TOPIC: Labour bids to regain economic credibility by pledging only to piss money up the wall 'when necessar

Denmark is not really a comparison, hardly a world power or economy ?

Only other country stupid enough to even consider getting the bloody useless things, but if you have an example of someone as stupid as Cameron feel free to use him or her. His idiocy may yet be blocked under international laws as the Marshall Islands have sued the cretin for breach of international agreements regarding disarmament treaties the UK signed in the 70s and he is now in breach of. law as well as common sense. I suppose it gives the islanders something to do while they wait 250000 years until they can use some of their territory again

Markovitch wrote:
It seems to me that this is misleading and is not as black and white as you would make it look. Given the case has been thrown out by US Federal Judges and the others are in appeal, the story on this far from over.

Its at the International Court of Justice so US judges don't have jurisdiction. Though not hard to imagine the country that sells 2/3 of the worlds weapons would find weapons tests are legal. Despite having paid billions of dollars in compensation

"The system is launched from 2 submarines. The Russians have drones which can find and destroy our submarines (the Russians claim) in under an hour so if the Russians were to launch an attack and our subs were in range the subs would be destroyed before the missiles could be launched"

The Russians are talking out their arse. They could destroy the subs in an hour once they'd launched and given their position away but not before. That's why subs are used.

orfc wrote:
Really? That'll come as a bit of a surprise for the MPs to whom the Ministry of Defence presented a report on 29 February then?

America built their first prototypes 6 years ago. Several countries including Russia have ships which can track submarines and ships and submarines which can launch drones so its hardly a great step forward in technology.

motherboard.vice.com/read/darpa-is-build...e-hunting-drone-boat

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets...-warns-a6786946.html

Markovitch wrote:
Key phrases from those articles: "could be", "maybe", "hopes". It's a bunch of untested technology getting pushed by those wanting continued research grants to look into it.

I'd be worried if I was a blue whale. Maybe.

'Could be maybe or hopes' that the Russians don't develop thi you mean?. This is the underwater drone that can be controlled from a ship- I don't have it in English. The ships already exist and are at sea as we speak- the US version is shown in my link above. As with the US variant the ships track submarines and send underwater drones after them. These drones can be launched from submarines as well. The technology is out there to find and destroy submarines and several countries are using it already. UK submarines are dead in the water. And Parliament doesn't meet to discuss maybes. it meets to discuss genuine threats.
tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201504271716-4r23.htm

The oceans are big places.

English translation of that page:
"Technique can work at depths of up to 600 meters and speeds up to 3.5 knots (more than 6 kilometers per hour). The device detects objects at distances up to 100 meters"

So, a sphere of water 100m (0.1km) in radius = 4/3πr³ = 0.00418 km³

Volume of atlantic ocean down to 300m depth = area of atlantic: 82.4 million km² * 0.3 = 24.72 million km³ - I've disregarded seas like the carribean / mediterranean to make up for the fact the nearest parts of the atlantic to shore won't be 300m deep.

To definitely find a trident submarine, you'd need around 5.9 billion of these drones at the moment putin went "let us kill the british submarines!", that's assuming a) they're only in the atlantic, and b) spheres tesselate perfectly, which they don't

Let's say a 50% chance, that's still 3 billion of the suckers.


Sometimes russia talks shit, controversial I know but.....

Yes, well played, you have translated the part that relates to the missile carrier, not the missile itself. The ship above sea or aeroplane identifies the target and sends the signal to fire and the direction to the underwater drone and the drone itself will launch the missile. So it doesn't matter how fast the drone moves though obviously faster and further is better. The Russian drones will launch Squall missiles with a speed of 375 km/h.
Did you translate more? The article goes on to say that the drones can be run like gliders so they are undetectable by radar. The US already has in service drones that travel at 75km/h so the speed and range is growing exponentially. Russian drones can stay at sea for several months but the hope is that they will develop those that can stay indefinitely.



So now you see that the weapons to destroy our nuclear submarines exists already. With every day that technology will get faster and more reactive unlike our submarines. Both Russia and America is working on drones which are permanently at sea and are undetectable, see the section on gliders. In addition the US is developing drones which can turn off and simply sit on the sea bed until required.

The argument that 'if it hasn't been invented yet it won't be invented' is discussed in the Guardian article 'New Trident submarines doomed by drones of the future, says new report'
www.theguardian.com/world/julian-borger-...ture-says-new-report

Marko, one thing I've learned as a researcher when reading a report or a paper or a set of results is to ask 'what's their bias'? It's obvious why a russian website wants to big up russian capabilities, and it took 2 minutes to find out that the group who wrote the guardian article is an anti-nuclear think-tank - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_American_S..._Information_Council - who are obviously going to be looking for reasons to end trident.

"the ship above sea or aeroplane identifies the target " - How are these ships and planes going to spot a submarine that's 300m deep and anywhere in 82 million square kilometres? And what stops the ship or aeroplane getting shot up? They're a lot easier to spot above water than anything below it. The biggest laugh I got from reading this new frontier of submarine detection stuff was detecting "tiny ripples on the surface from a sub passing underneath" - because the north atlantic is smooth and flat enough to detect ripples. And doesn't have chaotic 20 foot waves in it at all.

In the end you would still need 3 billion of these drones to have a half chance of spotting a trident sub at any given time out at sea.

orfc wrote:
I totally agree about your bias but the author David Hambling is not a member of CND or any similar organisations, if he was he couldn't work for the American military. And just because CND support the findings of a report doesn't make it automatically wrong. That a Russian website wants to big up Russian capabilities isn't automatic. During the Ukraine crisis the US military told us they were trying to develop satellites with greater than 0,5m panchromatic while we knew these were already in existence and operating because we got security footage from them in Afghanistan. So who knows what their strategy is, playing down what they have could be their tactic.

Currently the search ships can be targets, but you have to identify all of them and take all of them out before they issue a launch signal. If they work like normal missile systems you can monitor signals but if they are in Russian territorial waters behind missile defence systems who knows how you do that.


Your comment 'In the end you would still need 3 billion of these drones to have a half chance of spotting a trident sub at any given time out at sea' is incorrect. Firstly a British sub is going to be in the North Sea or towards Scandinavia so the area to be covered is greatly greatly, reduced. The scanning for the sub is done by the ship/aircraft which can see down to 600m (from the US video), this then orders the drone to fire- so I'm guessing but 20 drones might be enough if we are only talking missile launch.


The second point though is the most important. All of this technology currently exists so it is simply a case of improving it. If you work in research you know that projects which have military applications attract funding the fastest. In addition communication is an area that arguably has had the fastest technical growth in the last 20 years. If growth continues at it's current rate it is inconceivable that we won't be able to see these things and we are certainly not going to have to wait until 2030 for that.


The ultimate measure of this is that MoD are taking it seriously. If they recognise the threat, current or future, then we should assume the threat exists.

Vanguard Class SSBN's (Trident to muggles) do not operate in the North Sea, it's too shallow, to busy and there is absolutely no operational need to either.
You clearly have no clue about the subject you're trying to argue and at best, your 'research' is biased to your own misguided opinion.

Well it currently sails to the coast of Norway which according to wiki is on the north side of the North Sea. And as for being too busy!! There is an impending nuclear war so I would think it is a safe assumption that the levels of commercial shipping, fishing and pleasure cruises would fall. The Hull to Zeebrugge ferry would be a hard sell with the possibility of incoming Russian nuclear missiles. You need to use some common sense rather than believing the Daily Mail. The US can read beer bottle labels with their satellite imagery from space. Many countries can launch all types of missiles from submarines remotely. If you genuinely don't think that the Russians, Chinese or Indians are going to be able to find these things and attack them then I thank God that you don't work in the Ministry of Defence.

Like I said, you clearly have no clue what you're talking about.

(and no, I don't read the daily mail.)

feckwittery wrote:

And that is your problem isn't it. You have no arguments, no logic, no articles, no data and no basis in fact. Just the ability 'to say'. Research the topic and look at the arguments made in countries like Germany, Australia and Denmark. Then when you have researched it decide what is more important, buying these things or being able to watch Carlisle United in December, see a doctor when you go hospital and drive on a decent road.

Ah, bless him.

Get ready for the Left Wing post budget sound-bites....


Erm, my guess ' taxing the poor, trident, NHS, NHS, hitting the disabled, NHS, NHS and erm NHS....Education, Change.....Erm, NHS>...

I'm really enjoying the Lefty types getting high and mighty in their ivory towers about the government, like Labour offered a genuine alternative at the last election and we're all scum if we didn't vote Labour because the Tories were elected....

The reason the majority didn't want a Labour Government is seemingly lost on them.....

HuntingHorn wrote:
100% agree, at last someone who talks sense. Tories in Gods country are so rare we nurture them to remind us what life was like when we had people so stupid they voted to cut spending on flood defences while living on flood plains. Labour persists like a 16 year old's athletes foot but as the man says the red Tories offer no alternative. Our children are more important than bombs, you buy what you want, mutilate foxes, torture arab women, do waht you want but cut us free

Strike the good strike, brothers. You couldn't make the CO-OP drivers story up.

As the CO-OP try to transfer there transport to Stobarts, the former CO-OP drivers want to go on strike....

Good old Unite Union, strike it's members out of a job.

Co-operative News.....

Markovitch wrote:

People getting quite viperish about the current government as though Miliband, Balls, Cooper & Harman would currently be doing a FAR better job.....
I didn't vote Labour, I also didn't vote Conservative at the last election, yet because I didn't vote Labour I've read things like;
"You're getting what you deserve"
"You voted for this evil shower"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves you allowed these lot in"
....all because I thought that letting Miliband and his feckless cronies in was an even bigger mistake than allowing 'Tarquin Hecklington-Smythe' and their upper-class Eton friends run the country.
Frankly the last election left nobody with the moral high ground for future judgments, it was a case of vote for the least incompetent form of shit.

I dread to think what state we'd currently be in had Labour been elected, I seriously doubt it would be better than the current situation....but it's all hypothetical and as we all know the hypothetical "reality" is perfect.

If Labour had got in I think you would have got what you got now. Weird times in English politics, Labour has lost Scotland and is now pulling itself apart with a war between the Blairites and the left. Corbyn is certainly not someone who inspires confidence as a leader. Tories are no better with Boris vs Cameron, Cameron now abolishing the local parties so that Boris doesn't oust him. Osborne gave what on the surface seemed not a bad budget though he didn't mention the £22bn loss on the RBS sale, that was nicely hidden below his soft drinks tax. Also now rethinking robbing the disabled after Goldsmith in London was publicly sacked by Richmond AID. Internationally Cameron is as bad as Corbyn. The UK press didn't report it but the ban on weapons exports to Saudi was a direct affront to Cameron as we are the largest supplier. Difficult to see where politics is going in England which probably means more Tory rule.