bob the tank Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 America have a base in Florida certainly that's about 40 miles from Jacksonville. Population 850,000. Jacksonville is the largest city in the USA, and has a massive military personnel population, as has the whole of Florida. No surprise if there is a nuke base near hand as there are miles and miles of nothing to the west and southwest of the city. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baxter Parp Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Jacksonville is the largest city in the USA, Pardon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyderspaceman Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Should be sited in the Thames estuary, if at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cream Cheese Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 We need nuclear weapons in this country...... you know, for our make belief war with dictator Putin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 The USA has their nuclear weapon base in the most phallic looking part of the country. Seems about right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
invergowrie arab Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Jacksonville is the largest city in the USA. You learn something new every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Tories have took Scotland for mugs. Shut down almost the entire RAF here (1 base remains), coastguard stations etc However, they'll let us keep the weapons of mass destruction 25 miles as the crow flies from the centre of Scotland's biggest city. Would they move these nukes to just outside Portsmouth? No fuc*ing chance. Yes, they probably would.Faslane's proximity to Glasgow is a total red herring here. There is no more of a risk of a nuclear *accident* with a warhead on that kind of a scale than there would be of, say, a nuclear powerplant meltdown or the accidental detonation of a conventional warhead or military explosive device, all of which could at least hypothetically cause a catastrophic blast and/or high radiation radius causing destruction of life. Nor is the fact that Faslane is where it is a fact that makes any part of England more safe from a defence perspective. If you were planning to launch a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom you would be planning to take-out London and all naval bases and their immediate surroundings anyway. London is home to at least 2 of 5 known communications control centres responsible for Trident. You've also got AWS Burghfield, which is barely 30 miles from Heathrow, which assembles, maintains and decommissions Trident warheads. London and the South East would be the *first* targets on a Russian or Chinese hit-list and would be even higher priority for any rogue nation with only a small number of nuclear missiles. The nature of a naval nuclear deterrent is such that it is most dangerous when at sea, not when at port, being maintained or on standby. The time Trident submarines spend armed on the Firth of Clyde is the tiniest of fractions of the time they are on patrol. If one is to be the target of a nuclear attack, rather even than a conventional one, it will almost certainly be at sea. There are many reasons to be uncomfortable with the nuclear deterrent, but the fact that it's on the Clyde, I'd suggest, should be a pretty small one if one that applies at all in the grander scheme of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doulikefish Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Yes, they probably would. Faslane's proximity to Glasgow is a total red herring here. There is no more of a risk of a nuclear *accident* with a warhead on that kind of a scale than there would be of, say, a nuclear powerplant meltdown or the accidental detonation of a conventional warhead or military explosive device, all of which could at least hypothetically cause a catastrophic blast and/or high radiation radius causing destruction of life. Nor is the fact that Faslane is where it is a fact that makes any part of England more safe from a defence perspective. If you were planning to launch a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom you would be planning to take-out London and all naval bases and their immediate surroundings anyway. London is home to at least 2 of 5 known communications control centres responsible for Trident. You've also got AWS Burghfield, which is barely 30 miles from Heathrow, which assembles, maintains and decommissions Trident warheads. London and the South East would be the *first* targets on a Russian or Chinese hit-list and would be even higher priority for any rogue nation with only a small number of nuclear missiles. The nature of a naval nuclear deterrent is such that it is most dangerous when at sea, not when at port, being maintained or on standby. The time Trident submarines spend armed on the Firth of Clyde is the tiniest of fractions of the time they are on patrol. If one is to be the target of a nuclear attack, rather even than a conventional one, it will almost certainly be at sea. There are many reasons to be uncomfortable with the nuclear deterrent, but the fact that it's on the Clyde, I'd suggest, should be a pretty small one if one that applies at all in the grander scheme of things. Lawyer/economist and milltary strategist is there no end to your talents? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baxter Parp Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Lawyer/economist and milltary strategist is there no end to your talents? Don't forget nuclear scientist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Lawyer/economist and milltary strategist is there no end to your talents? Thing of it is, he's not wrong - the Soviet Union had enough spare nukes to blast the UK down to local government level. Regardless of Faslane, Glasgow would get it anyway, for it's transport links, it's airport, it's shipyard - just it's general concentration of people and industry. Same with Edinburgh. You could also add places like Grangemeouth, Rosyth, anywhwere with an army unit or airfield or any strategic communications or transport centre as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgarusQPFC Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Asked my pro trident friends why we need them "To protect us" "From what?" I ask them "Russia" Absolutely bought in by the media Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Asked my pro trident friends why we need them "To protect us" "From what?" I ask them "Russia" Absolutely bought in by the media The issue here is that UK strategic planning reckoned Britain could 'survive' up to 320 MT worth of weapons being thrown at it before suffering total infrastructure collapse, at which point Britain would be effectively destroyed. And that was the optimistic scenario. Russia currently has about 1800 active weapons with several thousand more in reserve. It's total MT is guess work but likely to be well in excess of that 320 number. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat So the issue of deterence is thus: Russia has spare capacity to obliterate Britain. On the other hand, the UK with it's 120 warheads can do siginifcant damage but will not knock out Russia, witha much larger land mass and an order of magnitude more people in it. So there is no Mutually Assured Destruction. Russia could fight and win a nuclear war with Britain, at a heavy price, but it could. Therefore if a Russian leader were determined enough, deterrence wouldn't work, as he could win an attritional war with the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeTillEhDeh Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Thing of it is, he's not wrong - the Soviet Union had enough spare nukes to blast the UK down to local government level. Regardless of Faslane, Glasgow would get it anyway, for it's transport links, it's airport, it's shipyard - just it's general concentration of people and industry. Same with Edinburgh. You could also add places like Grangemeouth, Rosyth, anywhwere with an army unit or airfield or any strategic communications or transport centre as well. Renton the voice of sense (as usual). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonD Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 If they wanted to nuke Edinburgh, the ideal time to do it and piss everybody off would have been the day before the trams started running. "All that money and we never even got to see them in operation!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renton Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 If they wanted to nuke Edinburgh, the ideal time to do it and piss everybody off would have been the day before the trams started running. "All that money and we never even got to see them in operation!" The damn things are so practically useless, the Russians probably wouldn't waste a nuke on them anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wee Willie Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 There are many reasons to be uncomfortable with the nuclear deterrent, but the fact that it's on the Clyde, I'd suggest, should be a pretty small one if one that applies at all in the grander scheme of things. So in the grand scheme of things they could be based on the Thames outside Parliament. That's surely a fitting place for Trident subs. The MPs. Lords & monarch could salute them each time they come and go (that's the MPs etc and no the subs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob the tank Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Don't forget nuclear scientist. And future diplomat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wee Willie Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 And future diplomat. I'll vouch for that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mortar Bored Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 I'm against nuclear weapons for all sorts of reasons, but, in our current status, I also agree that them being based in Faslane is a very poor reason to fight against Trident. If/when Scotland gets Indy then hopefully we won't have the "deterrent" based here, but whilst we are part of the Union, you could base the UKs deterrent on the moon and the central belt would still be a target. If the argument is about accidents, then again (sadly) Ad Lib is right, time spent in Faslane is minimal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangersRyan084 Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Scottish football needs a strong trident Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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