Plus, as well as sea conditions, the lifestyle of those working in deep sea fishing a long way from home is very different from those working on a day-catch basis.
This shit has led England into hell, and England is revelling in it. I would love to leave both parties in this tryst to stew in their own worthless juices. I'm not hugely attractive by the tribal nature of Scottish politics either, but that is on a different order of shittiness, given the different quality of government that the tribalism is currently producing.
MMM, you might possibly be interested to know that the mother of a friend of my mother (which takes us back to the 50s or 60s) raised the Clameur de Haro in Alderney when her neighbour allowed his cesspit to overflow on to her property. It had the desired effect.
That is interesting, Eirenist. Googling it after my last post, I saw it was raised just a few months ago, on Jersey, I think. I didn’t know/had forgotten that you had to say the Lord’s Prayer in French, too.
I think, interesting as I’m finding this digression, we ought to cease before we get told of by a Host!
Given the way in which King Bozzie's Realm seems to be disintegrating, I wonder if Jersey (and perhaps the other Channel Islands) might decide their best option is to cut whatever ties they have with *England*, and join themselves to France (or, as a Grauniad cartoon has it, Macronia)?
Ah well - maybe the gunboat that takes Bozzie and Cazzie into exile will have nice wallpaper in the cabins...
Yes. Look out, Scotland - King Bozzie will be sending a gunboat up some Firth or other soon! You may even get the aircraft carrier (with no aircraft)...
It's all Deterrence innit? I mean, I expect you could rustle up a few counter missiles if you called in the submarines, but, be honest, what's the relative effect of a nuclear strike on Basingstoke vs ditto on Wishaw? (= several hundred £ of improvement).
Serviced in the US - call me paranoid if you like, but I would be astonished if it turned out to be possible to actually fire them without the tacit consent of the Americans
Serviced in the US - call me paranoid if you like, but I would be astonished if it turned out to be possible to actually fire them without the tacit consent of the Americans
Possibly even explicit, if rumours about command codes are to be believed.
Serviced in the US - call me paranoid if you like, but I would be astonished if it turned out to be possible to actually fire them without the tacit consent of the Americans
The warheads are British, the missiles American. But probably more crucially, the GPS satellites vital for firing them is also American. Hence the never-ending argument about 'independent'
Perhaps I should be comforted, as I doubt if Mr Biden would ever let King Bozzie anywhere near the missiles/warheads/firing button/command codes, or whatever.
This shit has led England into hell, and England is revelling in it. I would love to leave both parties in this tryst to stew in their own worthless juices. I'm not hugely attractive by the tribal nature of Scottish politics either, but that is on a different order of shittiness, given the different quality of government that the tribalism is currently producing.
This shit has led England into hell, and England is revelling in it. I would love to leave both parties in this tryst to stew in their own worthless juices. I'm not hugely attractive by the tribal nature of Scottish politics either, but that is on a different order of shittiness, given the different quality of government that the tribalism is currently producing.
Serviced in the US - call me paranoid if you like, but I would be astonished if it turned out to be possible to actually fire them without the tacit consent of the Americans
The warheads are British, the missiles American. But probably more crucially, the GPS satellites vital for firing them is also American. Hence the never-ending argument about 'independent'
The warheads are made in Britain to an altered American design (there are varying views as to the scope of the alterations).
Serviced in the US - call me paranoid if you like, but I would be astonished if it turned out to be possible to actually fire them without the tacit consent of the Americans
The warheads are British, the missiles American. But probably more crucially, the GPS satellites vital for firing them is also American. Hence the never-ending argument about 'independent'
Um, as a ex RN sailor I'm perhaps surprisingly agnostic about whether we have the damn things or not but Trident doesn't use GPS... it uses inertial navigation on the missile itself checking and correcting its position with reference to the stars.
As I say whether they're a good thing or not is a different argument to how they work - and not the British or the Americans were daft enough to tie the missile guidance into something external that could be turned off or hacked.
Serviced in the US - call me paranoid if you like, but I would be astonished if it turned out to be possible to actually fire them without the tacit consent of the Americans
Possibly even explicit, if rumours about command codes are to be believed.
and while I'm here - I'd suggest anyone who starts talking about codes with respect to RN trident hasn't got a clue what they're talking about and it's a good clue to stop listening to them. I don't mean you here, I mean anyone here who hears someone trotting out 'but the codes...'
The UK doesn't have nuclear codes... Our firing protocols are entirely different from how the US does it. Two officers, 2 keys (as in actual metal ones, rather than anything else), and a trigger quite literally off a pistol.
Much like the navigation 'but of course GPS...' this is incidental to whether you now feel any safer now that you know there are no codes, but we might as well be accurate!
Serviced in the US - call me paranoid if you like, but I would be astonished if it turned out to be possible to actually fire them without the tacit consent of the Americans
consider yourself astonished.
now consider any circumstances in which that would actually happen.... which is a different point.
I'm agnostic to anti, but theoretically there's nothing to stop Britain firing them *at the US*
though presumably that would have implications for the ongoing missile body servicing agreement.
Welcome back @betjemaniac ! Interesting elucidations, and I'm comforted. All might be well, unless Mad King Bozzie decides to throw his toys out of the pram, and aim them at that nice Mr Biden, who is so much more grown-up than he...
But probably more crucially, the GPS satellites vital for firing them is also American. Hence the never-ending argument about 'independent'
I don't have specific knowledge of the guidance package in a trident missile, but in general, GPS is one of a suite of possible guidance inputs. It's the most accurate, for sure, but I'd be quite surprised if a positive GPS signal was necessary to make the thing work at all.
Which comment reminds me of an objection I had to some arguments on a programme about Stephen Pinker's hypothesis about humanity becoming less violent with the passage of time. He had some very nice graphs showing extensive areas affected by reductions in homicides, but it was a side issue I was puzzled by.
After tangenting on the effects of domestication with reference to experiments on breeding Russian foxes for tameness, the argument returned to suggesting, with reference to studies of human skulls through time, that we have somehow domesticated ourselves, with the shortening of faces and the loss of pronounced brow ridges, related to lack of exposure to testosterone in the womb.
You might now think that there might be a correlation between male face shape and obnoxious behaviour. I cast my mind over the current range of leaders of nations. Perhaps I should omit Kim, Xi, and Duterte with ethnically rounder faces, but the whole lot of them seem remarkably lacking in the features associated with adult males exposed to gestational testosterone. Baby faced.
Also, the programme was a little vague on how this supposed domestication had been arranged, when such as the non-domesticated Ghengis Khan managed to spread his genes about so thoroughly, and so many societies managed to prevent the more domesticated males from breeding at all through the mechanisms of celibacy and creation of eunuchs.
Even modern women do not seem very effective at eliminating the undomesticated genes from the pool, to return to our beloved leader.
That's probably because the contract to maintain some vital part of the system was outsourced to some chum of a minister, and they've done as good a job of that as the world beating track and trace.
But probably more crucially, the GPS satellites vital for firing them is also American. Hence the never-ending argument about 'independent'
I don't have specific knowledge of the guidance package in a trident missile, but in general, GPS is one of a suite of possible guidance inputs. It's the most accurate, for sure, but I'd be quite surprised if a positive GPS signal was necessary to make the thing work at all.
This is all going from memory and I am really no expert but I think the inertial navigation should of the missiles get their initial position fix from the sub. Which gets it from the US satellite system. The USN & RN were using GPS in the 80s, long before we all had it in our cars and phones...
Happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but inertial navigation systems depend on their initial fix being right to achieve accuracy.
But yeah, as a practical point, they are UK weapons under the control of the UK government, but US missiles (leased I believe...), UK warheads (with an undisclosed number of MIRVs) on UK subs with one always at sea.
This is all going from memory and I am really no expert but I think the inertial navigation should of the missiles get their initial position fix from the sub. Which gets it from the US satellite system.
The first statement is probably true. The second - well, that can't be the only source of position fix. You remember, I'm sure, that trident-equipped submarines carry sealed orders from the Prime Minister, giving instructions (possibly) in the event of complete destruction of the UK. I'm as certain as I can be that everyone's war games would assume that navigation satellites are one of the first things to go in an all-up conflict of superpowers.
Oh, and submarines are designed to spend an extended period of time deep underwater, where GPS doesn't work. Any submarine that needs GPS to know where it is is fundamentally broken.
This is all going from memory and I am really no expert but I think the inertial navigation should of the missiles get their initial position fix from the sub. Which gets it from the US satellite system.
The first statement is probably true. The second - well, that can't be the only source of position fix. You remember, I'm sure, that trident-equipped submarines carry sealed orders from the Prime Minister, giving instructions (possibly) in the event of complete destruction of the UK. I'm as certain as I can be that everyone's war games would assume that navigation satellites are one of the first things to go in an all-up conflict of superpowers.
Oh, and submarines are designed to spend an extended period of time deep underwater, where GPS doesn't work. Any submarine that needs GPS to know where it is is fundamentally broken.
They have to come shallow to fire their missiles...
They have to come shallow to fire their missiles...
Sure.
But my point is that the submarine has lots of other input that help determine its position and direction. If you take away the GPS system, the submarine still knows where it is. And so I am completely certain that the submarine in question could obtain an adequate firing solution without requiring the GPS system at all.
This isn't to say that it wouldn't use GPS if it were available - just that it's not going to rely on it.
They have to come shallow to fire their missiles...
Sure.
But my point is that the submarine has lots of other input that help determine its position and direction. If you take away the GPS system, the submarine still knows where it is. And so I am completely certain that the submarine in question could obtain an adequate firing solution without requiring the GPS system at all.
This isn't to say that it wouldn't use GPS if it were available - just that it's not going to rely on it.
Yep. I've just been reading up some stuff and learning more. The official MOD site, says "Our submarines can operate without the Global Positioning System (GPS), and contrary to what is often said our nuclear missiles do not use it at all."
I think that phraseology is quite deliberate there. As you say, they can operate without the GPS, but I suspect the accuracy drops off. I think the CEP of a 'few feet' is incredible from a technological point of view, but I bet it's only that good if you have the GPS at the point of launch. Although, reportedly the star-positioning is really good for course-correction...
Of course, what we're drilling down on here is that there are multiple in-built redundancies, as one would expect.
I am in awe and really fascinated by the incredible technology that goes into a Trident-II D5 missile whilst absolutely appalled by the destructive power they possess. In Tom Clancy's classic The Hunt for Red October, he depicts his hero Jack Ryan as feeling his skin crawling when he enters the missile deck - "as if in the presence of Satan himself" IIRC.
Anyway... maybe we should get back to 'Boris'....?
Funny how the mention of *Satan* seems to have led you to think of *Boris*...
Yep. I think the great Toby Zeigler would put it best
"He's the guy who goes into a shop to buy Satan a packet of cigarettes..."
There are few discussions that do not benefit from Aaron Sorkin's words from the mouth of Toby Ziegler.
This is true.
In this particular context it was describing a person who is not malevolent as such but willing to ignore any moral or ethical considerations for political gain... fits rather well, doesn't it?
Funny how the mention of *Satan* seems to have led you to think of *Boris*...
Yep. I think the great Toby Zeigler would put it best
"He's the guy who goes into a shop to buy Satan a packet of cigarettes..."
There are few discussions that do not benefit from Aaron Sorkin's words from the mouth of Toby Ziegler.
This is true.
In this particular context it was describing a person who is not malevolent as such but willing to ignore any moral or ethical considerations for political gain... fits rather well, doesn't it?
Oh I remember the scene well. It's Al Kiefer trying to persuade the White House to support a ban on burning the US flag.
How does the sub commander authenticate launch commands?
Apologies - wasn't ignoring you - for a variety of reasons I'm not going to write about that sorry, but it can be pieced together from open source internet research. It involves cryptography mainly. Basically if you can't decrypt the orders then you're not the right person or they've not come from the right person. In both cases 'person' is used vaguely in terms of role, status, number of individuals etc!
But not 'codes' as the US uses or would understand 'the nuclear codes' - which are push button inputs much like your average burglar alarm.
How does the sub commander authenticate launch commands?
Apologies - wasn't ignoring you - for a variety of reasons I'm not going to write about that sorry, but it can be pieced together from open source internet research. It involves cryptography mainly. Basically if you can't decrypt the orders then you're not the right person or they've not come from the right person. In both cases 'person' is used vaguely in terms of role, status, number of individuals etc!
In other words, codes. Like the system the US uses.
But not 'codes' as the US uses or would understand 'the nuclear codes' - which are push button inputs much like your average burglar alarm.
That’s really not what people mean when they talk about the US nuclear codes.
How does the sub commander authenticate launch commands?
Apologies - wasn't ignoring you - for a variety of reasons I'm not going to write about that sorry, but it can be pieced together from open source internet research. It involves cryptography mainly. Basically if you can't decrypt the orders then you're not the right person or they've not come from the right person. In both cases 'person' is used vaguely in terms of role, status, number of individuals etc!
In other words, codes. Like the system the US uses.
But not 'codes' as the US uses or would understand 'the nuclear codes' - which are push button inputs much like your average burglar alarm.
That’s really not what people mean when they talk about the US nuclear codes.
well they should, because it involves people putting in codes and those codes being sent which the UK system doesn't... and, FWIW, no, nothing like the Gold Codes system.
The British system does not rely (unlike the US) on Permissive Action. The only thing stopping a British SSBN captain from firing is discipline - nothing is needed from external (off the submarine) sources to launch. Doesn't need any orders or third party input.
So the question of needing to authenticate launch commands isn't quite as vital as in the US. The Royal Navy doesn't *need* a launch command, and no systems (or people before I get accused of obfuscating) are employed which verify code sent from shore.
And that really is all I'm going to say further on this. Everything above is open source if you know where to look (for avoidance of doubt before the Ship worries about the Official Secrets Act).
Comments
I think, interesting as I’m finding this digression, we ought to cease before we get told of by a Host!
MMM
Ah well - maybe the gunboat that takes Bozzie and Cazzie into exile will have nice wallpaper in the cabins...
Not that I'm advocating a test potshot at the bottom right-hand corner, you understand...
The missiles are bought from America, not borrowed. Significant difference.
Not quite sure what you mean @Penny S - could you unpack, please?
I don't see anyone exactly *revelling*, either, but a touch of surreal whimsy sweetens the bitterness...
YMMV, of course.
Possibly even explicit, if rumours about command codes are to be believed.
The warheads are British, the missiles American. But probably more crucially, the GPS satellites vital for firing them is also American. Hence the never-ending argument about 'independent'
I was responding to Thunderbunk
Ah - I see. Thanks!
The warheads are made in Britain to an altered American design (there are varying views as to the scope of the alterations).
Um, as a ex RN sailor I'm perhaps surprisingly agnostic about whether we have the damn things or not but Trident doesn't use GPS... it uses inertial navigation on the missile itself checking and correcting its position with reference to the stars.
As I say whether they're a good thing or not is a different argument to how they work - and not the British or the Americans were daft enough to tie the missile guidance into something external that could be turned off or hacked.
and while I'm here - I'd suggest anyone who starts talking about codes with respect to RN trident hasn't got a clue what they're talking about and it's a good clue to stop listening to them. I don't mean you here, I mean anyone here who hears someone trotting out 'but the codes...'
The UK doesn't have nuclear codes... Our firing protocols are entirely different from how the US does it. Two officers, 2 keys (as in actual metal ones, rather than anything else), and a trigger quite literally off a pistol.
Much like the navigation 'but of course GPS...' this is incidental to whether you now feel any safer now that you know there are no codes, but we might as well be accurate!
consider yourself astonished.
now consider any circumstances in which that would actually happen.... which is a different point.
I'm agnostic to anti, but theoretically there's nothing to stop Britain firing them *at the US*
though presumably that would have implications for the ongoing missile body servicing agreement.
Welcome back @betjemaniac ! Interesting elucidations, and I'm comforted. All might be well, unless Mad King Bozzie decides to throw his toys out of the pram, and aim them at that nice Mr Biden, who is so much more grown-up than he...
I don't have specific knowledge of the guidance package in a trident missile, but in general, GPS is one of a suite of possible guidance inputs. It's the most accurate, for sure, but I'd be quite surprised if a positive GPS signal was necessary to make the thing work at all.
After tangenting on the effects of domestication with reference to experiments on breeding Russian foxes for tameness, the argument returned to suggesting, with reference to studies of human skulls through time, that we have somehow domesticated ourselves, with the shortening of faces and the loss of pronounced brow ridges, related to lack of exposure to testosterone in the womb.
You might now think that there might be a correlation between male face shape and obnoxious behaviour. I cast my mind over the current range of leaders of nations. Perhaps I should omit Kim, Xi, and Duterte with ethnically rounder faces, but the whole lot of them seem remarkably lacking in the features associated with adult males exposed to gestational testosterone. Baby faced.
Also, the programme was a little vague on how this supposed domestication had been arranged, when such as the non-domesticated Ghengis Khan managed to spread his genes about so thoroughly, and so many societies managed to prevent the more domesticated males from breeding at all through the mechanisms of celibacy and creation of eunuchs.
Even modern women do not seem very effective at eliminating the undomesticated genes from the pool, to return to our beloved leader.
I don't know, I can't think of a situation where we'd have fired all of them...
This is all going from memory and I am really no expert but I think the inertial navigation should of the missiles get their initial position fix from the sub. Which gets it from the US satellite system. The USN & RN were using GPS in the 80s, long before we all had it in our cars and phones...
Happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but inertial navigation systems depend on their initial fix being right to achieve accuracy.
But yeah, as a practical point, they are UK weapons under the control of the UK government, but US missiles (leased I believe...), UK warheads (with an undisclosed number of MIRVs) on UK subs with one always at sea.
AFZ
But we'd need to restock...
AFZ
The first statement is probably true. The second - well, that can't be the only source of position fix. You remember, I'm sure, that trident-equipped submarines carry sealed orders from the Prime Minister, giving instructions (possibly) in the event of complete destruction of the UK. I'm as certain as I can be that everyone's war games would assume that navigation satellites are one of the first things to go in an all-up conflict of superpowers.
Oh, and submarines are designed to spend an extended period of time deep underwater, where GPS doesn't work. Any submarine that needs GPS to know where it is is fundamentally broken.
Sure.
But my point is that the submarine has lots of other input that help determine its position and direction. If you take away the GPS system, the submarine still knows where it is. And so I am completely certain that the submarine in question could obtain an adequate firing solution without requiring the GPS system at all.
This isn't to say that it wouldn't use GPS if it were available - just that it's not going to rely on it.
Yep. I've just been reading up some stuff and learning more. The official MOD site, says "Our submarines can operate without the Global Positioning System (GPS), and contrary to what is often said our nuclear missiles do not use it at all."
I think that phraseology is quite deliberate there. As you say, they can operate without the GPS, but I suspect the accuracy drops off. I think the CEP of a 'few feet' is incredible from a technological point of view, but I bet it's only that good if you have the GPS at the point of launch. Although, reportedly the star-positioning is really good for course-correction...
Of course, what we're drilling down on here is that there are multiple in-built redundancies, as one would expect.
I am in awe and really fascinated by the incredible technology that goes into a Trident-II D5 missile whilst absolutely appalled by the destructive power they possess. In Tom Clancy's classic The Hunt for Red October, he depicts his hero Jack Ryan as feeling his skin crawling when he enters the missile deck - "as if in the presence of Satan himself" IIRC.
Anyway... maybe we should get back to 'Boris'....?
AFZ
Yep. I think the great Toby Zeigler would put it best
"He's the guy who goes into a shop to buy Satan a packet of cigarettes..."
There are few discussions that do not benefit from Aaron Sorkin's words from the mouth of Toby Ziegler.
This is true.
In this particular context it was describing a person who is not malevolent as such but willing to ignore any moral or ethical considerations for political gain... fits rather well, doesn't it?
Oh I remember the scene well. It's Al Kiefer trying to persuade the White House to support a ban on burning the US flag.
Apologies - wasn't ignoring you - for a variety of reasons I'm not going to write about that sorry, but it can be pieced together from open source internet research. It involves cryptography mainly. Basically if you can't decrypt the orders then you're not the right person or they've not come from the right person. In both cases 'person' is used vaguely in terms of role, status, number of individuals etc!
But not 'codes' as the US uses or would understand 'the nuclear codes' - which are push button inputs much like your average burglar alarm.
well they should, because it involves people putting in codes and those codes being sent which the UK system doesn't... and, FWIW, no, nothing like the Gold Codes system.
The British system does not rely (unlike the US) on Permissive Action. The only thing stopping a British SSBN captain from firing is discipline - nothing is needed from external (off the submarine) sources to launch. Doesn't need any orders or third party input.
So the question of needing to authenticate launch commands isn't quite as vital as in the US. The Royal Navy doesn't *need* a launch command, and no systems (or people before I get accused of obfuscating) are employed which verify code sent from shore.
And that really is all I'm going to say further on this. Everything above is open source if you know where to look (for avoidance of doubt before the Ship worries about the Official Secrets Act).