Fleet of Her Majesty, once one of the most formidable and technical equipment in the world, it seems, is going through hard times. Failures on tests, controversial assessments of command and allegations of unfitness for action of the ships and submarines are celebrated by the media more often.
Under someone else’s supervision
The main feature of the British military-industrial complex in its modern form lies in the fact that, contrary to the situation of the past decades, the British are actively developing military-technical cooperation with the United States. Technology, products, software and hardware providers, and other key products actively exported and bought and not developed and produced. The same rule applies to the guarantor of the security of the UK – ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
Submarines-carrier ballistic missiles, “Vanguard”, which replaced the submarines of the “resolution” continues to carry ballistic missiles “Trident-2”, but full and complete control over a deadly munitions to the British military did not possess.
When you search for the answer to this question it is important to understand that the Royal Navy of great Britain is the only operator of the missile “Trident-2”, and in their actions is very limited. In fact, Intercontinental ballistic missiles owned by the British military in name only – the download and preparation of the missiles is carried out on the base us Navy kings Bay, maintenance and supervision of missiles, American experts carry out a couple with their British counterparts.
Of course, such interaction can be considered as a high level of trust, but sole control over the nuclear shield of the country from the British military, in fact, no. One may argue about the centuries long friendship of the US and the UK, but seriously talk about full independence of great Britain in General and naval forces in particular in this case impossible.
Cash on the barrel
For many years it was believed that the Royal Navy and his older brother in the face of the U.S. Navy are the standards in terms of reliability and manufacturability. This opinion prevailed among the foreign experts up to the moment in the media began to be published, which, to put it mildly, make us think about the real situation. It should be noted that setbacks and failures on tests of certain types of weapons happen at all. No need to make this great tragedy – the military will make their own conclusions, the developers, and after some time a modified weapons will again be put to the test.
The failure of the UK from developing their own strategic weapons led to the fact that in the future British submariners will have to settle for all the same missiles American production. A major scandal of recent years around the British Navy broke recently. Newspaper the Sunday Times published an article stating that the British military deliberately concealed the failed launch of a ballistic missile “Trident-2”. A rocket fired from a submarine off the coast of Florida “is not went” to the course, and flew in the opposite direction – straight to the shores of the United States.
Almost immediately after this incident, the British Parliament passed the decision to upgrade the missile “Trident-2”. It is important to clarify that “modernization” will be engaged not by the British, and their American colleagues. Experts point out that the confidentiality of the data about the incident could not be provided solely by the British military. Translated into ordinary language, this means that the American “colleagues” covered the story with a raging missile, so as not to fall face in the dirt.
The plight of British sailors in this case lies in the fact that the future submarines fleet for the protection of Her Majesty and the English traditions will be forced to use older types of ballistic missiles that have passed inspection and accepted for use under the program of extending the service.
The island of bad luck
Despite the fact that most experts believe the material about the British Navy planned action by extortion of money, the Royal Navy recently and though no luck. The latest submarine Ambush will break the cabin in a collision with a tanker in Gibraltar and “fly” down, then the ultra-modern destroyers start to break in too warm water.
The hype around these incidents is gradually beginning to fade, but then the flames were fanned by the British newspaper the Sun. According to the material of the newspaper, Ministry of defence of UK hides from the leadership of the country’s total unfitness for action of all multipurpose submarines. The paradox is that at the moment, according to the publication, in the preparation stage control checks before combat duty is only one multi-purpose submarine – the lead ship of the project “Astute”.
About unique by many parameters of the situation to report to the Prime Minister Theresa may, the military are not in a hurry. Experts explain that until the final determination of the action in the current situation is still far. According to experts, in such circumstances, the UK Ministry of defence and Parliament will have to act on the worst case scenario is to spend huge amount of money to revise budgets and find a balance between maintaining combat readiness and commissioning of new vessels. Without significant changes to maintain the status of great sea power of the British military will have nothing.
Author: Dmitry Yurov
Photo: U.S. Navy/ royalnavy.mod.uk/ ZUMAPRESS.com/ Globallookpress