Mandy Lifeboats Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 21 minutes ago, Genie said: The issue with the one this week wasn’t anything to do with the nuke part was it? The engines/burners didn’t start so instead of flying 3000 miles it landed next to the sub. Exactly. There wouldn't even have been a warhead on the missile. That fault was with the missile. That fault might not be present in any of the others. If you are sitting in a bath of petrol It doesn't matter if the first match fails to light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 22 VT Supporter Share Posted February 22 1 hour ago, Mandy Lifeboats said: Having a single failure is inconsequential. Agreed, but this is the second firing in a row that's failed. The next one is going to be very, very tense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Hopefully the supplier (American) is picking up the bill. Apparently it’s costs around £17m a time to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 22 VT Supporter Share Posted February 22 Just now, Genie said: Hopefully the supplier (American) is picking up the bill. Yeah I'm sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted February 22 Moderator Share Posted February 22 This thread is fascinating - the appearance of sanctions without adverse affect on business. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandy Lifeboats Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 39 minutes ago, sidcow said: Agreed, but this is the second firing in a row that's failed. The next one is going to be very, very tense. Agreed but...... 1. The last test was 8 years ago. 2. There have been around 200 successful test firings. 3. The USA launched a Trident from a sub in 2023 without any problems. The test failure made good headlines for the press. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Hopefully the root cause is not the age of the sub which was described on the news last night as “pre-digital” and was built when Thatcher was the PM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandy Lifeboats Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 (edited) Sanctions do not prevent exports or imports. They simply make imports more expensive and exports cheaper. Russia once sold its fossil fuels to the west. The transport distance was short. The price was good. They now sell the same goods to India and China. The transport distances are long. The price has reduced. The difference between the revenue received is the impact of sanctions. The references to the Russian economy being high performing are laughable. Statistically its correct but you need to consider how it's been achieved. 1. Expenditure on prisons has dropped dramatically because so many prisoners went to the military. 2. Unemployment is low because of all the dead young Russians. 3. Foreign companies were forced to sell businesses and assets to Russians for 10% of their true value. 4. Russian companies and citizens were obligated to exchange their euros, pounds and dollars for rubles at an artificial exchange rate. 5. Manufacturing is booming. But its not being sold. Its literally booming on the battlefields. 6. There are lots of Western goods in Russia that are still within their shelf life. They have yet to experience BMW cars tripling in price because they have to be imported via China or spare parts for their Boeing being made out of scrap in Turkmenistan. Russia's economy is fine if you ignore the high inerest rates, high inflation, loss of foreign currency reserves, the worst performing currency in the world, skills shortages and tens of thousands of severly disabled young Russians who will require state support for the rest of their lives. Edited February 22 by Mandy Lifeboats Spelling mishsteaks 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 22 Moderator Share Posted February 22 6 minutes ago, Genie said: Hopefully the root cause is not the age of the sub which was described on the news last night as “pre-digital” and was built when Thatcher was the PM. It had just come out of a massive refit, hence the reason for the test Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandy Lifeboats Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 6 minutes ago, Genie said: Hopefully the root cause is not the age of the sub which was described on the news last night as “pre-digital” and was built when Thatcher was the PM. We have 4. He oldest was built in the 80s and entered service in the 90s, Our replacements aren't due to enter service until the 2030s with the existing subs expected to remain until the 2060s. That's awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 10 minutes ago, Genie said: Hopefully the root cause is not the age of the sub which was described on the news last night as “pre-digital” and was built when Thatcher was the PM. I watched a little article on it and I presumed what they were using was library footage. They appeared to have dymo tape labels to some fairly important looking buttons. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandy Lifeboats Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 (edited) 8 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: I watched a little article on it and I presumed what they were using was library footage. They appeared to have dymo tape labels to some fairly important looking buttons. I worked in civil defence in the 1990s. There was not a computer to be seen. What was laughingly described as "the doomsday computer" was actually a series of slide rules and plastic disks. Dyno tape would have been am improvement. Have a look at the "Weapons Effect Calculators" in this link. Those are what we used to make life or death decisions. https://orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/nuclear-slide-rules/index.html Edited February 22 by Mandy Lifeboats Added details 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 (edited) The inevitable piss taking has happened Quote After news of the failed test leaked, Russian media wasted little time in mocking the UK over the incident. "Nobody was hurt, apart from the Royal Navy's reputation," said Rossiya 1's main news bulletin on Wednesday. The host of the top TV channel's 60 Minutes talk show, Olga Skabeyeva, said earlier in the day that "an attempt by the Royal Navy of formerly Great Britain - now we call it little Britain - to demonstrate its power ended in failure". And Alexander Kots, the star war correspondent of Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, said on his Telegram channel that the incident "once again underscores that Great Britain has finally lost its status of 'ruler of the waves'". In China, Xinhua news agency's website ran an article with the headline: "British Navy botches test: Missile crashes into the sea with a 'thud', nuclear submarine hovering underwater". The website of China's state-run nationalist newspaper the Global Times went further. "Embarrassing! Royal Navy nuclear submarine Trident II missile fails for a second time in a row," its headline said. ———— Elsewhere, Turkish media outlets have widely covered the failed Trident test. "The UK almost shot its own minister," the pro-government Aksam newspaper website said. "Fiasco during missile test: British Defence Minister barely escaped death," the pro-government Milliyet newspaper website reported. There have been no suggestions from UK officials or media reports that Mr Shapps came to any harm at all. "British nuclear missile test fails, again," was the headline on the New York Times's report, which added this raised "questions about the state of Britain's nuclear deterrence capability". "Britain's Navy has suffered a string of problems in recent months with its fleet," the article said. link We could really do with re-doing this test to draw a line under the episode. Edited February 22 by Genie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 22 VT Supporter Share Posted February 22 Yeah. We probably shouldn't mention that our massively expensive aircraft carrier broke down before it left for NATO exercises. So they sent the other one it's place that also broke down. We're not scaring the Russians much with that plus misfiring missiles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Just now, sidcow said: Yeah. We probably shouldn't mention that our massively expensive aircraft carrier broke down before it left for NATO exercises. So they sent the other one it's place that also broke down. We're not scaring the Russians much with that plus misfiring missiles. Yeah, all those budget cuts coming home to roost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 22 VT Supporter Share Posted February 22 1 minute ago, Genie said: Yeah, all those budget cuts coming home to roost. And I forgot our "almost a fleet" of 6 Destroyers are all having their engines replaced at enormous cost because they kept breaking down as well. At the outbreak of the war we didn't have a single one seaworthy. Still, at least ours are still floating and not at the bottom of the sea eh Russia? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Just now, sidcow said: And I forgot our "almost a fleet" of 6 Destroyers are all having their engines replaced at enormous cost because they kept breaking down as well. At the outbreak of the war we didn't have a single one seaworthy. Still, at least ours are still floating and not at the bottom of the sea eh Russia? You can see why we dare not fall out with the US. We’re prime for someone to take a potshot at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 22 Moderator Share Posted February 22 Right can we get this back to Russia / Ukraine. Ta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Russia and the UK have the same problems. Corrupt ruling administrations. Both countries have been utterly rinsed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panto_Villan Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 10 hours ago, blandy said: This is technically wrong, though your conclusion might or might not be correct. In terms of air to air missiles, the altitude at which they are launched doesn’t make much of a difference to their effective range, whether they be typically IR (heat seeking or optical sensing) SRAAMs such as AIM-9 series “sidewinders” or ASRAAMs or typically Radar guided MRAAMS like AMRAAMs. Further, unless at extremely low level, altitude reduces vulnerability to Surface to air missiles in terms of giving the pilot and defensive aids more time to detect and react to incoming threats from the ground. Anyway, on your point about dogfighting, you might be right, nevertheless. The aim is not to get into dogfights anyway- instead to see the enemy before they see you, to launch medium range missiles (AMRAAM for example) and stay beyond the enemy’s engagement zone. So that’s where potentially F16s offer a big improvement over the current UA capability in air defence. In terms of ground attack and interdiction I guess F16s just add to an extremely limited current capability. I’m sure you know this stuff far better than I, but it’s worth bearing in mind the way the Ukrainians use their fighters (at least as far as I’m aware). They mostly use them well behind their lines to intercept cruise missiles, because as you say unless you fly extremely low then you’re vulnerable to air defence if you approach the contested area. Sure, flying higher would give them more time to react to incoming SAMs but the Russians have a LOT of anti-air so I don’t think the Ukrainians want to get into firing range of them at all. The point I was making regarding range was more about the relative altitude of the aircraft involved. The Russian planes are flying high and the Ukrainian ones have to fly low; if there’s a 30,000 ft altitude difference then that’s ~10km of additional distance the missile has to traverse. That’s about 25-30% of the range of a Sidewinder, right? It means the Ukrainians would need to get even closer to the front lines to try and intercept the bombers launching missiles at Ukraine from near the border. So I think in this specific situation what I’m saying is correct, isn’t it? Even if it’d be inaccurate in most cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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