Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Feckless (in modern usage) tends to imply lack of responsibility with obligations to others.
They're not really obligated to have any boomers for NATO or anyone else. NATO policy flat out says that the US is the deterrence backbone. The rest only supply token assets to show unity. Although I''ll give FR credit for going beyond the minimum.
You also actually only need one boomer at sea, and you only need a perception that there's a good chance that it will work. Nobody is going to press to test hoping the opponents launch system fails. If the launching part works, then it's game over, the Trident D5 is a US weapon and it *will* function once properly launched (and the bad guys have no illusions about that).
The weapons themselves are selected at random from a common US/UK pool... they get literally the same ones we do (LANT Fleet anyway).
You perhaps missed the part about the two consecutive UK misfires both being human error?
And yes, they are all drawn from the same pool.
Track record
The US, for its part, has launched the Trident II D-5 from submarines on 184 occasions, including only three failures – two in 1989 and one on an unspecified date in 2011 or 2012. US test launches are conducted both for certification of the missiles, including after the conclusion of life-extension programmes, and for US DASO operations. Throughout these tests, the TridentII D-5 has built up an exemplary record. In 2011, Lockheed Martin announcedthat the US and UK had launched the system successfully 135 times in a row from 4 December 1989–1 March 2011 – a notable rate of reliability for any system.
The first sea test of the Trident II D-5 missile on 21 March 1989 resulted in failure, leading to threats of cancellation from Congress as well as damage to the launching vessel, the USS Tennessee. The US then tested the missile successfully on 2 August 1989, before the third sea test resulted in another failure on 15 August that laid bare a fault in the design. Facing severe Congressional pressure, the US Navy needed to conduct a series of consecutive successful tests in order to certify the missile and to counter claims from Congress that the money would be better spent on conventional weapons. Seven consecutive successful tests between December 1989 and February 1990, culminating in a ‘ripple test’ of two missiles launched sequentially from the USS Tennessee on 12 February, lead to the system’s certification and full operational deployment in March 1990.
So the US had two early failures before the system went operational and one since over the course of 35+ years and 184 launches. The Brits have FUBAR’d two in a row with -yes, missiles drawn from the same operational pool - after 10 previous successful launches.
That’s an ugly learning curve.
Look, I’m not antBrit. The Royal Navy has a long and very proud history. But the major economies in Western Europe have been underfunding their militaries arguably since WWII but unarguably since 1991. Their current capabilities are both small and somewhat suspect.