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- - Wargaming fecklessness (https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/hangar-talk/152273-wargaming-fecklessness.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Excargodog (Post 4023583)

Western Europe reminds me of Longshanks in Braveheart.

“Send in the Ukrainians. Arrows cost money.”

Ha:) A small land with pride too big to break. ‘Scotland is free!!’

Feckless, still feckless..

still feckless after all these years…

https://www.politico.eu/article/germ...-left-uk-navy/

Quote:

Germany steps in to fill gap left by UK navy

The German frigate Sachsen will take over as the flagship of a NATO mission in the North Atlantic, replacing Britain’s HMS Dragon.

LONDON — The deployment of a German ship to the North Atlantic has laid bare the strains felt by Britain’s Royal Navy, which have become increasingly visible since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

The German frigate Sachsen will take over as the flagship of a NATO mission in the North Atlantic, replacing Britain’s HMS Dragon, one of Britain's six Type 45 destroyers, which has been sent to the Mediterranean to help defend Cyprus.

British personnel will remain in command of the task force, but will carry out their duties from the German vessel, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

HMS Dragon’s redirection to the Mediterranean was the target of fierce criticism in the U.K., since it was not ordered to leave until 36 hours after a drone struck an RAF base in Cyprus and took several weeks to reach its destination.

The deployment of the Type 45 has left the U.K. with only one other destroyerin service, which is committed to a separate Carrier Strike Group mission in the High North.

HMS Dragon's replacement with a German ship calls fresh attention to the state of Britain’s shrunken maritime forces as it sends assets to the Mediterranean, while trying to meet its NATO obligations in the Atlantic and High North.

Former First Sea Lord Alan West told POLITICO the latest development was "symptomatic of the terrible state the Navy is in due to years of salami slicing."

Tan Dhesi, chair of the U.K. parliament's defense committee, said: “The inability of the UK to be able to deploy a vessel for this long-known NATO commitment is just a further example serving to underscore the Defence Committee’s concerns regarding the UK’s lack of mass and capabilities.”

Ben Obese-Jecty, a Conservative MP and former serviceman, said: “It is a national embarrassment that the Royal Navy has run out of ships.”

I wouldn't say that a redeployment from a routine SNMG show the flag op in response to attacks related to a war they didn't start, want, or know was coming is "feckless".

Many Brits would agree that their defense spending and Navy is being neglected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickair7777 (Post 4025489)

No, but drawing down your military over 35 years to the point you only have two (2) destroyers deployable (one of which broke down enroute to be deployed) is pretty feckless

So is having only one boomer at a time fit for sea duty.

https://www.navylookout.com/royal-na...rol-on-record/

Not to mention an alleged nuclear deterrent service botching their two previous Trident launch attempts:

Quote:

Trident missile test fails for second time in a row

21 February 2024

Jonathan Beale, defence correspondent, and Andre Rhoden-PaulBBC News

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cp...mod-1.jpg.webpUK Ministry of Defence / Crown copyrightThis picture shows an unarmed missile being fired from HMS Vigilant in 2012, the last successful testThe test firing of a Trident missile from a Royal Navy submarine has failed, for the second time in a row.

The latest test of the UK's nuclear deterrent was from HMS Vanguard and was seen by Defence Secretary Grant Shapps.

The missile's booster rockets failed and it landed in the sea close to the launch site, according to the Sun, which first reported the malfunction.

Mr Shapps said he has "absolute confidence" in Trident's submarines, missiles and nuclear warheads.

This is highly embarrassing for both the UK and the US manufacturer of the Trident missile.

British tests of Trident missiles are rare, not least because of the cost. Each missile is worth around £17m and the last test in 2016 also ended in failure when the missile veered off course. Test-fired missiles are not armed with their nuclear warheads.

Quote:

The UK has only launched 12 Trident II D-5s from submarines since the Royal Navy acquired the missile in 1994. The missiles are drawn from a shared pool with the US, which carries out all missile-surety tests, and they are only launched by the UK during its Demonstration and Shakedown Operations (DASO) – a series of tests carried out by submarines upon their construction and first sea cruise, or upon completion of a period of maintenance. The UK’s first 10 launches succeeded, with each of the Vanguard-class submarines launching at least two Trident II D-5 missiles between 1994 and 2012 (see Figure 1). The two failures have both reportedly been attributed to human error. The failed test in 2016 was attributed to mis-programming the missile’s target coordinates, while the latest failure was reportedly due to modifications made to the missile in preparation for the test. The submarine and its crew were successfully recertified following the most recent launch.

https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis...e-for-concern/

So you only have one boomer at a time at sea and their ability to actually launch successfully is sort of questionable

I think that pretty well qualifies as feckless.

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).

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickair7777 (Post 4025554)

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.

Quote:

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.

Point being...

1. The D5 works fine.

2. Operator error doesn't degrade the deterrence value to any significant degree.
a) You can't rely on operator to ensure that your cities survive.
b) Good chance lessons got learned, and operator error is less likely going forward.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickair7777 (Post 4025624)

Point being
1. The D5 DOESN’T work fine…in Royal Navy hands.
2. Having only one boomer capable of going to sea at a time means you are only one single point failure - be it engineering catastrophe, navigational error, or enemy action - away from not having an underwater nuclear deterrence at all. Built in the 1990s with a designed lifetime of 25 years and the Dreadnought follow on boats delayed at least ten years, their maintenance problems can only get worse.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/the-...arine-patrols/

The only really satisfactory solution is to replace these four aging boats with the Dreadnought class. But the first boat of that program (which was started in 2016) is not expected to be operational before late 2032 assuming no glitches and actually getting currently projected funding levels so the existing boats are going to have to at least share the load pending commissioning of the fourth and final Dreadnought series “in the 2040s”.
3. And no, you can’t depend on an operator to assure your cities survive, but when you are using an INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE to hit an adversary it would be nice to have said missile hit closer to the adversary than your own boat. A CEP of half of the globe is a little too big even for a nuke.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...ared-ps-030826

4.. The lesson learned from the last two launch attempts is that the personnel involved were less competent than their predecessors. That’s not a real comforting lesson.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Excargodog (Post 4025665)

Their very existence is the deterrence.
Even if unreliable, any aggressor lacking 100% certainty of failed launch means the boats are providing what is needed.

I know this will confuse the cat and bewilde the beast, but if a launch is required "in anger" it is basically irrelevant if successful or not. The fact that the use of their nukes has been ordered means that the reason for their existence has failed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxQ (Post 4025673)

So you are asserting that there is no meaningful difference between the UKs four small (generally carrying 12 missiles/48 warheads) dilapidated broken down old and poorly maintainable submarines with one operational and three in overhaul and the US’s larger and more capable (20 Tridents per boat, 80-100 warheads) fleet of 14 with two typically in overhaul and four operational?

Don’t think I can agree with that.