakes.
Four years and a Triple dip recession later — the ONS eventually papered over a few cracks / crevices — and government investment was trashed with Scratchy delivering a brain fart of epic proportions on “Cats and Traps” and sent the Harrier force to the crusher amongst other pieces of military vandalism.
2010 till 2020 was a lost decade for the UK followed up by a CoViD pandemic that we still haven’t fully recovered from — it will be at best a hard slog for the next 10 years.
And in what budget would you have the construction of submarines…the Highways Budget???
Foreign aid. Net Zero. HS2. Maybe reduce the profligate expansion of Diversity Officer roles by 50%. Government is all about choices. Leadership is all about talent.
Paying for other people’s net zero 11.5 Billion and carbon capture nonsense been tried and failed 20 Billion
It makes a lot of sense for our nuclear deterrent to be included in the defence budget. There is no problem with that.
The problem is not increasing the defence budget by an amount equal to the cost of the nuclear deterrent. That is what has caused this mess. It has effectively shrunk the defence budget by 5-6%, while not being publically recognised or admitted, putting the MoD in an awful position.
Day to day yes capital items no in my view as they distort the budget
I hope the Navy look after the crew unlike the first nuclear Dreadnought where almost all the crew died before their time all showing similar signs I remember my father-in-law telling me about the times they would wade in water up to their waste inside the nuclear sub.
it would be interesting to research to see if any of the new born children of the crew have similar symptoms as their father my father-in-law died of multiple sclerosis.
I am the son of a Dreadnought crew member and my father didn’t die before his time. My brother and I have no ill effects and were not born with any “defects”.
I’m sorry to hear of the loss of your father-in-law.
However, there has never been any credible link between MS and radiation.
Things have moved on a lot from Dreadnought days. Although to be absolutely fair reactor safety has always been close to an obsession.
It isn’t that unusual for the bilges in any ship or boat to be waded in.
I know an AMS 2 watch keeper who had trouble conceiving which was actually linked to sitting on the step on a particular boat allegedly a small gaping the poly blocks.
That is more plausible.
You’ll be delighted to know he did eventually conceive and it is I true dit an LMEM realy nice guy.
Hope this timeline doesn’t slip. The navy are going to have staffing problems if the crews have to keep on doing 200 day plus patrols to keep the aging boats available.
There’s meant to be 3 operational boats with Vanguard back. Something clearly went wrong this time. Let’s see if next switch is June, September or any time in between!
One working up, One in maintenance and One on patrol…the one in maintenance went into the shed in January, Vanguard was due back 14th February, however her replacement had a small issue that took a little longer to fix before she could sail – she has since sailed and isnt due back until mid October
Good thing that the genius idea of scrapping one of the Boomers wasn’t gone through with…..remember all those ‘we only need three’ conversations from the coalition?
The RN call them bombers, Americans call them boomers 🙂
Local RN guy — in Subs — in the 80’s called them boomers.
Long time ago / that is my memory.
Although poor memory so open to education.
The RN always call their SSBNs Bombers, as @Russ says, Boomers is an Americanism.
OK — my memory is worse than I thought.
What were the SSN’s called.
Mid 1980’s chat — the surface fleet were “Skimmers”.
To this a number of “Carry On” style homophobic slurs were added for good measure — in my civvy street I thought the Russians were the enemy.
Seemingly they were just the opposition.
Is my memory anywhere near the truth.
Back in the day (early 80s), we called them FOSMs Ferrari’s, not sure of any other moniker for them.
Mate the grey funnel brigade have always been ‘skimmers’ (or targets)and probably always will be.
True
Service life angle — just an easy way to try and explain the poor build economics.
What was the cost of the Vanguard class and what is the design re-use in the new boats?
£8bill per boat is shocking.
Contactor gouging turned up to 11.
What is the going rate for an Astute?
30K people involved in the build — surely some mistake?
What do they all do — the cost is huge / the productivity is shocking?
Also does the pressure hull cross section change between the front and the back?
Looks like another Astute howler coming back to bite us on the erse.
12 tubes — was that a cost save?
We only deploy 8 missiles due to nuclear policy. So why keep deploying them half empty.
French SSBN program is looking to cost similar
There is no design re use, it’s been 30 years, all the tech being used is new
What about the pressure — did we start from scratch?
What about the Trident tubes?
The 21″ torpedo tubes?
The shape of the steering wheel?
The galley worktops?
Bog fittings?
Easiest and simplest solution would have been a build to print second batch of Vanguards — re-designing everything from scratch just points to the unworldly nature of current UK defence engineering.
The issue here is opportunity cost — spend it all here means less for other priorities.
That’s not the simplest solution seeing as there’s new trident tubes, new reactors, New propulsion, larger crew accommodation required due to longer patrols. All of those are nessecary upgrades. Building the same design for 30 years has killed US surface ship design as they now cannot make anything except a Burke. Same goes for us when we had to build the Astute class
Engineering is about building the same capability for less.
Or building better for the same level of resources.
We are now designing for failure — longer patrols because the hulls aren’t available so we make the cupboards bigger which then makes them cost more which means the replacement builds get delayed and the patrols get longer still.
This doesn’t end well — eventually the elastic will snap and the golden goose will get re-homed.
Sonar technology has advanced since the vanguard class was built and will continue to advance in the future so at some point the vanguard will no longer be stealthy enough to remain undetected at sea defeating the point of sticking the nuclear missiles in a submarine which is why the Dreadnought class is being built
Is the shape noisy or is it the systems?
Would nextgen tiles make all the difference?
Undetected — what next stealth deliveries from Sainsburys?
We must have a Plan B — firing the missiles from Loch Long?
A new batch of Vanguards, using old reactor tech, 1990s crew accommodation standards, a 1990s sonar set and analogue systems?
It would be obsolete by Russian SSNs by 2040, let alone 2060.
I don’t think you understand quite how complex nuclear submarines are.
Digital stuff — less space / more crew space.
Old reactor tech — hopefully we have learned something over 30 years.
Sonar — if we can’t improve the sensors.
We can have a go at the processing.
Submarines are fairly simple systems.
Credible builds in Yugoslavia and North Korea highlight that.
Only Naval egos make them complex.
Plus testing to infinity.
Accommodation: More crew space means more headroom, longer bunks, good heads. It doesn’t mean slinging hammocks in the old analogue computer cupboard. It is hugely important for retention that Dreadnought has more open internal spaces and feels ‘comfortable’, rather than just living in a metal pipe.
Reactor tech: What we have learnt over the last 30 years is that to make reactors safer and more efficient, it really helps if they are bigger. That results in less complicated piping and fewer points of failure, and it has resulted in Dreadnought having a larger hull diameter than Vanguard or Astute.
Sonar: why do you expect the latest hull sonars to have the same footprint, shape and layout as something from 30 years ago? Or for modern engineers to shoehorn their designs into a space intended for a completely different system? The aim for the ultimate base of UK security ought to be better than ‘barely good enough’ or the design will quickly become obsolete.
“Submarines are simple”: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The RN call Astutes “more complex than the Space Shuttle”. They have just about the most modern systems available in every regard, and just because North Korea can put out “a nuclear sub” doesn’t mean it’s any good.
How do you think the original HMS Dreadnought would do in modern combat? That’s about where Korea are with their submarine programme.
And don’t you think that testing is rather useful on a floating nuclear power station, carrying tons upon tons of high explosive on board?
EDIT: Any actual naval experts, please correct me if I said anything incorrect here, this was a bit of a rant.
The RN thought capabilities believe a lot of things — flat screens on the Bulwark was something special for a start.
The Space Shuttle was a dog.
Pretty simple with a few unfortunate flaws.
The Russians ran the numbers on the design and worked out the failure rate was 2 or 3%. Unfortunately it took the full scale development of their own copy to get the data.
Reactor sizing / volumetric efficiency — do the US / French / Russians / Chinese agree with your viewpoint?
Are their subs getting fatter?
Are our reactors unreliable?
Do they have poor performance?
Less complex piping — sometimes you have to take the hit in one area to make the rest of the vehicle work.
CSA transition — R boats to V boats to A boats to “D” boats ?
The reactors on modern subs are now expected to last the life of the sub without refuelling. This means some very complex engineering to ensure they survive that long.
You of course will be first on a North Korean sub when it dives to 1000ft deep….subs are hard, nuclear subs harder, ssbn harder again as they have to be the quietest things in the ocean.
Victorian engineering — back in the day — knocked up a number of credible designs in 10/15 years right across the globe.
Subs are not difficult.
Subs are difficult when your opponents have better ones.
The Dreadnoughts can’t just be “working submarine”, although to meet the patrol requirements is an engineering challenge in and of itself.
It needs to be quieter and have better sensors than anything it might bump into in the deep for the next 30 years, and that is where the difficulty lies.
Anything less compromises national security on a huge scale.
207 day patrols and Sainsburys deliveries also do not have a good impact on national security.
Probably in 20 years time we will get info on the gaps we have at the moment. The elastic is stretched so tight that holes are starting to appear.
Better subs — at the moment we just need working subs.
Better than future potential vapourware — where and when does the gold plating stop?
This is our eternal habit of over thinking things because of our own lack of confidence in our own abilities turned up to 11.
If the worst comes to the worst we just dig a few canals and sit in Loch Lomond / Loch Morar / Loch Ness / Loch Shiel.
Faster turnover of simpler subs is a better performance profile than trying to cover all the bases for a 40 year service life out until 2080.
Flexibility is the key not access to crystal balls.
Fairly simple? You try learning every valve, switch, fuse board, cable run and vent flap and put your hand on them. Learn how to shut down the bulkheads how to operate all the aforementioned and some ten thousand parameters were monitored and available to display for forward ship systems, as ship control panel watch keeper you made your own screen selections for those ship control had their own. The SOPs and EOPs that we had to know inside out if lined up on a shelf I would estimate at around four to five foot.
All that is just part of what we have to learn
Simple systems? Nuclear subs are more hi tech than space vehicles.
Yes if we want junk that 3rd world nations can counter yes we could build subs like North Korea.
Skimping on our nuclear weapon subs would seem like a bad idea.
The reactor used in Vanguard and Astue has been replaced to improve safety. As the new reactor is bigger you need a new pressure hull.
Why is the reactor bigger?
Why will it not fit into the Vanguard engine room CSA?
Next gen of reactor / 30 years experience / better materials — you would expect it to be smaller rather than larger.
Has the extended service life caused any changes?
Plus extended service lives means fewer builds.
Which means more build holidays.
Means skill loss / degradation.
Means more inefficiency.
Better to build one boat every two years — set a cadence and work to it.
Some are SSN’s / some are boomers.
I don’t think you have any idea about submarine design
And no one builds a boat every 2 years
2 year build cadence — with AUKUS coming we may soon have to.
What law of nature is building a boat every two years supposed to break?
Surely we can 3 or 4 shift the build hall.
Big Auto to the rescue once again.
Australia wants to build at its own yard in South Australia. Thats an imperative for them . Maybe some sections initially floated out from Barrow on a heavy lift ship
First boat is early 2040s cant be any earlier.
Big Auto — Aus always thought it was special.
Big cars for a big country was their motto.
Until their consumers thought different.
In the end they wanted cheap.
Pretty resourceful bunch but with the turning circle of an oil tanker.
Aus want how many boats — 3 / 4 / 5?
Surely they will see sense and only do assembly and a few easy modules — nuclear power plants on a sheep station is asking for trouble.
One “research” reactor does not a nuclear industry make.
Might get messy.
British technology will carry the can- as they did for the Sydney Harbour Bridge , designed AND built by Britain’s Dorman Long of Middlesborough.
As the boats dont need a core replacement they can have minimal nuclear ‘industry’ outside the RAN. The reactors of course will be entirely UK built.
As will likely the whole reactor compartment and back end which will then be shipped assembled to AUS to have the front end and systems added.
Why can’t it be any earlier than the the early 2040’s?
What are the challenges on the Critical Path?
Reactor design / development / delivery looks like it is in the spotlight.
Then you have the issue of the reactor delivery schedule.
If Aus is in the mix our build schedule becomes lumpy.
One for them / one for us vs one for them / two for us.
One reactor supplier supporting two build sites with different delivery cadences will need some planning.
Might need to 4 shift the reactor factory / supply chain.
Ryton take a bow.
Thats that public information available. The RAN is getting two or 3 USN Virginia class much sooner, so doesnt need its british designed boats till much later – which havent even been designed yet
You should ask the relevant authorities on why the timelines are what they are.
IN the USA from ordering to commissioning of a Virginia class submarine takes 6 years, and they have larger economies of scale than us.
So you have 3 on the go at once.
Walk and chew gum — sure beats death by Powerpoint.
I’d prefer to have the reactor in the RC.
Want to never change the refuelling rods then you have to make the reactor bigger as the by products degrade the power output. For The Britain it was the whole ‘core’ that was replaced not just individual rods.
The first UK rectors needed refuelling much more often – hence the small hull size in the earliest boats. The Vanguards were designed for one refuelling -two if something didn’t degrade so quickly.
Dreadnoughts never need a core change.
The French are the opposite design standard , they use low enriched uranium- to piggy back on their civil nuclear industry- and the subs and carrier are designed with built in hatches to replace the rods or core easily every 7-10 years. Smaller reactors and hull diameters result. Astute are 11.3 m while new Suffren’s are 8.8m
Not quite getting this.
Longer service lives with reduced / no refuelling — is that correct?
That means we have to make the “core” bigger and that means the hull becomes bigger
If we are to refuel we have the swap out the whole “core” and not the fuel rods? So the plan is that over the service life of the boat the core does not get changed?
Is this the hope?
Is this the plan?
Is this real?
How do you swap out a core?
Big hole in the pressure hull and a crane?
Young Ones engineering — Neal does exams.
Yes. Its obvious its a cut in the pressure hull. The core replacement rather than just the rods is because the whole unit can be tested and built before hand. No the reactor isnt removed just the core and yes a lifting crane is required.
The reactors of the Astutes and the Dreadnoughts dont refuelling. Full stop. The previous types have had had reduced refuelling’s/longer core life as designs have progressed, so this is the logical progression.
because it is based on the latest USN reactor design.
There are a number of design requirements which impact the reactor size. A couple of the big ticket items include:
Welcome to HMS Camel — Dan Dare underwater death rays.
This has all the hallmarks of a student lunch.
Passive cooling — surely an alternative would be quieter pumps?
Passive cooling then suggests a patrol speed of under 10 knots.
Quietness is good vs passive detection.
Not so good against active detection.
I fear we are not very balanced.
Anyone else big into passive cooling?
Pumps can still fail, especially bearings, creating noise shorts.
I would expect the quiet speed range will be quite higher than 10kts though considerations how the passive sonar and non-acoustic detection systems function in these higher speed ranges would have operational impacts – I’d suggest higher quiet speeds would be used for transits, while the normal deployment area(s) would be at much lower speeds.
The greater uptake of passive cooling in nuclear PWR design is evolutionary benefiting from decades of experience and technology improvements allowing the passive cooling to replace the (more) numerous pumping arrangements for ‘normal’ operation of the reactor.
OK — seem to understand the design direction of travel.
Seem to be going over old ground — 1930’s boilers / Admiralty steam.
The RN stuck with passive circulation — my limited understanding.
The hip kids got into forced circulation — some worked / some didn’t.
Pumps — CFD should make their operation a lot quieter.
As in getting rid of the turbulent flows.
I would probably back the current pump building community to deliver up some quality kit — maintenance would be another matter.
Riiiiiight.
How do you fix the *primary* circuit pump if it fails when the sub is in the middle of nowhere?
There is a reason reactors can safely run up to a moderate power level passively……
First you have more than one / aim to have more than.
Second there would be no surprises.
You understand the build / operation / durability of the component through detailed monitoring — PLM as the hip kids call it would be a start.
Therefore no unexpected failures — 6 Sigma / root cause analysis would help.
Third you have a credible passive mode / limp home mode to keep the show on the road if things get really tough.
Current reactor design in the UK would appear to be putting more focus on passive performance which others suggests means that the core is getting bigger.
Bigger core also means more fuel installed and no in service re-fuelling — refuelling would appear to be core replacement as part of a full scale mid life refresh / rebuild / comprehensive update package.
Not sure we are heading in the right direction.
Gold plating to extend the service life would not appear to be very efficient.
Build timing / cadence of the R boats shows what we can do / have done / need to do in the future.
What they did in a month we are now taking a year.
Or very close to a year.
Right, if you want to die, 40 warheads is more than enough.
Because you can kill enough including yourself.
The objective is to have enough weapons so that if our country was theatened to be wiped out, we would be certain to be able to do enough damage in response to make the original attack unthinkable.
We’ve never had the fire power to destroy Russia, but we used to have the fire power to destroy Moscow, and that was deemed enough to deter. Now we may not even have that, as we may deploy too few warheads to get through Moscow’s ABM defences. According to the Thin Pinstriped Line blog, we didn’t have to fire power to get through in the 1970s with Polaris either, which is why we upgraded to Trident.
Polaris was upgraded with some rather special kit on the front end that is generally known as chevaline upgrade the pac was specially interesting and brought some additional hazards, look it up the yanks went Poseidon
Chevaline had some scary chemicals to drive the things.
Soviet Boats
The Deltas definitely ran down into the Atlantic as I have listened to them transiting from an R boat almost forty years ago now.
If you want to read about scary chemicals, I highly recommend “Ignition!” by John D. Clark…
Is that the actual policy ?
30k people is across various suppliers. Then add on burger vans and taxi drivers round the suppliers!
It does sound very expensive, but these things are incredible feats of engineering.
We need to move out of this BAE price gouges discussion. Over the last 15 years it’s resulted in contracts being awarded to foreign manufacturers with poor results (think General Dynamics and Ajax) or resulted in lack of British economic benefit (think P8, AH64E).
A lot of people have been pushing “buy US off the shelf it’s cheaper” are perhaps keeping their heads down at the moment…..
It is also a mono cultural thing.
One way of doing things…..limits new thought processes and inputs which limits innovation.
You would, for sure, see cheaper hull fabrication if there was competition. But that isn’t where the costs sit.
Running two submarine reactor facilities would be massively expensive but not worth it unless we were building 40+ nuclear submarines…..which we never will.
Thay is like upgrading Windows 95 but you cant.
Two cross section changes on Vanguard which were festooned with sensors when we took it to sea trials I found that a bit scary just the one on the new doughnut it would seem.
What is the state of the Vanguard class?
How many are in a dockyard long term for a refit?
Hopefully just the one.
Plus what keeps a boat out for 200 plus days?
The lack of a properly functioning unit to take her place?
Surely we can do a pit stop turn-around in less than 90 ndays?
Do we still run with two crews per hull?
Or is it 6 over 4?
Victorious which is 2nd boat is only one in Devonport for refit. 200+ days means next boat is not ready to go! .
There’s this amazing thing called “Google” that’s been around for a couple of decades now. Perhaps you could learn to use that to answer your daft questions?
It is wrong dummy.
Why aren’t there more tubes for the Trident?
We only use 8 most the time, 12 gives us some room to increase while freeing up room for other uses
A political sop to the anti nukes lobby. The government can argue it is continuing its policy non proliferation by showing they have reduced the number of at sea missiles from 16 to 12, and over all decrease of 16 missiles across the four boats.
If you like the test firing should be at youe home.
The 2010 policy was to reduce to 8 active missiles on the Vanguard and later Dreadnoughts
Think that the recent announcement about the increase in warhead stock indicates a change is coming.
When we only have one boat on patrol & it’s suddenly detected? That’s what always worried me – still does . Why don’t we have a 2 nd boat overlapping the patrolling boat by at least 2 months
With in 1 in refit and 3 operational boats, 2 weeks overlap is best you’re going to get. If requirement is 2 on patrol, best order 4 more boats!
Should have been HMS Margaret Thatcher.
Couple of questions. Are these to have the BAE or AUKUS software? Life of 35-40 years. Does this also mean a similar lifespan for AUKUS submarine as both are to have the same PWR3 reactor?
The PWR3 Reactor will be common between both classes all going well.Logically Dreadnought will be a much bigger Boat than AUKUS,will that result in less capacity/longevity as it has to do more work ? Too many variables to consider i think.
Heathrow outage / fire — at least they have moved on from the big shed close to the WCML and the start of the M1. That industrial estate must have the fire brigade on speed dial.
Then there is the Dartford Crossing — sheds going up in flames on a regular basis.
I wonder who the bookies have as the favourites for this little piece of geo strategic rat fecking?
LFB say no suspicious circumstances . Maybe being on site they missed something you can tell from just reading about it.?
Bit cheap old chap …
The numbers don’t work for me — if it had taken down a Tesco distribution centre / McD’s / Buildbase then I would be more inclined to go with the pot luck theory.
Very focused.
Plus any state sponsored Yahoo is not going to advertise their presence.
The grid will be getting quite a few questions about this.
Single event / total failure = not good.
British aviation services ( especially relating to and around Heathrow) is known for making minor failures into colossal FUs
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2002/may/18/theairlineindustry.transportintheuk
But your point about the backup failure is correct – no ones talked about it yet- and why something that should shut down say a single terminal closed everything
The plot thickens.
The Grid would appear to have some answers / found a voice.
Comments about Heathrow’s poor performance / inability to walk and chew gum at the same time now seem very apt.
Corporal Jones style business resilience.
Crisis Comms Inc now getting involved.
Could get messy.
2002 angle — routine software upgrade overnight …
Pretty basic stuff to fail on.
2025 angle — it would appear that one standard was in use all across the patch instead of one for control systems and one for the donkey work.
Might need some improvements.
Wiki level nonsense — I know / I know …
All new to me — others might have a different level of engagement.
There would appear to be a certain circularity entering the debate / discussion.
Polaris replacement — first it was to be the Trident C4 missile then the Trident D5.
Same name different missile — much better tech but much more expensive.
Main thing — nuclear deterrent costs go up / conventional defence expenditure goes down.
When this came up in 1980/81 seemingly the change was going to cost a lot more as the US were playing even harder ball with the development costs.
So the cuts to the RN that would have seen the Endurance pensioned off would also have seen the LPD’s retired and HMS Invincible sold to Aus.
US political pressure saved HMS Invincible.
US discounts to the D5 bill saved the LPDs.
Not sure the cuts to the RN were directly attributed to the proposed extra nuclear spend back in the day — it would have made a political hard sell even harder.
One thing that keeps coming up in these topics — the MOD gold plating of the Moscow option. No need to destroy the country as a functioning entity we need to destroy their capital and forget about the rest.
I wonder who came up with that brain fart?
Hit them where they are strongest and hope the balloons do their job.
Should we call it the 1812 strategy / Napoleon gambit just to rub it in.
The problem is that the same attitudes / level of analysis and strategic direction are still active today.
FBOT
You really have got completely the wrong end of the stick when it comes to “costings”
Yes, the costs of the UK deterrent have gone up since the 1960s’:
Secondly, as several others have quite-righly said (just above) if one changes just one tiny thing on a submarine’s internal design, then everything else changes:
—————
—————
Next, the warheads (UK design) are always being continously updated and improved.
Those warhead upgrades do not depend on the submarine itself being redesigned.
However I will now have to break the bad news to FBOT….. he has just missed the boat to apply to get a really top job – one offering £220K per year plus the big civil service pension scheme – because it closed to new applicants, on the civil service jobs website, back in January this year
Civil Service Jobs – Civil Service Jobs – GOV.UK
It is a great shame that FBOT did not apply – because I am quite sure they would have really have wanted to see him apply … then at the interview FBOT could have given them. (from Q-branch on the expert panel) all of of his really bright ideas – obviously presented on a colourful powerpoint
…for how FBOT would would quickly reduce the cost of making a new UK nuclear warhead
(So maybe like leaving off a few of the very-expensive safety devices!!!!!…… or building them inside an inflammable timber shed….opps, soory, that one was tried before, way back in the 1950’s)
——–
I would add that the total budget for the UK’s “Trident replacement programme” was set at £100 billon, way back in 2005
So the three key financial problems with the UK’s ongoing submarine and Trident replacement programmes have been (yes all regular readers of NL = you have correctly guessed what is comng next)…… the UK’s piss-poor Infrastucture
The current situation at Barrow – where big hull sections are driven down the road – very strongly reminds me of British Leylands huge Longbrigde car works back in the mid 1980’s
– when unpainted car body shells were driven across the A34 main road – which cut right through the very middle of the huge BL car plant……… they did this in the middle of winter..i.e. whilst the Brummie council griity lorries drove past spreading their loads
So, then a few years later, the BL customer wondered why their quite-new car was rusty..
(No wonder my latest car is “Made in Korea”)
This is how one builds new submarine properly
= better build quality control; faster; much safer for the workforce and thus cheaper
Saab Kockums builds new processes, skills, and capabilities in delivering A26 – Naval News
How Saab Kockums manages 600,000 parts to build its A26 Submarine – Engineering.com
However our Oxbridge educated politicans and civil servants think they know everything…..
….despite them not having a single physic’s GCSE betwenn all of them
(as the events at Heahrow on Friday have just proved)
—————————
Finally, if you want what management consultants (i.e. profesional B***S***) call “a scapegoat” for all the delays and cost overuns on the UK Dreadnought programme……
Then I shall (proundly) give you this man!
Stand up – and be a bean-counter!
An immaculate CV as a the civil service’s bic (i.e. beancounter-in-chief)
So, the five highlights of Jon’s long CV are
So
Interestingly Big Brother (i.e. him of George Orwell’s 1984 fame) has recently been onto the government’s very own gov.uk website…… and significantly shortened Jon Thompson’s previous CV entry!
……and Orwell’s seminal 1984 book really was a warning
…..because even my new next door neighbour doorbell camera is now spying on me…..
Political geography of Nineteen Eighty-Four – Wikipedia
Very very sorry Mr NL Editor……I really must get into the habit of calling the Trident “an SLBM with a solid rockey fuel booster” here on NL (i.e. it is not a firework)
Staying on the key topic of useless people in positions of great power within UK government – especially those having been honoured for ever-so-very-slightly cocking-things right up…. .
…..is HM Government “anytime soon” – or ideally I really think it probably ought to be that useless b****t Paula Vennels paying for it out of her own purse – going to be procuring a new blue memorial plaque?
Fenny Compton: The village where Post Office scandal battle began – BBC News
Really enjoy reading your posts usually make me chuckle at the insanity in the system. Quick question I do know that an R boat once docked in Pompey for a jolly (not post patrol) in the early days but never heard of one in Chatham, perhaps you could give more info Churchill was I think the last boat refitted in Chatham?
P.S. Fresh air is smelly not us denizens of the deep!
I had a draft to NEMO(S) once and traveled the Z berths of Scotland doing the background surveys then suddenly did a lot of soil samples after Chernobyl. Lulworth is nice, had a day there one summer when I was alongside Portland on Glamorgan with some shipmates and a crate of red death, seem to think it is only around twelve foot deep swam across and back.
This thing never updates me when someone replies.
Do a search box (CtrlF) on your user name to quickly see the ‘important stuff’
One issue at a time …
One thing changes then everything changes — that is design by dummies / people who do not know the product / lack the confidence to do marginal change.
C4 to D5 missile change — what had we actually designed at that point regarding the Polaris replacements?
Longer missiles means a bigger hump.
It does not mean a pointy bit to angry bit re-design.
Design re-use / parametric design / modularisation / managing the pareto frontier — all of this needs to be part of the design process where the basics are understood and change is understood and managed rather than the back to square one approach that is hurting us now all ends up.
A boats — chats with a second sub guy from 20 years ago suggested that we couldn’t do the finite mesh for the pressure hull without US help back in the day.
Wiki stuff now points to CAD being the issue not CAE — if that is the case then cluster feck has went from terrible to horrendous.
Didn’t help that the A Class is a horror show of a design — stumpy with fat Lez style engine room containing an HGV spec engine in a supposed sports car.
Lamborghini tractor engine in a Lamborghini Countach — some mistake surely?
Also large does not have to mean expensive — it is contractor chat to big up their margins. No matter the size of the boat or the car for that matter you still need one steering wheel.
Also do we really need a crew of 150 on a V class boat?
Seems very high to me and looking like it needs heavily thrifted for the D boat design.
£100bill — the curse of big number politics.
The bigger the better is the shout — surely bigger numbers have to better.
But big round numbers cover a multitude of sins and encourage empire building.
Big round numbers are not what we need — some speed and energy would help.
Dry docks — is this just more gold plating?
If we don’t have them how have we managed for the past 60 years?
If we did have them why were we not able to keep them maintained?
Dry Docks. Project Euston is for floating docks much cheaper and an “easier”safety case I suspect. Think that was an earlier thread
Floating dry dock would appear to be a quality solution to the problem.
Good Ideas Committee would soon come up with a couple of cheeky wee improvements to cover all the bases.
Cost the base solution very robustly and then waterfall the good ideas into the mix.
What are the Nuclear safety mob’s issues about a floating dock?
One of the big SK shipbuilders seems to live off a collection of floating docks — easier to shuffle the pack / build sequence of the various big contracts they are working on.
Consequently you would buy a floating dock straight from a catalogue with a few options thrown in for good measure.
Anybody else use floating dry docks for nuclear subs?
Copy with pride as Big Auto would say if their ego would let them.
‘SAN DIEGO (Aug. 23, 2023) The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Scranton (SSN 756) enters the floating dry dock ARCO (ARDM 5) at Naval Base Point Loma on Aug. 23, in preparation to complete a regularly scheduled maintenance period. ARCO is a medium auxiliary floating dry dock for repair and is a Submarine Squadron 11 asset under the operational control of Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. (U.S. Navy video by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Aaron Smith)
There is a good Youtube thing of the dock lowering down at the whole entry and raising again.
The critical thing for me is the cranes on each wing of the floating dock, so can do more than just ‘checking the hull and propulsion’
The Nuclear safety case was exceptionally difficult for the ship lift less so for AFD60. The Americans are building some new ones for less than projected for project Euston I believe construction has started for them. Usual objection to floating things is they can stop floating dramatically and tilt alarmingly suddenly. Just requires good control and regular maintenance hence minimum of two is best idea and retain the ship lift.
Deepsixteen
A floating steel drydock – rather than a proper “fixed” concete one – will end up costing far more, and causing much more grief than doing the job properly in te first place
Please go and reread my many previous posts, here on NL, about this topic
All of which are very rude about Project Euston (note 1)
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
PS
please dont set me off on the topic of the Faslane “sh**lift” – AGAIN!;
Note 1
The RN’s Project Euston will probably be as sucessful as its HS2 namesake…… so many years late and massively overbudget
Let’s hope it is not as you surmise, it is an eminently doable thing as it has and still is being done so no available excuses for those responsible. The Fuds are building some at Austal
https://usa.austal.com/news/AFDM
at the moment and we have used them before.
The Lift that shall not be named was in my expearience not much fun and the NucLear chiefs who ended up having to rewrite the safety case were distinctly p,d off with the task. As a weapons guy I was also not very pleased with the impact on my department.
The geology of the Loch sides and bottom rules out a graving dock. The previous tenant at Falsane was a glacier and left behind a terrible mess that isnt solid ground and very deep for normal pile remediation.
Thats why the existing docking is a ship lift and that was massively over budget even then.
No can do, so stop pretending it should happen
To be honest even the Astute jetty is a floating concrete one:-
A. Because it can be moved to another location if ever the socks stop wanting to be oppressed with extra cash.
B. Because it’s easier than overcoming the geology and other issues that old breakers yards have.
Austin chat — it was worse than was ever imagined.
Mini bodies didn’t cross the A34 they crossed Brum from CB in the north east to Longbridge in the southwest.
That was the shorter journey.
Others were trucked to Oxford.
Metro — they built a covered bridge across the road,
FBOT
NOT CORRECT! (YET AGAIN!)
This website should enlighten you
I was there : Austin Allegro memories – AROnline
There are some quite hilarious anocdotes: one section of this website being devoted to every single car model ever built at BL Longbridge works
The only reason why there is not, as of today, a similar website for BAE at Barrow is because of the Official Secrets Act / National Security Acts (i.e. Top Secret: Very Embarrassing)
——
The tunnel across the A34 was built well before the Mini Metro.
It was built for the mini metro’s predesser, the Allegro
(Note: It was very-propularly known as the “Aggro” in and around Birmingham at about that time – mainly because the workfarce at Longbridge kept walking out – on numerous Unoffical Strike Actions (note 1) – at the very same time that their new model was being introduced into mass production)
Yes, that right, you may remember it well, because the BL Allegro was:
Unfortunately the BL Allegro’s design team also completely overlooked their key production issue – so it was designed ever-so-slighly-too-wide to actually fit into that purpose-built tunnel / bridge over the A34 at the Longbridge plant.
Hence why bodyshells were taken, by road, between the two halves of the site
That is why the slightly later BL Metro – which commenced production in the early 1980’s – was quite-deliberately built 50mm narrower than the Allegro = so it would actually fit through that purpose built tunnel / bridge over the A34 at Longbridge
—————–
Throughout the 1980’s the British car industry continued its long term trend of paying bigger starting salaries to BA’s (arts graduates) rather than BSc’s’
So new graduate management consultancy studies; accountants, and HR studies etc etc etc – were always offered bigger starting salaries by those Midland’s based car companies than they were, at the same time, offering to their potential newly qualified professional engineers.
They then fast-tracked the bull***ers promotions
Of course, those engineers who were graduating – after completeing much tougher undergraduate courses – were coming from those very same universities.
So those newly qualified professional engineers took Umbridge (Note: no relation to Longbridge) and they very quickly walked away from a career in the huge UK car industry……and, of course, they were never to return.
———————————
The ultimate story of the management of the British car industry in the 1980’s just has to be story of when Ford brought Jaguar Cars in 1989.
Soon afterwards, the Detroit based head of Ford’s own excellent mass-production teams (i.e. their worldwide director) decided to pay a visit to their newly aquired “little” British sports car company
…… to see what they had just spent all their many millions of dollars on….
He took one quick walk around each one of Jaguar’s Midland factory’s
……. he then flew straight back to the USA
………and upon his return to work (also note 1)
……- he walked into Ford’s worldwide HQ
…….and he then instantly sacked evey single individual in Ford’s worldwide HQ whom had been involved in buying the Jagaur car company!
(i.e. because all the Jaguar factories were such dumps)
———————–
The hard truth is that BL only started to get themselves sorted out “corporately” because of their their long-term tie-up with Honda throughout the 1980’s.
So, on every Friday every week over a period several years, Honda very steadily introduced one all-new method of working to those ever-truculent Brummies
However, ultimately the whole of the British mass-production car industry
– primarily due to its **** poor engineering teams – simply shot itself in both feet -repeatedly, usually with the full-on double barrels.
And the very same thing will soon happen to our UK submarine building industry
PS
Note 1.
AR Online — know it well.
Lots of good stuff that nearly always makes sense.
They still don’t fully understand why BMC / BL went down.
Called detail design and development no ego tripping allowed.
Durability testing for them was the first year’s customers complaints.
I think you will find that the Allegro was 9 years’ish before the Metro.
So what I put forward is correct along with the couple of additions that add to the situation at the company in the 60’s.
Other Allegro chat — saloon bar engineering.
Not even close to the real story but when you are as bad as the Allegro everything sticks.
One interesting point — the Allegro sold more upmarket models than the Marina which was the bigger / more capable car.
The English middle class gave the Allegro a go then they left BL for good.
Jag stories — not news to me.
The first Ford visit to Brown’s Lane was in the sunshine.
They missed all the buckets that had to be put out when it rained.
Petersen getting bumped — slightly more to it than that.
Jag was a dog but it opened up new markets that unfortunately FMC did not fully understand. George Ezra song vibe to it all — they found the future and then they threw it all away.
10/ 15 year battle to get a Ford back to the top of the company.
First firing of the gun in a war that eventually involved Daimler and a certain ex-pat Scot.
Chrysler was Daimler’s rebound date.
Lack of exec bandwidth means that Ford in Europe is funded by a light commercial family based in Turkey that they only partially control.
Not good.
You might want to add Rover / Land Rover to the mix.
BMW bought the world’s largest collection of portacabins at Solihull.
Rover’s attempts to replace the Mini are the stuff of fairy tales and etchasketch design — hobby horsers looking for a smaller pony.
Farcical.
And all to close to current UK MIC / MOD design efforts.
Can’t see the wood for the trees / wrapped up in a past they don’t understand.
Apart from that — a fine story.
The BL Allegro was, as you quite rightly say, built throughout most of the 1970’s
this is an early photo of the bridge between the two halves of the longbridge factory – the one which was too small for those cars to fit in…..hence wy the bodyshells went by road
http://www.motorgraphs.com/heritage/longbridge-aerial-view-1972_a153920.aspx
That is why the Metro, which was produced throughout all of the 1980’s, was designed to be ever so sighly narrower = so it fitted!
Close but no cigar.
Apples being compared to oranges.
The Allegro was a C segment model / small family car.
The Metro hoped to be a smaller B segment vehicle / supermini style car but was a bit on the small side due to its base architecture being from a Mini replacement project of 6/8 years previous.
BL had a go at doing a proper supermini but the cash crisis of the early 70’s stopped it in its tracks as it was more expensive than they could afford.
Hokey cokey product planning actually had the Maestro design frozen in 77/78 but then they decided that they needed a Fiesta / Polo competitor PDQ and the Metro took the lead.
Metro Job1 — Q3 1980.
Maestro Job 1 — Q1 1983.
No wonder the Maestro looked a bit dated when it came out.
So the Metro was thin / small not because of some bridge over the A34 it was small because the vehicle architecture started out as a Mini replacement.
Very noticeable on early models as the body looked too big for the front track to handle. Like a son trying to wear his father’s suit.
Metro build stuff — the new bodyshop with some robots was on one side of the A34 while the new CAB / Assembly building was on the other.
Enclosed bridge with a conveyor joined the two parts together.
Not seen on the photo provided from 1972.
The Allegro was built in an older part of the site and production ran in parallel with the Metro for a couple of years.
Please keep reading the stuff on AR Online — mine of industrial history. How not to do things over 30 years.
FBOT
Wrong! (yet again)
So, instead of spending all of your time here on Navy Lookout
(i.e. posting stuff you found using AI)
….can I suggest you now go out and get a job…..
…because you are well suited to becoming a management consultant
Peter (Irate Txapayer)
Wrong / wrong you say …
Steady on old bean — play nice.
Oh well — least you have got AR Online out into the open.
Lessons to be learned all across the defence patch.
Next up Vauxhall.
Vauxhall U Car – Cavalier MK1 part-1
Fill yer boots / boats.
Polaris was followed by Poseidon before D4 and D5 wasn’t really good platting it was just progress. Poseidon and D4 weren’t viewed as significantly better than Chevaline in my understanding but time passes and Chevaline which was exceptional despite the additional risk it posed is even on Wiki now.
A look at Russia from a satellite at night even today shows you why the target list for a retaliatory strike isn’t a very long one which we have left to those who have spent many years studying and analysing the data to assess the viability of the target list.
As I remember the way the cost were split put the bulk of the cost into a separate budget line paid from central funds which I took to mean capital cost which is very high when introducing the boats missiles and tapers down when in service.
Strategic direction is way above my pay grade. Polaris was muted to be five not four boats and the hatches and rings were lying around waiting for the scrap man in Barrow when I joined Vanguard and second guessing/evidence shows five boats would be better.
Someone up thread mentioned the increased vulnerability of the boats to potential loss through accident/failure due to age and I would say that they are always at risk of error or accident even when new.
We all surface together or nobody does.
Chevaline was a Q+D bodge to skirt round the main issue.
70’s UK PLC could come up with a MIRV bus to sit on the base Polaris core.
Consequently we had to take the original 3 warhead volley arrangement and give up a warhead for a cluster of decoys. Elegant solution to a very tricky problem but was the equivalent of papering the hall through the letterbox.
Poseidon and D3 were two classes ahead of Chevaline — range and MIRV capability.
Moscow fixation — you don’t put your second rate guy up against their tough nut.
That is ego tripping / empire fixation turned up to 11.
The Moscow metro is huge for a reason.
The Politburo would have been safe.
Leningrad / Kyiv / Minsk / Volgograd / Ural industry were all in play– not as if the USSR brains trust would just have focused on London and forgotten about everything else.
Moscow fixation — showed how much we were living in a bubble / cloud cuckoo land.
I have wondered, why Moscow? Why not the ten next biggest cities? Possibly because Moscow has a bigger population than the next ten cities put together. However, I wonder a lot about the nuclear programme. Why do people say we’d support a US first strike on military targets? Why aren’t we using high altitude EMP? Why do we announce a maximum number of warheads and not a minimum number?
The objective of nuclear deterrence is to threaten to make the enemy suffer an unthinkable price. It’s to murder, quickly or slowly, as much of the enemy population as you can. It to say I don’t care if your leaders are safe as long as the rest of your country is absolutely irretrievable. Live for the last twenty years underground while nineteen million Muscovites starve to death above you, assuming you aren’t shot by your own guards. We don’t care if we all die, just so long as we can take your entire country with us.
Nuclear is not just another weapon. As soon as you think about it that way, you increase the possibility of it being used.
Why Moscow? Simply because it is the capital. The centre of the state. It isn’t just a question of numbers. Nuclear targeting is often more, um, ‘spiritual’ than ‘existential’.
FBOT
You forgot to mention that the Moscow Metro was – in the 1930’s – orginially designed by London Underground’s engineers
It was then built with tens of thousands of slave labourers = which is where Nikia Kruschev – later to become Soviet PM throughout the 1950’s – first made a name for himself
All subsequent Soviet-era underground systems had the same features – for example Kiev in Ukraine
No need to mention.
Not part of the story.
No need to hobby horse with redundant detail.
Moscow Metro is built big / wide / deep for a reason.
The depth was because its mostly in the ancient Moscow river valley. many underground rivers were discovered. Similar to why London tube is so deep, thats were the suitable ground is.
Well the Russians got lucky …
Deep system means robust in a nuclear holocaust type of way.
London would appear to be three or four systems all on the same map.
Sub surface.
Old and ends strung together.
Yerkes corporate stuff — as in trad / deep.
Modern and expensive.
Plus Crossrail and Thameslink.
Brave pill on order for the Chelsea Hackney line.
I wonder how many national security tunnels are down there.
What was the plan to get the cabinet out of London?
Sid we have one?
Understand new warheads will be much larger than current (128kt) WARHEADS!
Perhaps we should drop one on the mod civil servants to save money!