Found this. I didn’t know this.

Is it true?

I suppose it is the ideal thing to privatise. No performance indicators needed because either it will never be used, or if it is and fails, it’s too late to say sorry. 🙂

Just look at what else is foreign owned:
Energy infrastructure
Train operating companies
Car makers
Cadbury
HP sauce
Weetabix

AWE plc may now be owned by those three companies.

The bit the scary picture doesn’t tell you, is that it is all still under the overall control of the UK Government. Same as it always was.

STW is actually a joint-venture between the KGB and NSA, being used to distract people from the real issues that affect us, and obviously to cull those who get too close to the truth.

Ever wondered what the *real* reason for TJ’s ban was….

aP – Member
Just look at what else is foreign owned:
Energy infrastructure
Train operating companies
Car makers
Cadbury
HP sauce
Weetabix

Aye, but not of those can deep fry you (although some are delicious deep fried).

I suppose I’m not a fan of my country’s infrastructure being owned by anyone other than the government.

Look up “golden share”

Look up Corporatocracy. That’s who runs the world and the US Military–industrial complex is quite a big player.

We’ve had US nuclear weapons since the late 50s surely?

I’m a bit more worried about Serco having a stake than the Americans.

But we have our finger on the button. Serco or any other company is with the boomer when it’s on patrol. More internet bullsh@t conspiracy theory

We have been buying off the shelf kit and services for a while now. Gone are the days that the forces commissions special kit from British Manufacturers and try to manage it themselves in the usual inefficient way we used to. The new A330 air tankers are effectively provided under a service contract and our C17’s are leased. There are provisions in the contracts for activity in conflict and wars. Quite a cost effective way of managing kit and it keeps ex-services guys in jobs – even Serco wouldn’t provide non-military experienced and trained people to service contracts in front line support activities. It gives the forces the ability to change the kit more frequently to keep on top of the latest technology – gone are the days we nurse aircraft and other kit on for 50+yrs, continually upgrading them to nurse them along in a sort of ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ way. War is a high tech business these days and we need to keep on top of the kit so we can take part in joint operations with our allies and our kit can talk to theirs.

But we have our finger on the button.

You mean the US lets have our finger on the button. As long as we pay them vast amounts of money and don’t displease them.

The US makes the Trident missiles, maintains them, and provides the satellite intelligence to target them.

All of which makes us very dependent on the US for our ‘nuclear deterrent’ and not very independent at all.

And to give you an idea how out of our control it all is :

US agrees to tell Russia Britain’s nuclear secrets

BTW one of the reasons Britain expelled, against their wishes, the inhabitants of Diego Garcia and handed the island over to the US government to build a huge military base, was to receive a big discount on Trident.

ernie is not wrong, but the point of our nuclear deterrent is that HM government can launch a strike independently of the US and the US has no control on our bombers or missiles once deployed. If the US decided to stop supporting our nuclear deterrent (the warheads are ours but the missiles sit on missiles from a shared pool) that would cause problems and would probably lead us to building simple nuclear bombs for Typhoon to carry whilst we look at other options; which would probably be to throw our lot in with the French since they probably have less money than us to engineer their next deterrent.

I tend not to think of nuclear weapons as ‘military things’ – they are political tools and bargaining chips.

Guess Ernie isn’t speculating or basing his information on the internet drivel? One thing I’m sure of is that HM government always, rightly, refuses to discuss how the nuclear deterrent works. We don’t have air delivered weapons or tactical battlefield weapons now either. 2006 white paper https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/27378/DefenceWhitePaper2006_Cm6994.pdf

Page 23, para 4.6

The UK’s current nuclear deterrent is fully operationally independent of the US:
• decision-making and use of the system remains entirely sovereign to the UK;
• only the Prime Minister can authorise the use of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, even if the missiles are to be fired as part of a NATO response;
• the instruction to fire would be transmitted to the submarine using only UK codes and UK equipment;
• all the command and control procedures are fully independent; and
• the Vanguard-class submarines can operate readily without the Global Positioning by Satellite (GPS) system and the Trident D5 missile does not use GPS at all: it has an inertial guidance system. There is nothing in the planned Trident D5 life extension programme that will change this position.

Guess Ernie didn’t believe HM government, you did read this before posting guys?

but the point of our nuclear deterrent is that HM government can launch a strike independently of the US

The point of our nuclear ‘deterrent’ is that it apparently never needs to used. Central to this strategy is refusing to confirm the exact size of Britain’s nuclear arsenal. Something which Britain could guarantee if it indeed had independent nuclear weapons.

Her Majesty’s Government weren’t best pleased that the US revealed to a potential enemy precise details of Britain’s nuclear capabilities thereby undermining its ‘deterrent’ effect.

.

Guess Ernie isn’t speculating or basing his information on the internet drivel?

The Daily Telegraph, not noted for its anti-nuclear weapon policy or hostility towards the US government. From the above link :

Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.

Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers said: “This appears to be significant because while the UK has announced how many missiles it possesses, there has been no way for the Russians to verify this. Over time, the unique identifiers will provide them with another data point to gauge the size of the British arsenal.”

Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems, said: “They want to find out whether Britain has more missiles than we say we have, and having the unique identifiers might help them.”

BTW I couldn’t give a toss what the Russians know about Britain’s nuclear arsenal.

Hmm, its also worthy of note that our Nuclear deterrent has been largely dependent on US manufacturing since, ooh, at least 1963 with the signing of the Polaris Sales Agreement…

Central to this strategy is refusing to confirm the exact size of Britain’s nuclear arsenal. Something which Britain could guarantee if it indeed had independent nuclear weapons.

Hmm, they know how many submarines we’ve got, and how many missile tubes they’ve got – the key information is warheads, and they’re entirely a UK secret,

which would probably be to throw our lot in with the French since they probably have less money than us to engineer their next deterrent.

how hard can it be to dismantle one copy it and make more ,its a rocket with a bit what goes bang on the end

Ernie the number of missiles is irrelevant. Media red herring because following the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, the number of warheads per Trident II D5 missile was limited to 3 warheads (and 48 warheads in total per submarine). Each missile has a MIRV (multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicle) capability which enables each Trident missile to engage multiple targets simultaneously. The number of submarines is known and the number of their tubes per sub is also a known. An enemy and me would assume worse case scenario and that each tube has a missile and that rightly it is armed with a number of warheads upto 48. We only have one sub on station at any time. So even I can guess what the actual number of missiles armed and ready to go is. In a time of tension we would sail all three and we have three times our normal capability.
Here is all the detail from UK government including number of warheads

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmdfence/986/98605.htm

Bottom line – 48 nukes hitting anyone’s country will make an awful mess.

I cant see what point your making and those quotes also are misleading if you scrutinize the evidence that is in the public domain?

how hard can it be to dismantle one copy it and make more ,its a rocket with a bit what goes bang on the end

It’s not exactly brain surgery is it?

It’s not exactly brain surgery is it?
No, but it IS rocket science!

I don’t think having fired off our total deterrent of 144 warheads on the subs that we need worry about reloads

BTW one of the reasons Britain expelled, against their wishes, the inhabitants of Diego Garcia and handed the island over to the US government to build a huge military base, was to receive a big discount on Trident.

UK/US (Wilson/LBJ) agreement on Diego Garcia signed 1966, all islanders removed by ’73

initial UK/US (Thatcher/Carter) agreement on purchase of Trident Missile 1980

😕

ninfan – Member

😕

Can’t figure it out ? ……let me help you 🙂

It’s obvious that I meant Polaris rather than Trident. So it should therefore read :

BTW one of the reasons Britain expelled, against their wishes, the inhabitants of Diego Garcia and handed the island over to the US government to build a huge military base, was to receive a big discount on Polaris.

I’ve just checked and apparently Britain got $14 million knocked off the price of the Polaris missiles for handing over Diego Garcia to the US government, after kicking out the inhabitants of course, quite a tidy sum in the 1960s

http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/diego-garcia.htm

As we now appear to be arguing about Diego Garcia, presumably now would be the time to bring up the Falklands? Or does this particular straw man only ‘work’ in one direction?

Have you got an interesting and little known fact concerning the Falklands and Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent ? Go for it !

Btw no one is “arguing about Diego Garcia”. I said Trident when I meant Polaris. And that’s about as far as the “arguing” went.

I said Trident when I meant Polaris

Did you? Or were you just parroting Leftie propaganda without casting a critical eye?

Diego Garcia and the surrounding islands — known collectively as the Chagos Islands — were shamefully cleared of their existing population in the late 1960s, to make way for a US airbase on Diego Garcia itself. This was a manifestation of the “special relationship” between the UK and the US, which involved the old empire facilitating its successor’s global reach, in exchange for a significant discount on the UK’s Trident nuclear missile programme.

As published on liberalconspiracy.org in 2008 (later amended after someone pointed out the error but not before being widely quoted)

So Ernie – either you coincidentally made exactly the same error as one of the key commentators on the Chagos islanders and main disseminator of the claim they were connected, or you’re lying to, well, I really don’t know, pretend you form your own opinions rather than just parrot other peoples maybe? Or maybe trying to fight the allegation above that you’re basing your information on internet drivel?

I dunno, very confused? 😕

or you’re lying

About what ?

I provided the link, here it is again :

http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/diego-garcia.htm

And here’s the quote if you can’t be bothered reading the link :

The U.S. gained a military installation that proves to be just as valuable today as it did when construction began. Britain gained increased security from the U.S. presence as well as a price reduction of $14 million for Polaris missiles for their submarines which they would be hard pressed to afford otherwise (CBSNEWS.com).

The source is apparently CBSNEWS.

Dismiss it as lies if you want, I’m not fussed 🙂

EDIT : btw this made me smile : “pretend you form your own opinions rather than just parrot other peoples maybe?”

It’s certainly not my opinion. I have no opinion on the matter – I wasn’t present during the negotiations between the US and the UK in the 1960s, so I have to accept someone else’s word concerning the $14 million discount for ‘Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent’. Obviously 🙂