Reported in Scotland's Sunday Herald just before Christmas (but not seen by me until a few days ago, hence the delay in passing it on) was a tale to gladden the hearts of peaceniks everywhere - namely that the latest upgrade to the US designed Trident D5 nuclear missiles may not actually fit into British submarines.
Clearly falling well within the parameters of the "you couldn't make it up" school of classic cock-ups, the Herald reported that tender documents for future underwater-launched nuclear missiles issued by the US Navy last November specify a missile diameter of up to 120 inches. The diameter of Trident's D5 missile tubes is 87 inches.
When the decision to replace Trident was rushed through in the final days of the Blair administration, the government envisaged building a fleet of new subs which would initially carry existing Trident warheads, and upgrade later as the replacements came into service. At the time George Bush concurred that "any successor to the D5 system should be compatible with, or be capable of being made compatible with, the launch system for the D5 missile." This decision has now been changed unilaterally by the US, throwing our government's plans into confusion. So much for the 'special relationship'.
The new subs will be designed for use until at least 2055, while the D5 missile system will be totally replaced in 16 years at the latest. So Britain's nuclear sub designers face some interesting challenges in keeping a working nuclear deterent on the road over the coming years. Let's hope those problems are never solved - we could be reduced to the status of a non-nuclear state by the incompetence of our military and politicians - inadvertently doing our work for us.
