10 times more expensive then Russian Borey-class? If they are a strategic deterrent why don't they just a build a sub around say 2 ICBM shafts and call it a day
The UK Trident replacements are estimated to be about 15-20 billion GBP for 4 boats - and given that there is every chance that the cost would be a fair bit higher they look roughly comparable to the US costs.
The UK boats will presumably be smaller but won't have the benefits of scale of the US fleet.
As far as I know the only parts the UK has a dependency on the US for are the missiles themselves and re-entry vehicles - everything else (including the warheads) are manufactured in the UK but to designs that are, to various extents, "influenced" by US designs.
Edit: I just noticed that the new UK subs are to be called the "Dreadnought" class - so they will probably all start with D and re-use old RN names - so we might end up with an HMS Devastation and HMS Destruction...
Well, the sub part is pretty expensive, since you have to accomodate 100+ people, with a nuclear reactor/diesel engine + batteries and all the supplies for a long trip. And they need to be able to move undetected, that's the point of the nuclear missile sub as a strategic deterrent.
The cost per boat is really meaningless. What matters is the total lifecycle cost of the entire system including R&D, construction, operations, shore support, and eventual decommissioning. The total for that will be much more than $112B.
Submarine detection methods have been steadily improving for a long time now, their usefulness is declining but they will still be viable for quite some time.
As said in the conversation you linked (which is interesting, thank you), the obsolescence is for the attack submarines close to their target, whereas missile submarines, like the Columbia, has still the rest of the ocean to hide.
I really think they need to store frozen embryos on these subs. Sounds silly?
I'm thinking in any kind of civilization ending disaster subs underwater might have the best chance at surviving and they could stay under for a few months to wait out the worst of any kind of aftermath.
After that they'd need a large genetic stock to repopulate the species.
Would be more viable having a stock of frozen sperm and a minimum requirement on female crew. Still, I don't think that is the primary function of these submarines.
Compute the energy required to "evaporate the oceans". Compute the energy all nuclear weapons can expend.
Humanity is not going to "evaporate the oceans" anytime soon. The energy requirements for that would be somewhere around Kardashev level [1] 1.3-1.5 or so.
Bunkers being fixed locations means they could be targeted for attack. If it serves military purposes, there is a good chance it'll be targeted. If the sole purpose is as an embryo bank, it'd be useless if there is no trained staff to use it after the disaster, and keeping people there 24/7 would be unreasonable if it doesn't serve other purposes. A submarine has a much higher chance of survival, and is already being manned 24/7 for deterrence purposes.
To be fair, we could probably have both if national rail was a priority. The interstate system was built over decades during periods of high military spending and several conflicts.
Modernization of our nuclear capability isn't necessary a bad thing (if you assume MAD doctrine is effective and that the nuclear triad is a key piece of this).
Interstate spending can easily be viewed as defense spending. After all it's called the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways" and was partly inspired by Nazi Germany's Autobahn system that was instrumental for fast troop movement.
Indeed. I think you could make the argument that it was a better investment than something like the F-35 though - at least the interstate system provides continuous economic benefit etc.
The magic number seems to be about 100. Enough to destroy important cities and military targets with some spares to reduce the chance of your arsenal being eliminated by a first strike.
This has been the standard political cycle since Nixon.
Democrats roll back military spending and funnel that money to their domestic pet projects like environmental causes, fighting poverty, and improving education. Then, once a Republican is back in office, they roll back most of those pet projects and funnel the money back into the military budget.
Wow, TIL the US spends almost a full percent of GDP on veterans. That sounded like a huge amount to me, but then I found the US has an equally huge number of veterans: 22 million, or 7% of the population are veterans! So it's just ~$8000 per person per year.
Think about that for a minute: if you put 30 random US people in a room, on average two of them will have served in wars!
Edit: you can also clearly see the rise of the military industrial complex in those graphs.
The state of the US military makes a lot more sense when you consider that it's the only jobs program that Republicans will enthusiastically support. A large part of its de facto mission is to be an (unusually wasteful) welfare program that can actually secure serious amounts of funding from Congress. That 7% of the population of veterans receives some serious benefits, including retirement if they served (IIRC) 20 years, plus they were employed for some period of time when they might otherwise not have been (or have displaced someone else from a job).
so "defense" spending was higher during wars, not really surprising and its peak was during Obama's term. Really doesnt fit the whole republican vs democrat theory.
I'd rather have national "high efficiency" healthcare. Think of how many medical schools, hospitals, and MD scholarships could be created with $112B. That's how you really "fix" healthcare.
Marine reactors need to be refueled after 25 years and that process is extremely expensive. Also, after end-of-life, the reactor needs to be stored securely, for an indefinite period of time.
Better idea: let's not allow dirty ships to enter US/EU ports. close the "international loophole" that enables such egregious pollution (and workers' rights abuses). All ships entering US ports must conform to US emissions regulation, not the phony in-name-only "flag" they stamp on the ship of the nation with the least regulation.
> why don't they just a build a sub around say 2 ICBM shafts and call it a day
You say that like it should be trivially easy. Guess what, launching a missle from underwater to hit a target a thousand miles away is actually pretty difficult and complicated! Who'da thunk, right?
For comparison, the entire Apollo program costed $110B in today's money [1]. In addition to other things, this budget covered the construction of 15 Saturn V rockets and 3 additional ground test vehicles of the same size, plus 3 Saturn IB rockets, plus 35 Command Modules and 15 Lunar Modules.
Even if we just considered the 13 Saturn V rockets that were actually flown, it comes down to 110 / 13 = $8.4B per launch... Slightly less than the projected $9B construction cost for each nuclear submarine, which will presumably incur additional operational costs.
And they called the Apollo program a waste of money...
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] threadOhio class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine cost 2B$....
10 times more expensive then Russian Borey-class? If they are a strategic deterrent why don't they just a build a sub around say 2 ICBM shafts and call it a day
(Russia's $890MM Borey class subs started being built in 1996. That's $1.4bn today.)
The UK boats will presumably be smaller but won't have the benefits of scale of the US fleet.
Edit: I just noticed that the new UK subs are to be called the "Dreadnought" class - so they will probably all start with D and re-use old RN names - so we might end up with an HMS Devastation and HMS Destruction...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ship_names_of_the_Roya...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark-class_fast_patrol_boat
Edit: No coincidence that Iain Banks' father was in the RN - hence the Culture's use of Cool Ship Names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay-class_fast_patrol_boat#Shi...
A good discussion from 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9073740
I'm thinking in any kind of civilization ending disaster subs underwater might have the best chance at surviving and they could stay under for a few months to wait out the worst of any kind of aftermath.
After that they'd need a large genetic stock to repopulate the species.
Edit: seems that women have only recently begun serving on submarines: http://scoopdeck.navytimes.com/2012/05/29/first-all-female-s...
Even nuclear winter won't destroy all humanity. Just modernity.
Humanity is not going to "evaporate the oceans" anytime soon. The energy requirements for that would be somewhere around Kardashev level [1] 1.3-1.5 or so.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
Sounds like you might enjoy it.
Spend the money on healthcare and education instead. We have enough nuclear deterrents.
Modernization of our nuclear capability isn't necessary a bad thing (if you assume MAD doctrine is effective and that the nuclear triad is a key piece of this).
Democrats roll back military spending and funnel that money to their domestic pet projects like environmental causes, fighting poverty, and improving education. Then, once a Republican is back in office, they roll back most of those pet projects and funnel the money back into the military budget.
You can more easily see the ups and downs on some of the charts here: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_spending
Think about that for a minute: if you put 30 random US people in a room, on average two of them will have served in wars!
Edit: you can also clearly see the rise of the military industrial complex in those graphs.
[EDIT] grammar
so "defense" spending was higher during wars, not really surprising and its peak was during Obama's term. Really doesnt fit the whole republican vs democrat theory.
I'd rather have national "high efficiency" healthcare. Think of how many medical schools, hospitals, and MD scholarships could be created with $112B. That's how you really "fix" healthcare.
[1] http://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-mo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_naval_reactors#/...
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-15-biggest-ships-i...
I suspect a nuclear engine is drastically more expensive to build and maintain, not to mention the disposal issues others have mentioned.
You say that like it should be trivially easy. Guess what, launching a missle from underwater to hit a target a thousand miles away is actually pretty difficult and complicated! Who'da thunk, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M51_(missile)
Even if we just considered the 13 Saturn V rockets that were actually flown, it comes down to 110 / 13 = $8.4B per launch... Slightly less than the projected $9B construction cost for each nuclear submarine, which will presumably incur additional operational costs.
And they called the Apollo program a waste of money...
[1] Source: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1579/1