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by jvmboi 848 days ago
> The Ministry of Defence said the "nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective".

The test that we did to show that it would work, didn't work but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't work. Of course!

2 comments

> "The issue that occurred during the test was specific to the event and would not have occurred during a live armed fire," the source said.

OK, so, this might be the kind of thing you'd say, but that is also entirely plausible.

Famously, the USN had the reverse problem with torpedoes in WW2: they worked in testing but were extremely unreliable in live situations, and it took a while before HQ believed that the problem was real.

With Trident, either there will be no live usage, or there will be no UK left to do anything about the failure of the second strike weapons.

> Famously, the USN had the reverse problem with torpedoes in WW2: they worked in testing but were extremely unreliable in live situations, and it took a while before HQ believed that the problem was real.

IIRC, this was a problem for Germany as well. It was the magnetic detonators on both sides .. ?

> With Trident, either there will be no live usage, or there will be no UK left to do anything about the failure of the second strike weapons.

.. in the event of trident failures, you mean. The third possibility is that they do work, and there still is no UK, but at least there is less of everyone. So fun to think about /s

well it's very easy for them to say that, right? Because they'll never have to prove this in detail to anyone that could hold them accountable because SECRETS and COMPLICATED TECHNOLOGY.
It's suppose to be a deterrent, the other side just needs to believe it will work at least some of the time.