[arethuza]

Only if your expectation is that missiles work 100% of the time - which nobody really expects an individual component of any weapons system to work 100% of the time and is explicitly allowed for in the way nuclear weapons are targeted.

[onion2k]

I don't expect anything to work 100% of the time. I do expect a missile to fail in a way that wouldn't mean accidentally obliterating tens of thousands of people in the wrong country though.

I would also expect a politician to mention that failure mode is a possibility when politicians are considering spending £30b on renewing it.

[arethuza]

Personally I'm actually against the UK having nuclear weapons - but I can't get too excited about this particular incident.

Missiles will go wrong, Trident actually has a fairly reasonable level of success and probably is far more reliable than equivalent weapons from other countries.

It's a political mess not a military/technical one.

[rys]

"probably" isn't a good enough standard when the weapon system can end hundreds of thousands of lives and is paid for by the taxpayer. And really it's the second thing that people are upset about. If renewing Trident cost a few hundreds of millions say, it'd likely be a non-issue. But it doesn't, so it isn't. That it might be unsafe is worth investigating given what's on the line.

[cmdkeen]

Is there any evidence whatsoever that the missile could fail in a way that would mean "obliterating tens of thousands of people in the wrong country"? SSBNs carry more than one missile for a reason - currently the UK sails with up to 8 missiles and 40 warheads, not every one needs to work perfectly.

It's also worth pointing out that if the UK ever needed to use Trident then the resultant nuclear fallout would probably cause that anyway.

[acqq]

> Is there any evidence whatsoever that the missile could fail in a way that would mean "obliterating tens of thousands of people in the wrong country"?

Yes, in the "test" last year (that is, the missile luckily didn't carry the real nuclear bomb) the missile was launched to arrive around the coast of Africa but it flew toward Florida! There's no more obvious miss than that.

That's the very "Trident "accident" which May did not disclose to Parliament" from the top post of this thread.

And the reason we should really press all the politicians for the reduction of nuclear weapons. It's not the question of if but when and what the consequences will be of the "accidental" detonations.

The best protection is to have at least a very limited number of weapons. The balance of power can be held even with a little of them.

If you hear anything else, it's from those that don't want the balance but to "win."

[cmdkeen]

And it was destroyed successfully via the fail safes built into the system, so no-one died and no-one was at risk. The test was carried out in the Atlantic in order to provide a safety zone in every direction because missiles are known to occasionally go wrong. This is literally rocket science, there is no such thing as 100% perfection and lots of safety protocols are build into the process. Your use of quotes around test and the random inclusion of it being lucky the missile wasn't armed don't serve to help your argument at all.

For some perspective the new Russian Bulava ICBM has a 50% error rate, Minuteman had a 97.1% success rate, Trident II was on 97.27% (128 successes, 5 failures) - increasing that number to 6 doesn't really alter the confidence factor that the system works.

If your concern is large rockets being fired that might hit the southern US and cause casualties then I suggest you contact NASA about Cape Canaveral.

[acqq]

> because missiles are known to occasionally go wrong

So how can you claim that everything is OK or that my point is inaccurate? Or that "it can't fail"? You literally asked "is there any evidence whatsoever that the missile could fail" ... "obliterating tens of thousands of people in the wrong country." That it didn't happen during the test without the nuclear head and when there are additional safety measures is not a proof it can't once the head is in place and the "regular procedure" is followed.

The quote around the test means only that I am aware that what's for some people an "accident" is "just a test" for another, like your view.

I don't claim anything more than the public doesn't understand how brittle the whole system is, different parts of it failing all the time. I've written that once the public understands that, knowing that is "the reason we should really press all the politicians for the reduction of nuclear weapons. It's not the question of if but when and what the consequences will be of the "accidental" detonations."

I also wrote: "The best protection is to have at least a very limited number of weapons. The balance of power can be held even with a little of them." I've meant "nuclear" weapons of course, that's the whole topic. See: http://thebulletin.org/doomsday-dashboard There were 6 times more warheads in 1983 than now, and the number should be reduced much more.

> fail safes built into the system

How does that fail safe knows the rocket is wrong when the rocket decided it's right? Do you have any information about these particular fail safes? Isn't it that it existed there at all because it was a test, and it wouldn't if it hadn't been? The coverage of the "accident" that I've had an access to wasn't technical enough. It was presented as "it has to remain secret."

[AlphaSite]

I think that's an argument for replacement, rather than continuing with what we have at the moment? If the failure rate becomes too high they may need replacement.

[arethuza]

It's just the submarines that are being replaced - not the missiles. The UK draws Trident missiles from a pool owned by the US and missiles are picked at random for use in UK boats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_nuclear_programme#Trid...