OT Nuclear U-Boats; how do they condense the steam?

No, although they can be used that way, that is not the purpose of them. The idea is that once out at sea, no-one knows where they are, so they cannot be targetted to be knocked out before an attack on their home country and will remain available to respond.

Indeed, they may not even respond - each Prime Minister gives a letter to the sub commanders, to be opened *after* an attack on the UK. That letter tells them whether to fire back or not in such an event. The idea being that an enemy won't know whether we would respond or not, but the PM has that control.

But subs hide much better. Time taken to arrive is not a problem for a retaliatory weapon though.

Agreed.

Although not used much, there have been commercial nuclear ships before

- and a number of icebreakers.

Pancho wrote

Nope, NATO would have done that fine.

That wouldn?t have deterred a Soviet conventional invasion of Europe.

That?s not true or Trident with nuking by the frogs.

Trident was never intended for use in normal conflicts, they were always about deterring nuke strikes on the UK.

That was never what Trident was about.

And Israel.

But don?t have a clue what Trident was about.

But Trident isn't, just irrelevant now and a waste of money.

Every possibility I would say - Australia is not very heavily populated. And is not very defensible. And is full of pacifists who would probably welcome them with open arms

Course it does.

On 17/09/2021 11:33, Steve Walker wrote: ...

One of which had to jettison its reactor after what is thought to have been a partial meltdown. At it was a Soviet vessel, details are not available.

More fool you...

- Australia is not very heavily populated.

That is mindless bullshit.

And is full of pacifists who would probably

More mindless bullshit.

Fraid not. No possibility of holding it.

They couldn?t even manage that with Afghanistan.

Maybe 50 years ago, maybe in the future, but at the moment they are the dominant regional power. Additionally, they are protected against these weaker enemies by US backing.

I think a lot of the reason Israel and the US suspect Iran of seeking nuclear weapons is because it is what they would do in Iran's position.

Personally I'm not so sure. I think the Iranian leadership may think differently.

Do they? With modern equipment. I actually suspect subs are more vulnerable to being taken out in a pre-emptive strike. I think the UK often has just one operational trident sub.

Governments lie about the real reasons to placate the public.

Most of the cash poor nuclear powers rely on mobile land nukes. Trains, lorries, multiple geographically distance launch sites. More weapons for your money. These are countries which are most likely to face a first strike.

wow. You START with an ad hominem!

And carry on with insults without addressing the basic point, that the north of Australia is huge and empty, and there is nothing there to stop chinese landing craft waltzing in, apart from submarines..

More insults and ad hominems. And complete lack of rational arguments

No possibility of retaking it. How many men did it take to

(a) take (b) retake the falklands?

They didn't even try

And the Afghans are far more likely to resist invasion than limp wristed latte drinking urban hipster Australians

Subs are far more hidden than any land-based system. At times of high tension, they will usually arrange for more than one to be at sea at the same time - indeed this was one of the arguments against the Lib-Dem proposal to save money by buying fewer.

More weapons, but easier to wipe-out pre-emptively.

Well I have quite a lot of interest in Iran - I have known many Iranians for reasons I do not understand! - and where the regime is at is using the West much as nicola sturgeon uses england, as a scapegoat for every ill the regime has inflicted on the country.

This comes to a head with the 'Rothschild conspiracy' which maintains that the Jewish Rothschilds, based in England, are the secret illuminati that are running the world and pissing on Iran, specifically.

This is OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT POLICY. And believed by the majority of Iranians

To that end it sponsors acts of terrorism to maintain enmity with the UK, America and Israel in order to say 'look, they are waging war against us'. It would love to have nuclear weapons to threaten Israel with.

And to threaten Britain and the USA with in case we thought of doing a Desert storm on them.

Now having nuclear weapons ourselves is no defence against Iran's nuclear weapons. Any use of nuclear weapons against Iran would like arouse sympathy across the islamic diaspora. Use of nuclear weapons by Iran would receive tacit acclaim across the same diaspora. In fact the only thing that works against Islamic militancy is total utter public humiliation.

No, they are not.

"I think the UK often has just one operational trident sub." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Governments lie about the real facts to placate the public.

There are no cash poor nuclear powers.

You need to be pretty well heeled to build a bomb

Wiki:

Contents

1 Statistics and force configuration 2 Recognized nuclear-weapon states 2.1 United States 2.2 Russia (successor to the Soviet Union) 2.3 United Kingdom 2.4 France 2.5 China 3 States declaring possession of nuclear weapons 3.1 India 3.2 Pakistan 3.3 North Korea 4 States indicated to possess nuclear weapons 4.1 Israel 5 Launch authority 6 Nuclear weapons sharing 7 States formerly possessing nuclear weapons 7.1 South Africa 7.2 Former Soviet Republics

None of those are 'cash poor' None of them lack at the very least a functional air force and some missile capability

Trains,

You are making this up, completely. Talking out of your arse really.

There was the diaspora in 1979.

I was down the boozer with an Iranian mate a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me with horror how his (English, Catholic) daughter was embracing her Iranian heritage, wanting to wear a head scarf etc. Him going, nooo, we never did that in Iran.

I think that is pretty much true and Israel does a bit the same with Iran, presenting them as an existential threat. I think in reality Iran is much more interested in Saudi. Israel hate rhetoric, is just lip service. Something that is free and pleases Muslims across the region.

I don't see how genuinely threatening Israel benefits Iran, Israel doesn't have anything they want. Much better to be the unfairly abused underdog, to have the bete noir to scare the local plebs into supporting you.

Exactly, but we won't, not after recent events. So they don't need them.

I thought total humiliation was the reason for Islamic militancy. They couldn't win in real life so they invent a fairy tale where they are superior.

North Korea.

Are they? It seems quite possible advance sub tracking could exist now, or in the near future.

At times of high

Are they? Subs in the open ocean vs a missile launcher vehicle in the interior of a country. Possibly with lots of missile launcher decoys. Sub decoys aren't so cheap..

doesn't have nuclear weapons. just *says* it has

So not a train - a missile.

Pancho wrote

But Israel's nukes ensure that no one like Iran will actually be stupid enough to try nuking them.

Israel's nukes ensure that even if Iran does end up with nukes, that there will only ever be a standoff like there is with India and Pakistan, both with nukes.

Only with conventional war. It is unlikely that the US would nuke Iran if Iran was stupid enough to nuke Israel.

Yes, but Israeli nukes do ensure that only the most stupid nut case in Iran would be stupid enough nuke Israel.

And difficult to see that even the most stupid nut case would anyway given all the palestinians so close and in Israel.

Nope, they think the same that having their own nukes would ensure that Israel would never nuke them.

That?s why North Korea has nukes but wont be stupid enough to use them.

Pancho wrote

Yep.

You're wrong. There is no way to work out where a sub with nukes is once its out in the open ocean submerged and they can stay that way for very long times with nuke powered subs.

Yes, but that is still one hell of a deterrent because that one sub is plenty to ensure that only the most stupid would try nuking the UK.

Doesn?t matter what they say, they aren't for a first strike.

Which are much easier to work out where they are than nuke subs.

Much easier to find those than a nuke sub.

Trivial to keep a list of those and take those out.

But far more likely to be useless.

That?s bullshit. Even Trump wouldn?t be that stupid and the US military wouldn?t do it even if he was stupid enough to order one.

That?s not an ad hominem, it?s a turn of phrase.

I did address the basic point, at the bottom.

More mindless pig ignorant bullshit particularly with the east and west coasts.

More mindless pig ignorant bullshit with the airforce.

Nope, statement of fact in that case.

And that is a bare faced lie with Afghanistan.

Pity about Afghanistan.

Bullshit. They would never stay forever.

More mindless bullshit.

Pancho wrote

Yep.

Nope, how do you propose that would be done ?

It just isn't feasible to do it with a huge raft of audio signature recording devices and trivial to keep track of them notifying home when they see your sub go by.

Not feasible to detect the magnetic anomaly going by with a satellite either. If that was possible, no one would be bothering with the very high cost of nuke firing subs.

Yep, because its easy to work out where they are.

How odd that we haven't seen anyone doing that and they aren't a useful decoy if they haven't been seen.

But are much harder to keep track of.