Nuclear deterrent protocol

[Unreal]

I've seen enough films showing two people required to launch, plus codes. I assume that's true.

It just got me thinking about what happens if one or more on the sub refuse to launch. Is that it or is there an override? I suppose it could be the same with planes, although I can't see how you'd control them remotely.

[Starfighter]

The Trident subs have 2 physical keys in separate compartments to enable the missiles. There is a physical trigger in yet another compartment in an alarmed box. The alert status etc is announced and anyone going in the trigger box is fair game for the crew.

The launch requires the sub to be in a very specific configuration to launch so no chance of accidents.
Launch video of a dummy missile - https://youtu.be/0FZYeVM7ucY

Edited by Starfighter on Tuesday 28th March 20:15

[Jimbo.]

Unreal said:

I've seen enough films showing two people required to launch, plus codes. I assume that's true.

It just got me thinking about what happens if one or more on the sub refuse to launch. Is that it or is there an override? I suppose it could be the same with planes, although I can't see how you'd control them remotely.

Denzel Washington gets a smack from Gene Hackman, I believe.

[Unreal]

Clearly the walts in here don't know so I asked an Admiral and former sub commander.

There is no land based override. If the protocol on the sub isn't followed then there's no launch. Probably a good thing.

[Teddy Lop]

Unreal said:

Clearly the walts in here don't know so I asked an Admiral and former sub commander.

There is no land based override. If the protocol on the sub isn't followed then there's no launch. Probably a good thing.

I believe the UK doesn't have launch codes as per the yanks, and rely on the system/vetting etc of the officers to follow orders and not launch for a jolly.

[LimaDelta]

Historically, codes were only used to verify that a launch order was authentic, not to actually trigger the launch, so in theory the two operators in a silo 'could' launch without an order if they chose to. Same for aircraft launched systems. Once airborne with a nuclear device, there was nothing stopping that pilot or crew from arming and delivering the device. Aircraft regularly flew with live nuclear weapons on airborne alerts throughout the cold war. The USAF used to 'practice' bomb London and other major UK cities regularly, though they denied this was ever done with live weapons onboard. Tactical/battlefield weapons required no dual consent. Generally the approach to nuclear weapons was incredibly lax. Even when it was insisted that some form of code was introduced it was set to 00000000 to avoid any delays in launching when required. Eric Schlosser's 'Command and Control' is an excellent book on the subject, and Duncan Campbell's 'The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier' and 'War Plan UK' have some interesting contemporary 1980s information.

Not sure on current protocol as it is something which is very sensibly kept quite secret.

Edit - should probably mention that the USSR had an automatic system called Dead Hand, which would launch their missiles without human intervention in case of a decapitating pre-emptive strike by NATO. It had been thought to be decommissioned, but nobody is quite sure any more. Anyway, it's nice knowing that the entire Russian nuclear arsenal could be automatically launched by a decrepit ex-Soviet computer system. We all know how reliable their kit is. Sleep well.

Edited by LimaDelta on Friday 7th April 13:04

[Simpo Two]

LimaDelta said:

Anyway, it's nice knowing that the entire Russian nuclear arsenal could be automatically launched by a decrepit ex-Soviet computer system. We all know how reliable their kit is. Sleep well.

We've survived this long; the threat of nuclear war has been there since the Bay of Pigs. It's not a new thing.

[LimaDelta]

Simpo Two said:

LimaDelta said:

Anyway, it's nice knowing that the entire Russian nuclear arsenal could be automatically launched by a decrepit ex-Soviet computer system. We all know how reliable their kit is. Sleep well.

We've survived this long; the threat of nuclear war has been there since the Bay of Pigs. It's not a new thing.

Indeed. As a child of the cold war, facing instant annihilation I find the panic over the much more pedestrian AGW threat somewhat less worrisome.

It does seem that after a relatively quiet 30 years (in terms of the threat global nuclear war), things are starting to ramp up again. It's like a whole new generation are just realising these weapons still exist.

[Talksteer]

LimaDelta said:

Historically, codes were only used to verify that a launch order was authentic, not to actually trigger the launch, so in theory the two operators in a silo 'could' launch without an order if they chose to. Same for aircraft launched systems. Once airborne with a nuclear device, there was nothing stopping that pilot or crew from arming and delivering the device. Aircraft regularly flew with live nuclear weapons on airborne alerts throughout the cold war. The USAF used to 'practice' bomb London and other major UK cities regularly, though they denied this was ever done with live weapons onboard. Tactical/battlefield weapons required no dual consent. Generally the approach to nuclear weapons was incredibly lax. Even when it was insisted that some form of code was introduced it was set to 00000000 to avoid any delays in launching when required. Eric Schlosser's 'Command and Control' is an excellent book on the subject, and Duncan Campbell's 'The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier' and 'War Plan UK' have some interesting contemporary 1980s information.

Not sure on current protocol as it is something which is very sensibly kept quite secret.

Edit - should probably mention that the USSR had an automatic system called Dead Hand, which would launch their missiles without human intervention in case of a decapitating pre-emptive strike by NATO. It had been thought to be decommissioned, but nobody is quite sure any more. Anyway, it's nice knowing that the entire Russian nuclear arsenal could be automatically launched by a decrepit ex-Soviet computer system. We all know how reliable their kit is. Sleep well.

Edited by LimaDelta on Friday 7th April 13:04

Some Permissive Action Link stuff is actually reasonably secure, particularly with the shared nuclear weapons operated by people like Germany but supplied by the US.

With these sorts of systems pilots and ground commanders couldn't arm their weapons without either codes which would be supplied from a central authority or in the cases of modern aircraft actually needed to receive the code via a transmission. Both of these could be done in the air.

In the case of the UK we never supplied weapons to other people and hence security was mostly achieved with stuff like bike locks through the arming switch.

[Condi]

Wing Attack Plan R, clearly....

[giveitfish]

Eric Schlosser's 'Command and Control' is a fascinating and fairly terrifying book. And that was just the Americans.

As usual we did things on a shoestring and used all the talents of Heath Robinson to produce something truly inept and dangerous - Violet Club. This was a hollow ball made of a critical mass of enriched uranium and could explode by simply being crushed. To prevent this they filled it with ball bearings and put a plastic bung in.

Basically, if you have a fire on the ground - bung melts, bearings fall out, explosives go off and half of Lincolnshire is vaporised. If you arm the bomb and take off you'd better be at war because you couldn't disarm it, couldn't safely jettison it and a crash while landing would be unthinkable. Brilliant stuff!

Edited by giveitfish on Monday 10th April 17:57

[anonymous-user]

Jimbo. said:

Unreal said:

I've seen enough films showing two people required to launch, plus codes. I assume that's true.

It just got me thinking about what happens if one or more on the sub refuse to launch. Is that it or is there an override? I suppose it could be the same with planes, although I can't see how you'd control them remotely.

Denzel Washington gets a smack from Gene Hackman, I believe.

Not forgetting to float the buoy.

But yes, there's quite a procedure to a launch. Sometimes I think it's too bloody late if they take that amount of time!

[Talksteer]

giveitfish said:

Eric Schlosser's 'Command and Control' is a fascinating and fairly terrifying book. And that was just the Americans.

As usual we did things on a shoestring and used all the talents of Heath Robinson to produce something truly inept and dangerous - Violet Club. This was a hollow ball made of a critical mass of enriched uranium and could explode by simply being crushed. To prevent this they filled it with ball bearings and put a plastic bung in.

Basically, if you have a fire on the ground - bung melts, bearings fall out, explosives go off and half of Lincolnshire is vaporised. If you arm the bomb and take off you'd better be at war because you couldn't disarm it, couldn't safely jettison it and a crash while landing would be unthinkable. Brilliant stuff!

If explosives get hot they burn, deflagrate or at absolute most detonate in an uncontrolled manner. You might be able to generate a critical mass if you have a lot of fissile material but that is not the same as a nuclear explosion.

You would get a fizzle where the energy released by the prompt criticality explosively disassembles the bomb with an amount of energy released commensurate with the power of the detonating explosives, you then go and pick up the bits by hand as you generate a pretty trivial amount of fission products.

The same would go for a crash.

To get the bomb to generate a nuclear explosion a 72 point detonation scheme has to go off to get the sphere to a sufficiently dense geometry before the energy generated by the criticality can undo it. Large fission bombs are particularly difficult due to this effect and hence why there is an upper limit on a fission bomb but not a fission/fusion secondary.

[giveitfish]

I’ve fixed the link in my post.

That’s a very engineer response if I may say so - you make it sound like an armed bomb going critical in the middle of a v-bomber base full of other bombs would be a perfectly fine

According to the article they weren’t even allowed to start the aircraft engines with the ball bearings removed, let alone take off.

Edited by giveitfish on Monday 10th April 18:15

[Jimbo.]

giveitfish said:

I’ve fixed the link in my post.

That’s a very engineer response if I may say so - you make it sound like an armed bomb going critical in the middle of a v-bomber base full of other bombs would be a perfectly fine

According to the article they weren’t even allowed to start the aircraft engines with the ball bearings removed, let alone take off.

Edited by giveitfish on Monday 10th April 18:15

The Wikipedia page makes reference to the ball bearings being removed only during flight preparation, and that a scramble took 30 minutes. I’ve now the image of the scramble alarm going off, the bung being removed in a panic, the bearings spilling everywhere and the aircrew running to the aircraft slipping everywhere on said bearings. Like a scene from Hot Shots.

[wombleh]

Unreal said:

Clearly the walts in here don't know so I asked an Admiral and former sub commander.

There is no land based override. If the protocol on the sub isn't followed then there's no launch. Probably a good thing.

Yup, hence the writing of letters of last resort telling the subs what to do if U.K. govt gets taken out:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_re...

There are failsafes, there’s a theory that’s what sunk the Russian golf K129, proper rabbit whole to go down if interested in that sort of thing!

[16v_paddy]

wombleh said:

Yup, hence the writing of letters of last resort telling the subs what to do if U.K. govt gets taken out:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_re...

There are failsafes, there’s a theory that’s what sunk the Russian golf K129, proper rabbit whole to go down if interested in that sort of thing!

There's one thing that has me a bit confused. What happens to the letter for the 1 sub that's out on patrol? Are they bound by the instructions in the letter from the previous PM until they return to port?

Makes me wonder that it was possible for the 1 sub to be out on a patrol and have 3 different PM's in a single patrol

[Starfighter]

I did wonder that with Liz Truss.

[Raccaccoonie]

Trident takes days to launch, there are no co-ordinates put in. If there was a nuclear uk attack we would all be dead before Trident even launched. Just seems a bit wrong really.

Also very debatable the submarine is undetectable, which puts the whole system to pot.

Very outdated system.

Edited by Raccaccoonie on Monday 10th April 22:26

[Teddy Lop]

Raccaccoonie said:

Trident takes days to launch, there are no co-ordinates put in. If there was a nuclear uk attack we would all be dead before Trident even launched. Just seems a bit wrong really.

Also very debatable the submarine is undetectable, which puts the whole system to pot.

Very outdated system.

Edited by Raccaccoonie on Monday 10th April 22:26

To be fair, half the warhead load could be hot, primed and ready to fire off from a run down unit on an industrial estate in Milton Keynes and the subs nothing more than an elaborate distraction.