Quotulatiousness

February 23, 2024

The Royal Navy ballistic missile submarine commander’s “Letter of Last Resort”

Filed under: Britain, Military, Weapons — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Britain’s Royal Navy always has a nuclear submarine — currently one of the Vanguard-class — at sea with a unique mission … stay undetected to ensure the survival of Britain’s nuclear deterrent in the form of the boat’s live nuclear weapons. Ned Donovan reposted an article on the mission orders each sub commander has locked in a safe for the duration of the mission:

HMS Victorious, a Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarine in the Clyde estuary on transit to base at Faslane on 8 December, 2003.
Photo: LA(phot) Mez Merrill/MOD via Wikimedia Commons

Somewhere out in the North Atlantic, every hour of the day, every day of the year, a lone submarine glides through the ocean with no real destination. Since 1969, one of the four boats of the UK’s Continuous At-Sea Submarine Deterrent has always been on patrol. Its location is known to only a handful, even many of her crew will have no idea where they are.

While many Royal Navy captains hold responsibility for their crew, Trident submarine commanders also bear a far more macabre role: the duty to play Britain’s final political and diplomatic hand possible. Within the bowels of each boat lays two safes, an outer and an inner, and within that inner safe sits the letter of last resort.

One of the first tasks of the Cabinet Secretary on the appointment by the Queen of a new prime minister, is to have the new leader write that very letter.

After the elation of an election victory, the civil servant informs the politician that this letter will lay out the action the prime minister wishes to take, should the government and chain of command be totally destroyed by nuclear attack. Tony Blair, according to his cabinet secretary, was said to have gone “quite white” on being told of his options.

Options do allow a great deal of latitude, with varying degrees of widespread destruction of human life:

  1. Retaliate with nuclear weapons without prejudice.
  2. Do not retaliate at all.
  3. Allow the commander to act within his own discretion.
  4. Place the boat under the control of an allied navy, specifically the Royal Australian Navy or US Navy.

Given some time alone, the prime minister is requested to decide and write it in a letter addressed to the commanders of each of the Vanguard-class submarines in the navy. The message is then sealed in an envelope and sent to be placed into the boats’ safes. So far, none of these missives have been opened, and the letters are burned at the end of each premier’s term.

The only prime minister to comment openly on their orders was Lord Callaghan in an interview with historian Peter Hennessy:

    If it were to become necessary or vital, it would have meant the deterrent had failed, because the value of the nuclear weapon is frankly only as a deterrent. But if we had got to that point, where it was, I felt, necessary to do it, then I would have done it. I’ve had terrible doubts, of course, about this. I say to you, if I had lived after having pressed that button, I could never ever have forgiven myself.

To get to the stage where the letters can be opened is a long and purposefully difficult journey. First, the prime minister must have perished or become incapacitated in some way. Then, his proposed alternate decision makers would had to have met the same fate. It is only after that point that the submarine commanders go anywhere near their safes.

Updated to fix broken link.

February 16, 2024

Regional Power: North Korea

Filed under: Asia, China, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Army University Press
Published Feb 13, 2024

This film examines the current political and military situation in North Korea. Subject matter experts discuss Korean history, DPRK current affairs, and KPA military doctrine. Topics include the rise of the Kim family to political leadership of the DPRK, its influence in the region, and how the U.S. works in partnership with the Republic of Korea.

November 27, 2023

This Cold War bomber was perfect. Why was it cancelled? | TSR2

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Imperial War Museums
Published 9 Aug 2023

In 1951, Britain introduced the English Electric Canberra. It would go onto become the RAF’s longest serving aircraft, designed to operate at high level. It was an incredibly efficient aircraft, but by the late 1950s everything changed. The Soviet Union brought into service brand new surface-to-air missiles and suddenly overnight the Canberra was vulnerable.

Now the British government needed a new aircraft, one that could beat this threat and fly under the radar. It was a huge ask for the technology of the time, but had it been successful the aircraft itself would have been a world beater. In this epsiode of Duxford in Depth, Liam Shaw takes a details look at the aircraft that never was, the BAC TSR-2.
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October 27, 2023

The Tale of Fat Man and Little Boy

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 26 Oct 2023

Here near the end of 1944, we look at the development of the atomic bomb. What different methods of creating a nuclear reaction are being developed? How close are they to development? How does it work? Will they be able to make one in 1945? Will it go boom?
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October 5, 2023

The Soviet Spies who Kickstarted the Nuclear Arms Race

World War Two
Published 4 Oct 2023

Last episode we saw Klaus Fuchs steal details of the American atomic bomb for the Soviet Union. But he’s only one component of a much bigger conspiracy. Today, Astrid introduces you to the mysterious web of Soviet atomic spies. Their work changed our world forever.
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September 30, 2023

The Man Who Stole the Atomic Bomb

World War Two
Published 29 Sep 2023

In the New Mexico desert, a secret team of scientists is working flat out to develop atomic bombs. It’s the most important American military project in history. But one of those scientists lives a double life. Klaus Fuchs has decided to betray his country and share America’s most secret technology with the Soviet Union. But is he the only person who has turned traitor?
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August 25, 2023

Fortress Britain with Alice Roberts S01E03

Fortress Britain with Alice Roberts
Published 16 Apr 2023

August 5, 2023

Tempting Armageddon: Soviet vs. NATO Nuclear Strategy

Real Time History
Published 4 Aug 2023

Since the inception of the nuclear bomb, military strategists have tried to figure out how to use them best. During the Cold War, this led to two very different doctrines but on both sides of the Iron Curtain the military wasn’t sure if you could actually win Nuclear War.
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July 28, 2023

Progressive objections to Oppenheimer

Filed under: History, Japan, Media, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the movie, and have no immediate plans to do so. That said, there’s a lot of discussion about the movie, its successes and its failures and how it relates to today’s issues. Over at Founding Questions, Severian felt the need to do a proper fisking of one particularly irritating take:

This is one of two Oppenheimer stories that popped up this morning. I don’t watch tv and haven’t seen a movie in the theater in decades; I doubt I’ve seen more than a handful of “new” movies in the last ten years. So I really am not the target audience for this kind of thing, but … I don’t get it. Why is this movie such a big deal? Have they decided to simply create The One Pop Culture Thing out of whole cloth?

Anyway, let’s see what they have to say:

    There’s a cabal online, and even in some professional circles, arguing that Nolan has made the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a sideshow: that Oppenheimer looks away from the devastating effects of what happened on August 6 and 9 1945.

I guess this is where the Historian in me will forever override the pop culture critic. Obviously Robert Oppenheimer knew he was developing a weapon. The difference between a nuclear bomb and a regular bomb is one of degree, not kind. American firebombing had already done to dozens of Japanese cities what Oppenheimer’s nuke did to Hiroshima. Curtis LeMay knew it, too — after the war, he said that he’d have been rightfully tried for war crimes had the outcome gone the other way. I simply cannot see how this man is uniquely culpable for anything … or if he is, then Rosie the Riveter should be held accountable for every bomber that rolled off the assembly line.

    Anti-nuclear groups have been similarly disappointed, with Carol Turner from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament telling The Guardian that “the effect of the [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] blasts was to remove the skin in a much more gory and horrible way – in [Oppenheimer] it was tastefully, artfully presented.”

That‘s your objection? That people weren’t shown getting killed in a realistic-enough manner? Jesus Christ, do you people ever listen to yourselves? That’s fucking sick. You are a loathsome excuse for a human being, Carol Turner.

    Although it says much about the morals and mechanics of war, Oppenheimer isn’t a war film: it’s ultimately about the internal conflict and persecution of one individual. To painstakingly focus on the Japanese victims would have made it an entirely different film, and one at odds with the rest of Nolan’s vision. (His fellow director James Cameron, meanwhile, is said to be planning a film on the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

“Victims”. You keep using that word.

    There is currently a trend for great cultural works, such as Oppenheimer, to be denigrated if they don’t tick certain boxes, and such complaints often come from the Left. A lack of focus on victims has been a frequent criticism: it’s an argument that gets wheeled out, for example, whenever a drama is being made about serial killers. Yet I don’t think artists are obliged to do this if it doesn’t fit into their own authorial vision.

I have to admit, I’m getting that old College Town feeling right now. The one where it feels like someone dropped some low-grade acid in my coffee, and I’m hallucinating. I know what all those words mean, but put together like that they don’t make any sense at all. On the most basic level, the objection here seems to be that movies require plots. A “drama about a serial killer”, for example (“drama” … what an odd word choice), requires murders. You know, mechanically speaking. But what does “focusing” on them add? Is it any more or less awful, learning that the dead guy killed at random by a lunatic was really into soccer and had a dog and liked classic rock?

And all this is before you consider that the most vocal critics of Oppenheimer are Leftists … the very same Leftists who are determined to fight to the very last drop of Ukrainian blood, and who seem to think that giving Zelensky tactical nukes is a super idea. Reading the Left’s pronouncements on Vladimir Putin, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’d like to nuke him twice, just to be sure.

Your concern for the “victims” of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rings a little hollow, gang, when you’ve been howling for blood 24/7 on Twitter for a year and a half.

July 8, 2023

Canada’s Nuclear-Armed Cold War Interceptor: the story of the McDonnell CF-101 Voodoo

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Polyus
Published 14 Aug 2020

When Soviet or unidentified aircraft approached Canadian airspace in the 1960s and 70s, they were met by an iconic cold war interceptor. Armed with both conventional and nuclear weapons, they were a formidable foe in their day. It served to support NORAD and protect the Northern approaches into the North American heartland during the height of the Cold War. Although it was neither designed nor built in Canada, the reliable Voodoo remains a Canadian Cold War icon and was well loved by its ground crews and pilots.

0:00 Introduction
0:29 McDonnell F-101A development
1:06 F-101B Interceptor
3:11 Canada becomes involved with the Voodoo
4:15 The Nuclear question
5:08 Comparison with contemporaries
5:36 Operational History
8:04 Legacy and Retirement
8:48 Conclusion
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June 22, 2023

QotD: Nuclear non-proliferation and the Russo-Ukraine war

The failure of the earlier League of Nations was crucial to preparing the way for the Second World War. Today, we see none of this, with most participants — excepting North Korea and Iran — still playing by the rules. This is where we return to Nevil Shute. Twice, using his technical expertise, Shute attempted to predict future war in a novel, and twice he got it wrong. With On the Beach, the author wrote of a 37-day war that “had flared all around the northern hemisphere”. Albania had dropped a “cobalt bomb” on Naples, which escalated into wider conflicts and eventually a Russo-Chinese exchange.

As one of Shute’s characters, a scientist, explained, “The trouble is, the damn things got too cheap. The original uranium bomb cost about fifty thousand quid towards the end. Every little pipsqueak country like Albania had a stockpile of them, and every little country that had that, thought it could defeat the major countries in a surprise attack”. Significantly, Shute’s future war, set in 1963, wasn’t triggered by the usual NATO-Warsaw Pact arsenals of nuclear weapons, but the proliferation of them elsewhere. Then, as now, it is not Russian or Chinese aggression that should worry those with nightmares of nuclear cataclysm, but that of other countries. Thanks to the NPT, IAEA and the UN, these possibilities are contained. Today, the world’s weapons of mass destruction stand at one tenth of their number during the Cold War.

Indeed, the very origins of the current Ukraine crisis illustrate how the international order has managed to contain potential proliferation. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, Ukraine possessed the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, greater than those of Britain, France and China combined. Kyiv soon realised it couldn’t afford to maintain the warheads and remain a credible nuclear military power. A solution was found, whereby the weapons would be destroyed, but only in exchange for security assurances that the United States and Russia would respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

What Ukraine signed on 5 December 1994 was the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances, in which Bill Clinton for the United States, Boris Yeltsin for Russia and John Major for Great Britain promised to protect Ukraine and its territorial integrity in recognition of Kyiv surrendering the protection of its nuclear arsenal. There was no mention of military guarantees, which Ukraine assumed were implied. Additionally, Kyiv promised to adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, the G7 nations complained that Russia had breached the Budapest Memorandum. Vladimir Putin replied evasively that since, in his view, a new regime had seized power from Ukraine’s previously pro-Moscow premier Viktor Yanukovych, “Russia has not signed any obligatory documents with this new state”. Since then, Russia has lied and prevaricated over its betrayal of Budapest. In 2016, Sergey Lavrov went so far as to claim, “Russia never violated Budapest memorandum. It contained only one obligation, not to attack Ukraine with nukes” — a gross distortion of the Memorandum’s many obligations.

However, the West responded in 2014 only with mild economic sanctions. Arguably, the apathy of the anti-interventionist Barack Obama and David Cameron, influenced by a London awash with Russian money, emboldened Vladimir Putin. Few experts disagree that had the West responded in 2014 as they did in 2022, Russia’s expansionist ambitions into Ukraine would have ended long ago. Yet, there is plenty of room for optimism. The Russo-Ukraine conflict has not spread because of the international order and its treaties. Apart from North Korea and Iran, neither of whom have quite perfected their devilish devices, nuclear proliferation of third parties has been held in check.

The Kremlin shows no sign of taking steps to escalate to a nuclear level. It is not in its interests, or those of its allies, to do so. None of the 32 nations who recently abstained from condemning Russia in the 24 February UN vote would welcome Vladimir Putin and his cronies flinging nukes around. The qualified support of major powers like China, India and Pakistan is attached to the cheap oil and arms procurements they have negotiated with Moscow. Any hint of Tsar Vladimir “going nuclear” would see their abstentions morph into support for the West. Putin, for all his rhetoric, cannot afford to go it alone with just the six who voted with him at the UN. In military terms, they offer nothing.

The world’s various international arms treaties provide plenty of optimism that this will remain a regional war. So far, Putin’s threats have melted away as the morning mist. The scenario he implies, akin that in On the Beach and other nuclear-war-scare novels and films, is so unlikely as to be discounted. They and all the rest of the post-apocalyptic genre are written as nail-biting entertainment, not history or current affairs.

Peter Caddick-Adams, “Putin, Shute and nukes”, The Critic, 2023-03-09.

April 19, 2023

Time to remove US nuclear weapons from Europe?

Filed under: Germany, History, Italy, Military, Russia, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

CDR Salamander has long advocated getting the final few American “tactical” nuclear weapons off European soil and makes the case for doing it now:

It may seem like a strange thing to propose while there is the largest land war in Europe since 1945 going on, but as it is something I’ve been a supporter of for a few decades I might as well be consistent: we are long overdue to remove American nuclear weapons from Europe.

It is 2023. Just look at this map.

[…]

The Soviet Union stopped existing over three decades ago.

Even though we’ve decreased from 7,000 warheads down to 100 … there really is no reason to keep what remains in Europe.

  1. Gravity bombs on continental Europe – that require tactical aircraft to deliver them – are the least survivable, reliable, or timely way to deliver a nuclear weapon.
  2. There is no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. I don’t care what some theorist proposes to defend their pet theories, you lob one nuke an order of magnitude larger than the Hiroshima bomb and only a foolish nation would let their strategic nuclear forces stay unused and in danger.
  3. Gravity bombs are not a first strike weapon and are a poor second strike weapon. As such, you have to consider that the the time gap from approval to flash-boom would be so long the war would be over before your F-XX pickled their nuke over their target – even if the aircraft made it off the ground.
  4. If they are NATO weapons, you not only have to get NATO to approve their use, but host nation to as well … in addition to the USA. Do you really think the Russians would not leverage their influence with the useful idiots in the Euro-Green parties, former communists, and general black-block anti-nuke activists to politically of physically stop the use of the nukes, especially in BEL, NLD, DEU, and ITA? Add that to point 3 above.
  5. Especially with the weapons in Turkey – the risk of these bombs having a bad day due to human or natural causes is non-zero. In the days of mutually assured destruction, those non-zero odds were manageable, but there is no reasonable person in the third decade of the 21st Century who can with a straight face explain to you why any tactical, operational, or strategic use justify their presence. They deter no enemy, but puts every friend in danger.
  6. Look again at the map above. Exactly what target set are you going to “service” at that range (non-refueled)?
  7. If things go nuclear in Europe then the right weapons are either British, French, and if they must be American are sitting in a silo in CONUS, a SSBN in the Atlantic, or a B-2 in Missouri.

March 11, 2023

Why Japan Surrendered in WW2: Stalin or the Bomb?

Real Time History
Published 10 Mar 2023
It’s common wisdom that the nuclear bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused the Japanese surrender at the end of the 2nd World War. However, there has been a fierce historical debate if this narrative omits the role of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 — or if this invasion was actually the main cause for the surrender.
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March 7, 2023

How Would a Nuclear EMP Affect the Power Grid?

Filed under: History, Military, Science, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Practical Engineering
Published 8 Nov 2022

How a nuclear blast in the upper atmosphere could disable the power grid.
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February 12, 2023

Avro Vulcan: What made the Vulcan the best V bomber?

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Imperial War Museums
Published 28 Apr 2021

The Avro Vulcan Bomber, the most famous of the British V bombers, is known for its distinctive howl and delta wing. Initially one of the delivery agents of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent during the Cold War, the Vulcan later fulfilled another role, undertaking the longest bombing raid in history for Operation Black Buck in the Falklands Campaign of 1982. One of the first operational RAF aircraft with a delta wing, this impressive Cold War jet has never lost its appeal. In this video, events and experiences coordinator Liam Shaw takes us through the extraordinary history and technological achievements of the Avro Vulcan. We go into the cockpit and hear first-hand from the people who flew this unique machine throughout its long and remarkable history.
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