No I am not. You are supporting Corbyn's policy of replacing trident with convention warheads and saying in turn that we need to confront iSIS. Seems to me that this policy you support doesn't add up.

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

Trident would be useless against China, pakistan and North Korea, as the operation range of the submarines is too limited, given the number of submarines in service (3 or four).

There are nuclear threats, and we shouldn't have no nuclear option, its just that the Trident solution is not fit for that purpose.

The problem is with how Trident is designed to work and operates. Its not designed to deal with an unknown threat, it designed to ensure the destruction of a known threat.

Realistically the UK needs to move to a land based system, or to revamp the submarines to operate as part of a navy fleet. In which case it would probably be more sensible to mount the missiles into a warship than a submarine.

Incidentally, the Sun is wrong, Nuclear submarines do not need to have nuclear weapons, the nuclear aspect relates to its power source.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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Interesting points. Anyone know why we opted for subs in the first place and whether the arguments used then still apply?

Yes, I am an agent of Satan but my duties are largely ceremonial

Trident submarines were designed to sit at the bottom of the north sea for long periods of time, armed with medium range nuclear missiles to provide the UK with a absolute guarantee of being able to retaliate to a Soviet strike, even if that strike wiped out the UK.

The submarines had pre-set targets and stayed out of radio communications with the mainland UK. If the UK was attacked the Prime Minister or Nuclear Deputies could issue a retailtory strike to the commander and issue the launch authority. Failing that if the UK ceased to exist, the commander also had a safe with orders in it from the Prime Minister (whether to launch, along with launch codes etc).

In response Trident could guarantee the delivery of x number of multi warhead missiles to a number of soviet targets (probably cities).

In addition the UK also had airborne nuclear capability designed to deal with a more specific problem such as a single retaliatory strike.

When designed Trident was not a solution to provide the UKs nuclear capacity, only to ensure that the UK could always deploy its nuclear capability at the Soviet Union.

The location of the submarines when randomised, so that prior to setting out, the crew and commander wouldn't know their location, and nor would command - making it almost impossible for the Soviets to locate them except by accident.

The basic operation of a Trident submarine is to lurk in range of the enemy country, under total communication silence, awaiting orders. The problem of updating systems on the fly, is that the vessel would likely give its location away in confirming orders and the transfer of data and be sunk by enemy submarine hunters (because it lacks any real capacity to protect itself and operates without naval or air support to protect it).

It was a very elegent solution for the Cold War, where the enemy was 'reasonably close' and known. But it lacked the range for China, North Korea and probably Iran. However, its not a very flexible solution.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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Corbyn still wants to debate with ISIS, does he? Then why doesn't he head out to Syria with his white flag and bag of Werther's Originals to negotiate. I'd give him at least a nano-second before he's paraded around in an orange jumpsuit.

He's so hopelessly out of touch that it's unbelievable. There's only one way to deal with ISIS, and that's a few missiles fired where the sun don't shine.

"Look at that. Accident blackspot? These aren't accidents! They're throwing themselves into the road gladly! Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness!"

Do you support or not Corbyn's plans to build a useless missile system for the sole purpose of retaining jobs?

Very simple question.

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

Solar panels are pretty useless. A whole house would cost between £8K and £16K to do and only save you about £70-100 per year on your electricity bill.

Even if every single house in the UK was covered with them it'd achieve less than 20% of the energy required.

Optimistic as ever

Problem is that ultimately the UK will need to find an alternative to fossil fuels reliance at some point if only ecologically speaking. Gas, coal and oil come with a lot of political costs, environmental costs and long term sustainability costs, that will just increase over time.

Oil and coal essentially drove the growth of world populations in the 20th century (and before), but they are a finite resource and the future of the UK cannot be based on 'just more of the same'; problem is solar power isn't a solution and most green alternatives are costly, for low output.

For the UK (and the world) to become sustainable on solar energy, would require a very significant drop in the human population of the world (simply because the amount of space you'd need to dedicate to solar energy production).

Fortunately, my investment in future generations is zero.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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The US does use non-nuclear armed missile submarines. The Nuclear Astute class submarines, currently rolling out to replace the old diesel electric submarines, carry torpedoes and cruise missiles. This essentially renders a non-nuclear carrying Trident solution irrelevant (they also can carry twice the weapon load of the Trident submarines).

The only reason to renew Trident is as a nuclear weapons system.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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In principle, they'd work like most power stations to generate energy that is then distributed as needed through the network. I'd imagine you'd essentially store converted solar energy within the system, much like a battery. The problem would be the sheer numbers of solar panels you'd need in the country to be self sufficient would themselves be an environmental catastrophe.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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