In nuclear strategy , a first strike or preemptive strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. First strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation while the opposing side is left unable to continue war. The preferred methodology is to attack the opponent's strategic nuclear weapon facilities (missile silos, submarine bases, bomber airfields), command and control sites, and storage depots first. The strategy is called counterforce .
191-650: The Polaris Sales Agreement was a treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom which began the UK Polaris programme . The agreement was signed on 6 April 1963. It formally arranged the terms and conditions under which the Polaris missile system was provided to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom had been planning to buy the air-launched Skybolt missile to extend the operational life of
382-607: A Soviet first strike was being prepared for. This led to the development of the aforementioned Pershing II , the Trident I and Trident II , as well as the MX missile , and the B-1 Lancer . MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able to carry many warheads (up to 8 in existing U.S. missiles, limited by New START , though Trident II
573-558: A decapitation strike or a countervalue strike , a counterforce strike might result in a potentially more constrained retaliation. Though the Minuteman III of the mid-1960s was MIRVed with 3 warheads, heavily MIRVed vehicles threatened to upset the balance; these included the SS-18 Satan which was deployed in 1976, and was considered to threaten Minuteman III silos, which led some neoconservatives (" Team B ") to conclude
764-563: A phenolic thermosetting material infused with quartz fibres , in the heat shield of the warheads, which also acted as a defence against irradiation . Its adoption by the British warhead saved on research, but required a redesign of their warhead. The new warhead was designated the A-3TK, the old one being the A-3T. In 1972 Chevaline was estimated to cost £235 million. Agreement was reached with
955-414: A second-strike retaliation anywhere in the world. France also has a number of nuclear capable fighter aircraft. Both have nuclear policies that are believed to be effective deterrence towards a would-be nuclear strike against themselves, NATO, European Union members, and other allies. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are generally considered suitable for a first strike or a counterforce strike, due to: Unlike
1146-534: A "non-discriminatory" space-based missile defense system, even if it is—actually, precisely because it is—of global reach. Such a system would be designed to destroy all weapons launched by any nation in a ballistic trajectory, negating any nation's capability to launch any strike with ballistic missiles, assuming the system was sufficiently robust to repel attacks from all potential threats, and built to open standards openly agreed upon and adhered to. No such system has yet been seriously proposed. According to
1337-563: A "read" on the strategic intentions of U.S. leaders, as well as inflammatory U.S. rhetoric combined with classical Soviet mistrust of the NATO powers. This culminated in a war scare that occurred during 1983 due to the inopportune timing of a NATO exercise called Able Archer , which was a simulation of a NATO nuclear attack on the Soviet Union; this exercise happened to occur during a massive Soviet intelligence mobilization called VRYAN , that
1528-655: A Joint Steering Task Group that met regularly to provide advice. This was accepted, and would become part of the final agreement. However, a follow-up British mission under Leslie Williams, the Director General Atomic Weapons at the Ministry of Aviation, whose members included Challens and Rear Admiral Frederick Dossor, was given a letter by the SPO with a list of subjects that were off limits. These included penetration aids , which were held to be outside
1719-604: A Labour government that retention of a British Polaris force was necessary." In June 1968 it was agreed that the Polaris boats would be assigned to NATO. On 14 June 1969, Commander Henry Ellis, the head of the Royal Navy's Plans Division, formally notified his RAF counterpart that the Royal Navy was assuming the responsibility for the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent. For submarine captains accustomed to patrols in other submarines,
1910-710: A Polaris missile, at an estimated cost of between £30 million and £40 million. The alternative was to make a British copy of the W58. While the AWRE was familiar with the W47 warhead used in the A2, it knew nothing of the W58. A presidential determination was required to release information on the W58 under the MDA, but with this in hand, a mission led by John Challens , the Chief of Warhead Development at
2101-441: A Polaris patrol required a different mindset. Instead of locating, stalking and closing on prospective targets, the Polaris boat was itself the hunted, and had to avoid any contact with other vessels. For submariners accustomed to diesel-powered boats, the Polaris boats were very pleasant indeed. There was no need to conserve water, as there was distilling capacity to spare, so the crew could have hot showers and laundry facilities. Nor
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#17327801408062292-437: A budget of $ 2 billion. SPO had to overcome formidable technological challenges; but its success was also due to Burke's marketing of Polaris as a second strike weapon. In this role, its capabilities were highlighted and its limitations minimised. The first Polaris boat, USS George Washington , fired a Polaris missile on 20 July 1960, and commenced its initial operational patrol on 16 November 1960. The idea of moving
2483-611: A bunker under Kosvinsky Kamen, who can then, if they so determine, launch Russia's arsenal. Instead of relying on sophisticated communications links and launch-on-warning postures, the French, the British, and the Chinese have chosen to assume different nuclear postures more suited to minimum credible deterrence or the capability to inflict unacceptable losses to prevent the use of nuclear weapons against them, rather than pursuing types of nuclear weapons suitable to first-strike use. China
2674-654: A complicating factor was foreseen, but it had experience with nuclear weapons development. Mackenzie had been the Flag Officer Submarines until 31 December 1962, when Le Fanu had appointed him the Chief Polaris Executive (CPE). As such, he was directly answerable to Le Fanu as Controller of the Navy. His CPE staff was divided between London and Foxhill, near Bath, Somerset , where Royal Navy had its ship design, logistics and weapons groups. It
2865-692: A copy of the W58. However, this would require techniques and equipment not employed in the UK before, and the AWRE Warhead Safety Coordinating Committee (WSCC) reported in December 1963 that the design of the W58 primary did not meet UK safety standards. The decision was therefore taken in March 1964 to substitute the British fission primary , codenamed "Katie", used in the WE.177 B developed for Skybolt. The fusion secondary
3056-705: A debate in the House of Commons on 24 January 1980. Sea trials were held in November 1980. The system became operational in mid-1982 on Renown , followed by Revenge in 1983, Resolution in 1985, and Repulse in 1987. One hundred A-3TK warheads were produced between 1979 and 1982. The final cost reached £1,025 million. However, the Public Accounts Committee noted that due to inflation, £1 billion in April 1981 (equivalent to £3.87 billion in 2023)
3247-672: A deep technical mission to the United States to study the latest developments in the design of ballistic missile submarines. They met with Rear Admiral Pete Galantin , Raborn's successor as the head of SPO, and executives at the Electric Boat Company , which was building the American Polaris boats. While it was desirable to hew closely to the American design, this would involve retooling the British shipyards and purchasing American equipment. An alternative proposal
3438-460: A deterrent effect as the ability to destroy forty. The Admiralty considered the possibility of hybrid submarines that could operate as hunter-killers while carrying eight Polaris missiles, but McNamara noted that this would be inefficient, as twice as many submarines would need to be on station to maintain the deterrent, and cautioned that the effect of tinkering with the US Navy's 16-missile layout
3629-406: A deterrent. To address this problem, the United Kingdom embarked on the development of a Medium Range Ballistic Missile called Blue Streak . By 1959—before it had even entered service—serious concerns had been raised about its own vulnerability, as it was liquid-fuelled and deployed above ground, and therefore extremely vulnerable to a pre-emptive nuclear strike . The Royal Navy began seeking
3820-486: A device into orbit, they could equally cause a device to re-enter the atmosphere and impact any part of the planet. John F. Kennedy capitalized on this situation by emphasizing the bomber gap and the missile gap , areas in which the Soviets were (inaccurately) perceived as leading the United States, while heated Soviet rhetoric added to political pressure. The 1960 U-2 incident , involving Francis Gary Powers , as well as
4011-459: A direct nuclear hit, but a sufficiently hardened silo could defend against a near miss, especially if the detonation is not from a multimegaton thermonuclear weapon . In addition, ICBMs can be placed on road or rail-mobile launchers ( RT-23 Molodets , RT-2PM2 Topol-M , DF-31 , Agni 5 , Agni 6 , MGM-134 Midgetman ), which can then be moved around. As an enemy has nothing fixed at which to aim, that increases its survivability. The effectiveness of
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#17327801408064202-462: A fault in the American neutron initiators , and had to be repeated as Flintlock/Charcoal on 10 September 1965. This tested a design of the ET.317 using less plutonium. With four Polaris boats each carrying 16 missiles each with three warheads, there were 192 warheads in total. This modification therefore saved 166 kg of plutonium worth £2.5 million. Additional active materials required were obtained from
4393-456: A few miles from Glasgow . At least one submarine was always on patrol to provide a continuous at-sea deterrent. In the 1970s it was considered that the re-entry vehicles were vulnerable to the Soviet anti-ballistic missile screen concentrated around Moscow . To ensure that a credible and independent nuclear deterrent was maintained, the UK developed an improved front end named Chevaline . There
4584-559: A finger on the nuclear trigger through multinational crewing of the ships carrying the nuclear missiles. On 7 November 1962, McNamara met with Kennedy, and recommended that Skybolt be cancelled. He then briefed the British Ambassador to the United States , David Ormsby-Gore . At a conference in the Caribbean, Macmillan insisted that the UK would be retaining an independent deterrent capability. Kennedy's offer of Hound Dog
4775-402: A first strike is contingent upon the aggressor's ability to deplete its enemy's retaliatory capacity immediately to a level that would make a second strike impossible, mitigable, or strategically undesirable. Intelligence and early warning systems increase the probability that the enemy has the time to launch its own strike before its warmaking capacity has been significantly reduced, which renders
4966-506: A first strike pointless. Alert states such as DEFCON conditions, apart from serving a purpose in the internal management of a country's military, can have the effect of advising a potential aggressor that an escalation towards first strike has been detected and therefore that effective retaliatory strikes could be made in the event of an attack. Looking Glass , Nightwatch , and TACAMO are US airborne nuclear command posts and represent survivable communication links with US nuclear forces. In
5157-409: A high kill ratio could be achieved easily. As the number of targets increases, the defensive network becomes "saturated" as each asset must target and destroy more and more warheads in the same window of time. Eventually the system will reach a maximum number of targets destroyed and after this point all additional warheads will penetrate the defenses. This leads to several destabilizing effects. First,
5348-657: A joint discovery, but the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) ended technical cooperation. The British government feared resurgence of United States isolationism , as had occurred after the First World War , in which case the UK might have to fight an aggressor alone; or that the UK might lose its great power status and its influence in world affairs. It therefore restarted its own development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research . The first British atomic bomb
5539-464: A new 200-kilotonne-of-TNT (840 TJ) W58 warhead to penetrate improved Soviet anti-missile defences expected to become available around 1970. A decision was therefore required on whether to purchase the old A2 missile or the new A3. The Zuckerman mission came out in favour of the new A3 missile, although it was still under development and not expected to enter service until August 1964, as the deterrent would remain credible for much longer. The decision
5730-494: A new Mark 2 weapon bay housing three re-entry vehicles. This arrangement was originally described as a "cluster warhead" but was replaced with the term Multiple Re-Entry Vehicle (MRV). They were not independently targeted (as a MIRV missile is) but the three warheads were spread about a common target, landing about 1 nautical mile (1.9 km) apart and one second apart so as to not be affected by each other's radiation pulse . They were stated to be equivalent in destructive power to
5921-547: A new base was undertaken by the Ministry of Public Building and Works . Construction was not straightforward, as the ground was rocky and the rainfall was high. Works included a new jetty, accommodation, recreational facilities, workshops, emergency power sources, a mobile repair facility and a calibration laboratory. The new base opened in August 1968. It was served by a weapons store at nearby Coulport . HM Dockyard, Rosyth ,
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6112-460: A new design. The 130-metre (425 ft) boat would have a displacement of 7,600 tonnes (7,500 long tons), more than twice that of HMS Dreadnought , the Royal Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine. Following British practice, the boats would be identical, with no deviation allowed. The value of this was driven home by a visit to the submarine tender USS Hunley , where the costs of non-standard components were evident. The project
6303-533: A nuclear first strike capability, was greatly feared during the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Bloc . At various points, fear of a first strike attack existed on both sides. Misunderstood changes in posture and well understood changes in technology used by either side often led to speculation regarding the enemy's intentions. In the aftermath of World War II , the leadership of the Soviet Union feared
6494-514: A nuclear role as early as 1945, when the Naval Staff suggested the possibility of launching missiles with atomic warheads from ships or submarines. In 1948 it proposed using carrier-based aircraft for nuclear weapons delivery , although atomic bombs small enough to be carried by them did not yet exist. Its "carriers versus bombers" debate with the RAF resembled the similar inter-service dispute in
6685-757: A nuclear strike to be launched with reduced fear of mutual assured destruction . Such a system has never been deployed, although a limited continental missile defense capability has been deployed by the U.S., but it is capable of defending against only a handful of missiles. This does not apply, in general, to terminal missile defense systems, such as the former U.S. Safeguard Program or the Russian A-35 / A-135 systems. Limited-area terminal missile defense systems, defending such targets as ICBM fields, or C ISTAR facilities may, in fact, be stabilizing, because they ensure survivable retaliatory capacity, and/or survivable de-escalation capacity. This also might not apply to
6876-469: A result of purely British requirements. This added about £2 million to the cost of the system. The government denied speculation that the Nassau Agreement permitted the addition of electronic mechanisms in the missile to give the United States a veto over its use. The A-3 missile that replaced the earlier A-1 and A-2 models in the US Navy had a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km) and
7067-652: A single one-megaton warhead. It was believed that the MRV arrangement would also make the warhead harder to intercept with an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) similar to that of the American Nike Zeus system. Testing of the A-3, with its new guidance and re-entry packages commenced on 7 August 1962, and continued until 2 July 1964. Thirty-eight test firings were carried out, with the longest range achieved being 2,284 nautical miles (4,230 km). The first submerged launch
7258-444: A state that is not building similar defenses may be encouraged to attack before the system is in place, essentially starting the war while there is no clear advantage instead of waiting until they will be at a distinct disadvantage after the defenses are completed. Second, one of the easiest ways to counter any proposed defenses is to simply build more warheads and missiles, reaching that saturation point sooner and hitting targets through
7449-430: A strategy of attrition. Third, and most importantly, since defenses are more effective against small numbers of warheads, a nation with a defense system is actually encouraged to engage in a counterforce first strike. The smaller retaliatory strike is then more easily destroyed by the defense system than a full attack would be. This undermines the doctrine of MAD by discrediting a nation's ability to punish any aggressor with
7640-507: A total of 128 missiles, with 128 one-megaton warheads. It was subsequently decided to halve this, based on the decision that the ability to destroy twenty Soviet cities would have nearly as great a deterrent effect as the ability to destroy forty. The Admiralty considered the possibility of hybrid submarines that could operate as hunter-killers while carrying eight Polaris missiles, but McNamara noted that this would be inefficient, as twice as many submarines would need to be on station to maintain
7831-480: A tourist attraction. The Russians have a system called SPRN (СПРН), which can detect nuclear launches and providing early warning so that any such strike would not be undetected until it is too late. However, their unique and special capability can be found with their Dead Hand fail-deadly computerized nuclear release system, which is based at Kosvinsky Kamen in the Urals . Apparently, Dead Hand, named for either
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8022-437: A typical patrol might include 1,587 kilograms (3,500 lb) of beef, 2,268 kilograms (5,000 lb) of potatoes, 5,000 eggs, 1,000 chickens, 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) of sausages, and 1 tonne (0.98 LT) of beans. Polaris skippers paid great attention to morale on their boats, which tended to sag around the fifth and sixth weeks of a patrol. The original US Navy Polaris had not been designed to penetrate ABM defences, but
8213-499: A veto on the use of British nuclear weapons. The British Resolution -class Polaris ballistic missile submarines were built on time and under budget, and came to be seen as a credible deterrent. Along with the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the Polaris Sales Agreement became a pillar of the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and the United States. The agreement was amended in 1982 to provide for
8404-615: A voice in the planning process without full access to nuclear weapons, while the Standing Naval Force Atlantic was established as a joint naval task force, to which NATO nations contributed ships rather than ships having multinational crews. There was little dissent in the House of Commons from the government's nuclear weapons policy; it had bipartisan support until 1960, with only the Liberals temporarily dissenting in 1958. Despite opposition from its left wing
8595-637: Is believed to be the Pentagon 's relocation site if Washington, DC , is destroyed, as well as Mount Weather , located in Virginia , which is believed to be the relocation site for top executive branch officials. The Greenbrier , located in West Virginia , was once the site of the Supreme Court of the United States and Congress 's relocation bunker, but it is no longer a secret but is now
8786-682: Is believed to pursue a minimum credible deterrent / second strike strategy with regards to the US. That may or may not be true with regards to China's stance with regard to Russia, as few Chinese nuclear platforms are intercontinental, and most of the platforms are deployed on the Russian-Chinese border. Unlike relations of the US and China, Russia and China have had military conflicts in the past. In recent years, China has improved its early warning systems and has renovated certain of its platforms for intercontinental strike, which may or may not be due to
8977-422: Is capable of carrying up to 12 ) and deliver them to separate targets. If it is assumed that each side has 100 missiles, with 5 warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing 2 warheads at each silo, then the attacking side can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about 5 by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads, and keeping
9168-403: Is greatly decreased by the distance from the impact point of the nuclear weapon. So a near-direct hit is generally necessary, as only diminishing returns are gained by increasing bomb power. Any missile defense system capable of wide-area (e.g., continental) coverage, and especially those enabling destruction of missiles in the boost phase, is a first-strike-enabling weapon because it allows for
9359-557: Is limited only by food supply. It is unlikely that any conceivable opponent of any nuclear power deploying ballistic missile submarines can locate and neutralize every ballistic missile submarine before it launches a retaliatory strike in the event of war. Therefore, to increase the percentage of nuclear forces surviving a first strike, a nation can simply increase SSBN deployment and the deployment of reliable communications links with SSBNs. In addition, land-based ICBM silos can be hardened. No missile launch facility can really defend against
9550-616: The Resolution class . Resolution was launched on 15 September 1965, and commissioned on 2 October 1967. Resolution conducted a test firing at the American Eastern Range on 15 February 1968. The first Cammell Laird boat, Renown followed, and was launched on 25 February 1967. The second Vickers boat, Repulse , was launched on 11 November 1967. Concerns about the Walney Channel proved justified; when
9741-641: The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell was directed towards development of a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor which January 1952 studies showed was too large for use by the Royal Navy, and not into a Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) of the kind that the US Navy had under development, as the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority did not see this kind of reactor as having civil application. Submarine propulsion research
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#17327801408069932-511: The Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961. During the crisis, Fidel Castro wrote Khrushchev a letter about the prospect that the "imperialists" would be "extremely dangerous" if they responded militarily to the Soviet stationing of nuclear missiles aimed at US territory, less than 90 miles away in Cuba. The following quotation from the letter suggests that Castro was calling for a Soviet first strike against
10123-791: The Berlin Crisis , along with the test of the Tsar Bomba , escalated tensions still further. This escalating situation came to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The arrival of Soviet missiles in Cuba was conducted by the Soviets on the rationale that the US already had nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey , as well as the desire by Fidel Castro to increase his power, his freedom of action, and to protect his government from US invasion, such as had been attempted during
10314-688: The Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence , left for the United States to discuss Polaris on 8 January 1963. It included the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff , Vice Admiral Sir Varyl Begg ; the Deputy Secretary of the Admiralty, James Mackay; Rear Admiral Hugh Mackenzie ; and physicist Sir Robert Cockburn and F. J. Doggett from the Ministry of Aviation. That the involvement of the Ministry of Aviation might be
10505-634: The Hound Dog air-launched cruise missile , which was cheaper, more accurate, and actually worked; the first five Skybolt test launches were all failures. McNamara was also concerned about the UK retaining an independent nuclear force, and worried that the US could be drawn into a nuclear war by the UK. He sought to draw the UK into a Multilateral Force (MLF), an American concept under which North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nuclear weapons would remain in US custody, thereby heading off nuclear proliferation within NATO, but all NATO nations would have
10696-658: The Polaris Sales Agreement , which was signed on 6 April 1963. British politicians did not like to talk about "dependence" on the United States, preferring to describe the Special Relationship as one of "interdependence". As had been feared, the President of France , Charles de Gaulle , vetoed the UK's application for admission to the EEC on 14 January 1963, citing the Nassau Agreement as one of
10887-690: The Quebec Conference in August 1943, the prime minister , Winston Churchill , and the president of the United States , Franklin Roosevelt , signed the Quebec Agreement , which merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined British, American and Canadian project. The British government trusted that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as
11078-545: The US government has several command and control bunkers , the most famous of which is that of NORAD , which is tunneled a few thousand feet into the granite of Cheyenne Mountain Complex , outside Colorado Springs , Colorado . It is believed to be able to withstand and to continue to operate after a nuclear direct hit. Other US C ISTAR bunkers include an installation called Site R , located at Raven Rock , Pennsylvania , which
11269-471: The V bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF), but the possibility of the crewed bomber becoming obsolete by the late 1960s due to improvements in anti-aircraft defences was foreseen. In 1953, work began on a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) called Blue Streak , but by 1958, there were concerns about the vulnerability of this liquid-propellant-missile to a pre-emptive nuclear strike . To extend
11460-454: The dead man's hand in poker or the dead man's switch in dangerous or deadly machinery, can be turned on whenever the Russian leadership fears a nuclear attack. Allegedly, once Dead Hand is activated, if it detects a loss of communications with Moscow as well as nuclear detonations inside Russian territory, it can give final authority for the release of nuclear weapons to military officers in
11651-421: The hunter-killer submarine programme. The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John , denounced the "millstone of Polaris hung around our necks" as "potential wreckers of the real navy". The number of missiles required was based on substituting for Skybolt. To achieve the same capability, the BNDSG calculated that this would require eight Polaris submarines, each of which would have 16 missiles, for
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#173278014080611842-447: The 24 in the American Ohio class . The first Vanguard -class submarine, HMS Vanguard , entered operational service in December 1994, by which time the Cold War had ended. UK Polaris programme The United Kingdom's Polaris programme , officially named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System , provided its first submarine -based nuclear weapons system . Polaris was in service from 1968 to 1996. Polaris itself
12033-475: The A-3. With a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km), it had a new weapons bay housing three re-entry vehicles (REBs or Re-Entry Bodies in US Navy parlance) and a new 200-kilotonne-of-TNT (840 TJ) W58 warhead expected to become available around 1970. A decision was urgently required on whether to purchase the old A-2 missile or the new A-3, as the A-2 production lines would shut down within two years. The Zuckerman mission came out strongly in favour of
12224-402: The AWRE and the Admiralty. While it could not be carried by the ten George Washington - and Ethan Allen -class boats, it could be accommodated on the British Resolution class. Zuckerman attended a meeting with Rear Admiral Levering Smith , the director of SPO, and John S. Foster, Jr. , the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , at which the provision of Poseidon to the UK
12415-404: The AWRE, visited the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory from 22 to 24 January 1963, and was shown details of the W58. The Zuckerman mission found the SPO helpful and forthcoming, but there was one major shock. The British were expected to contribute to the research and development costs of the A3, backdated to 1 January 1963. These were expected to top $ 700 million by 1968. Skybolt had been offered to
12606-463: The Admiralty complex there, spread over three different sites. To allow the Polaris Executive to be co-located, a block of single-storey prefabricated offices was built at Foxhill on the south side of Bath, which was occupied in February 1964. By 1966, including allocated but not designated staff, the Polaris Executive had 38 staff at the London office, 430 in Bath, 5 at the Ministry of Aviation , and 31 in Washington. An early issue that arose concerned
12797-403: The Americans to conduct another series of tests in Nevada. The first of these, Arbor/Fallon, was conducted on 23 May 1974. By 1975, the cost of Chevaline had risen to £400 million, but it was protected from the budget cuts that affected the rest of defence spending by its own secrecy. Its main technical problem was that the PAC was heavier than the warhead it replaced, which reduced the range of
12988-408: The Americans were given permission to base the US Navy's Polaris boats at Holy Loch in Scotland. The financial arrangement was particularly favourable to the UK, as the US was charging only the unit cost of Skybolt, absorbing all the research and development costs. Far from taking this as a defeat, the Royal Navy's planning for the eventual purchase of Polaris was accelerated. A June 1960 paper by
13179-440: The British V bombers , but the United States decided to cancel the Skybolt program in 1962 as it no longer needed the missile. The crisis created by the cancellation prompted an emergency meeting between the President of the United States , John F. Kennedy , and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , Harold Macmillan , which resulted in the Nassau Agreement , under which the United States agreed to provide Polaris missiles to
13370-439: The Chief Polaris Executive (CPE); the term was henceforth used to refer to both the man and his organisation. Rowland Baker, who had been the head of the Dreadnought Project Team, was appointed the Technical Director. Captain C. W. H. Shepard, who had worked on the Seaslug missile project, became the Deputy Director for Weapons, and Captain Leslie Bomford was appointed the Polaris Logistics Officer. The creation of this position
13561-426: The Director General, Weapons, Rear Admiral Michael Le Fanu , recommended that a Polaris project should be created along the same lines as SPO. The Kennedy administration expressed serious doubts about Skybolt. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was highly critical of the US bomber fleet, which he doubted was cost effective in the missile age. Skybolt suffered from rising costs, and offered few benefits over
13752-638: The Foreign Office argued that Britain must support the MLF. The Nassau Agreement had invigorated the MLF effort in the United States. Kennedy appointed Livingston T. Merchant to negotiate the MLF with the European governments, which he did in February and March 1963. While reaffirming support for those parts of the Nassau Agreement concerning the MLF, the British were successful in getting them omitted from
13943-657: The Labour party supported British nuclear weapons but opposed tests, and Labour Opposition Leader Hugh Gaitskell and shadow foreign secretary Aneurin Bevan agreed with Sandys on the importance of reducing dependence on the American deterrent. Bevan told his colleagues that their demand for unilateral nuclear disarmament would send a future Labour government "naked into the conference chamber" during international negotiations. Gaitskell's Labour party ceased supporting an independent deterrent in 1960 via its new "Policy for Peace", after
14134-543: The Nassau conference. He found McNamara eager to help, and enthusiastic about the idea of Polaris costing as little as possible. The first issue identified was how many Polaris boats should be built. While the Vulcans to carry Skybolt were already in service, the submarines to carry Polaris were not, and there was no provision in the defence budget for them. Some naval officers feared that their construction would adversely impact
14325-623: The Pacific or Indian Ocean, but with only four a depot ship would be required, which would cost around £18 to £20 million. A base would be required, and Fremantle in Australia was suggested. In any case, it would not be possible before all four boats were operational. The proposal ran into opposition from the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Lyman Lemnitzer , who pressed on 2 January 1967 to have
14516-525: The Polaris Sales Agreement to delete the exclusion of penetrating aids. Under the Polaris Sales Agreement, the United Kingdom paid a five per cent levy on the cost of equipment supplied in recognition of US research and development costs already incurred. For Trident, a payment of $ 116 million was substituted. The United Kingdom procured the Trident system from America and fitted them to their own submarines, which had only 16 missile tubes like Polaris rather than
14707-604: The Polaris Sales Agreement. The British team completed drafting the agreement in March 1963, and copies were circulated for discussion. The contracts for their construction were announced that month. The Polaris boats would be the largest submarines built in Britain up to that time, and would be built by Vickers Armstrong Shipbuilders in Barrow-in-Furness and Cammell Laird in Birkenhead . For similar reasons to
14898-405: The Polaris boats assigned to NATO as promised under the Nassau Agreement. In January 1968, the issue became moot when Cabinet decided to withdraw British forces from East of Suez . The prospect of cancelling Polaris was also discussed, but Wilson fought for its retention. In the end, "the economic, strategic and diplomatic benefits of the Polaris system were even ultimately great enough to persuade
15089-515: The Polaris boats to NATO, in accord with the Nassau Agreement. The first decision required was how many Polaris boats should be built. While the Avro Vulcans to carry Skybolt were already in service, the submarines to carry Polaris were not, and there was no provision in the defence budget for them. Some naval officers feared that their construction would adversely impact the hunter-killer submarine programme. The number of missiles required
15280-512: The Polaris boats, signifying that they were the capital ships of their time. All were named after ships that Mountbatten had served on. The first boat, HMS Resolution , was laid down by Vickers on 26 February 1964; the second, HMS Renown , by Cammell Laird on 26 June 1964. They were followed by two more boats the following year, one at each yard: HMS Repulse at Barrow on 16 June 1965, and HMS Revenge at Birkenhead on 19 May 1965. The Polaris boats became known as
15471-771: The Port crew, and Commander Kenneth Frewer, the Starboard crew. On 16 October 1964, in the midst of the election campaign that brought the Wilson government to office, China conducted its first nuclear test . This led to fears that India might follow suit. Consideration was therefore given to the possibility of basing Polaris boats in the Far East. A planning paper was drawn up in January 1965. The Navy Department reported that with five boats it would be possible to have one on patrol in
15662-607: The RNPS to have equipment that looked identical to an actual Polaris submarine, and performed or simulated its operation. Would-be submarine captains went through the Submarine Command Course , known as the Perisher. This had always been an extremely tough course; now it became tougher still. It was designed to test candidates to their utmost, and to allow them to explore and accept their limitations. Despite passing
15853-526: The Royal Navy a nuclear submarine reactor, which would allow it to immediately proceed with building its own nuclear-powered submarine. The British government endorsed this idea, as it saved a great deal of money. The British development of the hydrogen bomb , and a favourable international relations climate created by the Sputnik crisis , facilitated the amendment of the McMahon Act to permit this, and
16044-464: The Royal Navy had to ensure that its small Polaris force operating alone, and often with only one submarine on deterrent patrol, could penetrate the ABM screen around Moscow. The Americans upgraded to Poseidon, which had MIRV warheads. Although it suffered from reliability problems that were not completely resolved until 1974, it represented a clear improvement over Polaris, and became the preferred option of
16235-576: The Royal Navy project officer in Washington, D.C., while Captain Phil Rollings became the US Navy project officer in London. The Joint Steering Task Group held its first meeting in Washington on 26 June 1963. The shipbuilding programme would prove to be a remarkable achievement, with the four Resolution -class submarines built on time and within the budget. The first boat, HMS Resolution
16426-749: The Royal Navy's list of priorities, and the Royal Navy Submarine Service had formed, like the Fleet Air Arm , something of a private navy within the Royal Navy. Unlike the Fleet Air Arm though, it had no representation on the Board of the Admiralty such as the Fleet Air Arm enjoyed through the Fifth Sea Lord , and the only submarine flag officer billet was FOSM. Few submariners expected to rise to flag rank, but this
16617-494: The Royal Navy. The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John , denounced the "millstone of Polaris hung around our necks" as "potential wreckers of the real navy". Even among the submariners there was a notable lack of enthusiasm for lurking in the depths staying out of trouble as opposed to the more active mission of the hunter-killer submarines. In earlier times submarine construction had been low on
16808-509: The U.S., a powerful social backlash was afoot, prompted by Senator Joseph McCarthy , the House Un-American Activities Committee , and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg , U.S. citizens executed in 1953 after conviction of espionage. This atmosphere was further inflamed by the 1957 launch of Sputnik , which led to fears of Communists attacking from outer space , as well as concerns that if the Soviets could launch
16999-484: The UK at unit cost , with the US absorbing the research and development costs, but no such agreement had been reached at Nassau for Polaris. Thorneycroft baulked at the prospect of paying research and development costs, but McNamara pointed out that the United States Congress would not stand for an agreement that placed all the burden on the United States. Macmillan instructed the British Ambassador to
17190-410: The UK would have to either follow suit or maintain Polaris alone. "True to form", commented Patrick Gordon Walker , "we either buy weapons which don’t exist or buy those destined for the junkyard of Steptoe & Son ." Under Article XI of the Polaris Sales Agreement, the UK contributed five per cent of research and development costs of Polaris incurred after 1 January 1963, plus any costs incurred as
17381-665: The US Army to develop the Jupiter missile , although there were concerns about the viability and safety of a liquid-fuel rocket at sea. To handle the Navy's side of the joint project, the United States Secretary of the Navy , Charles Thomas , created the Special Projects Office (SPO), with Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr. , a naval aviator , as its director. Apart from nuclear propulsion,
17572-621: The US Navy, the Royal Navy decided to base the boats at Faslane , on the Gareloch , not far from the US Navy's base on the Holy Loch. The drawback of the site was that it isolated the Polaris boats from the rest of the navy. The Polaris Sales Agreement was signed in Washington, D.C., on 6 April 1963 by Ormsby-Gore and Dean Rusk , the United States Secretary of State . The two liaison officers were appointed in April; Captain Peter la Niece became
17763-494: The US if it responded militarily to the placement of nuclear missiles aimed at the US in Cuba: If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it. I tell you this because I believe that
17954-641: The US missile defense system. In general, it appears that China's leaders do not greatly fear a first strike, because of their posture of inflicting unacceptable losses upon an adversary, as opposed to the American and Russian policy of trying to "win" a nuclear war. The Chinese arsenal is considered to suffice in ensuring that such a first strike would not go unavenged. The United Kingdom and France have sophisticated nuclear weapons platforms, and their nuclear strategies are minimum credible deterrent-based. Both have ballistic missile submarines , armed with intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles , to ensure
18145-505: The US. Some 5.37 tonnes of UK-produced plutonium was exchanged for 6.7 kg of tritium and 7.5 tonnes of highly enriched uranium between 1960 and 1979. Warhead manufacture commenced in December 1966. It was originally estimated that Polaris would require 6,000 officers and men. Although less than what had been required for the V-bombers, this was still substantial, and the well-trained personnel required had to be found from within
18336-580: The USSR quickly countered by testing their own thermonuclear weapons, with a test in 1953 of a semi-thermonuclear weapon of the Sloika design, and in 1956, with the testing of Sakharov's Third Idea – equivalent to the Castle Bravo device. Meanwhile, tensions between the two nations rose as 1956 saw Soviet invasion of Hungary ; the U.S. and European nations drew certain conclusions from that event, while in
18527-409: The United Kingdom instead. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided for the implementation of the Nassau Agreement. The United States would supply the United Kingdom with Polaris missiles, launch tubes, and the fire control system . The United Kingdom would manufacture the warheads and submarines. In return, the US was given certain assurances by the United Kingdom regarding the use of the missile, but not
18718-624: The United Kingdom. This was led by Paul H. Nitze , the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs , and included Walt W. Rostow , the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department , and Admiral Ignatius J. Galantin , the head of the SPO. The Americans had ideas about how the programme should be organised. They foresaw the UK Polaris programme having project officers from both countries, with
18909-434: The United States , Sir David Ormsby-Gore , to inform Kennedy that Britain was not willing to commit to an open-ended sharing of research and development costs, but, as a compromise, would pay an additional five per cent for each missile. He asked that Kennedy be informed that a breakdown of the Nassau Agreement would likely cause the fall of his government. Ormsby-Gore met with Kennedy that very day, and while Kennedy noted that
19100-770: The United States at this time that led to the " Revolt of the Admirals ". The demand for a nuclear-capable carrier bomber led to the development of the Blackburn Buccaneer . It required a small warhead, which drove the development of the Red Beard . The Defence Research Policy Committee (DRPC) considered the prospect of arming submarines with nuclear missiles, but its March 1954 report highlighted technical problems that it did not expect to be resolved for many years. Studies of nuclear reactors for nuclear marine propulsion commenced in December 1949, but research at
19291-456: The United States to discuss Polaris on 8 January 1963. It included the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff , Vice Admiral Sir Varyl Begg ; the Deputy Secretary of the Admiralty, James Mackay; Rear Admiral Hugh Mackenzie ; physicist Sir Robert Cockburn ; and F. J. Doggett from the Ministry of Aviation. Its principal finding was that the Americans had developed a new version of the Polaris missile,
19482-542: The United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as a joint discovery, but the 1946 McMahon Act ended cooperation. Fearing a resurgence of United States isolationism , and Britain losing its great power status, the British government restarted its own development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research . The first British atomic bomb was tested in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952. The subsequent British development of
19673-497: The United States would use its nuclear superiority to initiate a full-scale attack , as from 1945 to 1948 the U.S. was the only state possessing nuclear weapons and until the late 1960s preserved an overwhelming superiority. The USSR countered by rapidly developing their own nuclear weapons, surprising the US with their first test in 1949. In turn, the U.S. countered by developing the vastly more powerful thermonuclear weapon , testing their first hydrogen bomb in 1952 at Ivy Mike , but
19864-403: The United States. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided an established framework for negotiations over missiles and re-entry systems. The legal agreement took the form of amending the Polaris Sales Agreement through an exchange of notes between the two governments so that "Polaris" in the original now also covered the purchase of Trident. There were also some amendments to the classified annexes of
20055-537: The Vickers yard still managed to complete the hunter-killer Valiant in 1966 and Warspite the following year. The final boat, Revenge , was completed on 4 December 1969. There was concern in 1966 when it was discovered that the distance between the bulkheads in the torpedo storage department on Renown differed from that on Resolution by 1 inch (25 mm). An even more disturbing revelation occurred in November 1966, when eleven pieces of broken metal were found in
20246-416: The aim is to create the impression of the maximum possible force and survivability, which leads the enemy to make increased estimates of the probability of a disabling counterstrike, and in terms of strategy and politics, the aim is to cause the enemy to believe that such a second strike would be forthcoming in the event of a nuclear attack. One of the main reasons to deter a first strike is the possibility of
20437-645: The approval of the Board of Admiralty to build a nuclear-powered submarine. This coincided with Admiral Arleigh Burke 's appointment as the US Navy's Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in August. Mountbatten visited the United States in October, and through his friendship with Burke, arranged for US Navy cooperation in submarine development. Burke's support was crucial, as the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
20628-434: The cancellation of Blue Streak made nuclear independence less likely. Labour also adopted a resolution supporting unilateral disarmament. Although Gaitskell opposed the resolution and it was reversed in 1961 in favour of continuing support of a general Western nuclear deterrent, the party's opposition to a British deterrent remained and became more prominent. Macmillan's government lost a series of by-elections in 1962, and
20819-642: The components had to be ordered by May 1964. The Ministry of Aviation and the Admiralty therefore opted for the Mark 2 Mod 0 RES. To validate the design, a programme of nuclear tests was required, which was estimated to cost around £5.9 million. This was authorised by Douglas-Home on 28 November 1963. A series of underground tests were carried out at the Nevada Test Site in the United States, starting with Whetstone/Cormorant on 17 July 1964. The next test, Whetstone/Courser on 25 September 1964 failed due to
21010-448: The course, some officers still turned down the opportunity to command a Polaris boat, even though it ended their careers. The Royal Navy adopted the US Navy practice of having two crews for each boat, but instead of calling them the "Gold" and "Blue" crews as in the US Navy, they were known as the "Port" and "Starboard" crews. The commanders of the first boat, HMS Resolution , were appointed in October 1965. Commander Michael Henry commanded
21201-480: The deterrent out to sea, Polaris offered the prospect of a deterrent that was invulnerable to a first strike, and reduced the risk of a nuclear strike on the British Isles. The British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group (BNDSG) produced a study that argued that SLBM technology was as yet unproven, that Polaris would be expensive, and that given the time it would take to build the boats, it could not be deployed before
21392-399: The deterrent, and cautioned that the effect of tinkering with the US Navy's 16-missile layout was unpredictable. The Treasury costed a four-boat Polaris fleet at £314 million by 1972/73. A Cabinet Defence Committee meeting on 23 January 1963 approved the plan for four boats, with Thorneycroft noting that four boats would be cheaper and faster to build. A mission led by Sir Solly Zuckerman ,
21583-500: The early 1970s. The Chiefs of Staff Committee therefore recommended the purchase of the American Skybolt , an air-launched ballistic missile , with Polaris as a possible successor in the 1970s. The British government decided to cancel Blue Streak if it could acquire Skybolt. The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan , met with President Dwight Eisenhower at Camp David in March 1960, and arranged to buy Skybolt. In return,
21774-626: The early 1970s. The Cabinet Defence Committee therefore approved the acquisition of Skybolt in February 1960. The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan , met with the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower , in March 1960, and secured permission to buy Skybolt. In return, the Americans could base the US Navy 's Polaris ballistic missile submarines in the Holy Loch in Scotland. The financial arrangement
21965-472: The effectiveness and operational life of the V bombers, an air-launched, rocket-propelled standoff missile called Blue Steel was developed, but it was anticipated that the air defences of the Soviet Union would improve to the extent that V bombers might still find it difficult to attack their targets. A solution appeared to be the American Skybolt missile, which combined the range of Blue Streak with
22156-553: The effectiveness, cost and development time of Polaris compared with that of Blue Streak and the V-bomber force. The working party indeed saw clear advantages in Polaris. At this point, the Minister of Defence , Duncan Sandys , requested a paper on Polaris, and was given one that strongly argued the case for Polaris. Sandys was cautious about Polaris, as it was still under development, so its costs were uncertain. The Air Ministry
22347-521: The entire missile. This drove debate about the number of decoys that were required. The Chief of the Defence Staff, Field Marshal Sir Michael Carver suggested giving up on the "Moscow criterion" and re-targeting Polaris to devastate less strongly defended cities. This was regarded as politically and militarily problematic, but was reluctantly accepted. At the same time, the government elected to press on with Chevaline. Another test, Anvil/Banon,
22538-602: The event of significant political-military tensions between the nuclear powers, they would take to the skies and provide survivable communications in the event of enemy attack. They are capable of the full exercise of all available MAOs (Major Attack Options) , as well as the full SIOP , in the event of a first strike or the destruction of the NCA . They can directly initiate launch of all American ICBMs via radio and satellite communication, signal SLBMs to launch and send bombers on their strike missions. In addition to those airborne assets,
22729-403: The five per cent offer "was not the most generous offer he had ever heard of", he accepted it. McNamara, certain that the United States was being ripped off, calculated the five per cent on top of not just the missiles, but their fire control and navigation systems as well, adding around £2 million to the bill. On Ormsby-Gore's advice, this formulation was accepted. An American mission now visited
22920-706: The general, quickly became convinced of the undesirability of such outcomes." However, tensions were inflamed again in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , the Soviet deployment of the SS-20 Saber and the SS-18 Satan , and the decision of NATO to deploy the new Pershing II IRBM as well as the Tomahawk Ground Launched Cruise Missile , along with U.S. President Ronald Reagan 's talk of 'limited' nuclear war. This increased Soviet fears that NATO
23111-415: The government had already spent £1.5 million upgrading the yard's facilities. The only concern was whether the large Polaris boats could navigate the shallow Walney Channel . A formal letter of intent was sent to Vickers on 18 February, and its selection as lead yard was publicly announced on 11 March 1963. The question then naturally arose as to whether Vickers should build all the Polaris boats. Given
23302-443: The hydrogen bomb , and a favourable international relations climate created by the Sputnik crisis , led to the McMahon Act being amended in 1958, and the restoration of the nuclear Special Relationship in the form of the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA), which allowed Britain to acquire nuclear weapons systems from the United States. Britain's nuclear weapons armament was initially based on free-fall bombs delivered by
23493-519: The imperialists' aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of Cuba—a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law—then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other. The Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in Nikita Khrushchev publicly agreeing to remove
23684-465: The initial decision to build four Polaris boats was taken in January 1963, neither the financial nor the operational implications of this decision were certain, so an option to acquire a fifth boat was provided for, with a decision to be taken later in the year. By September 1963, CPE came to the conclusion that a fifth boat was absolutely necessary. Due to the required refit cycles, a five boat force would, at certain times, only have one boat at sea. Given
23875-399: The later Cold War – according to former Soviet General Andrian Danilevich, "(...in the early 1980s...) Cuban leader Fidel Castro pressed the USSR to take a tougher line against the United States, including possible nuclear strikes. The Soviet Union, in response, sent experts to spell out for Castro the ecological consequences for Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States. Castro, according to
24066-647: The latter, although it was still under development and not expected to enter service until August 1964, as the deterrent would remain credible for much longer. The decision was endorsed by the First Lord of the Admiralty , Lord Carrington , in May 1963, and was officially made by Thorneycroft on 10 June 1963. While the Zuckerman mission was in Washington, R. J. Daniel of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors led
24257-478: The launch was delayed by half an hour due to a protest by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , the falling tide left insufficient clearance, and the boat became stuck in the mud. The more experienced Vickers yard worked faster than Cammell Laird, and despite labour problems, Repulse was commissioned on 28 September 1968, before Renown on 15 November 1968. This achievement was all the more remarkable because
24448-508: The main reasons. He argued that the UK's dependence on the United States through the purchase of Polaris rendered it unfit to be a member of the EEC. The US policy of attempting to force the UK into their MLF proved to be a failure in light of this decision, and there was little enthusiasm for it from other NATO allies. By 1965, the MLF concept began fading away. Instead, the NATO Nuclear Planning Group gave NATO members
24639-464: The majority of voters agreed with his position. The Labour Party election manifesto called for the Nassau Agreement to be renegotiated, and on 5 October 1964, the leader of the Labour Party , Harold Wilson , criticised the independent British deterrent as neither independent, nor British, nor a deterrent. Douglas-Home narrowly lost to Wilson. In office, Labour retained Polaris, and assigned
24830-480: The meetings was normally agreed about three weeks beforehand via an exchange of teletype messages, with position papers exchanged about a week beforehand. Meetings were normally held over three days. Initially the JSTG met quarterly, but this was reduced to three times a year in 1965. The flow of information tended to be towards the UK. The JSTG was not an adversarial forum, but from the start there were disagreements over
25021-672: The missiles from Cuba, while John F. Kennedy secretly agreed to remove his country's missiles from Turkey. Both sides in the Cold War realized how close they came to nuclear war over Cuba, and decided to seek a reduction of tensions, resulting in US-Soviet détente for most of the 1960s and 1970s. Nonetheless, this reduction of tensions only applied to the US and the USSR. Recently declassified interviews with high level former Soviet nuclear and military–industrial planners reveal that Fidel Castro continued to favour nuclear options, even during
25212-681: The mobile basing of the Blue Steel, and was small enough that two could be carried on an Avro Vulcan bomber. An institutional challenge to Skybolt came from the United States Navy , which was developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the UGM-27 Polaris . The US Chief of Naval Operations , Admiral Arleigh Burke , kept the First Sea Lord , Lord Mountbatten , apprised of its development. By moving
25403-417: The nuclear deterrent away from the densely populated UK and out to sea had considerable appeal in the UK. It not only implicitly addressed the drawbacks of Blue Streak in that it was not vulnerable to a pre-emptive nuclear strike, but invoked the traditional role of the Royal Navy, and its second-strike capability made it a more credible deterrent. In February 1958, Mountbatten created a working party to examine
25594-437: The opponent's hardened military facilities (like missile silos and command and control centers) possible. This is due to the inverse-square law , which predicts that the amount of energy dispersed from a single point release of energy (such as a thermonuclear blast) dissipates by the inverse of the square of distance from the single point of release. The result is that the power of a nuclear explosion to rupture hardened structures
25785-408: The original system, which reduced the sea-room in which British submarines could hide. The Polaris system was also upgraded through the replacement of the solid fuel motors after some test-firing failures. The re-motoring programme commenced in 1981, and new motors were installed in all missiles by 1988. This cost £300 million. Pre-emptive nuclear strike First-strike attack , the use of
25976-535: The purposes of international defence of the Western Alliance in all circumstances." A joint statement to this effect, the Nassau Agreement , was issued on 21 December 1962. With the Nassau Agreement in hand, it remained to work out the details. Vice Admiral Michael Le Fanu had a meeting with the United States Secretary of Defense , Robert S. McNamara , on 21 December 1962, the final day of
26167-473: The reactor circuits. Their removal set the programme back two months. The Cammell Laird boats had a reputation for not being as well built as those of Vickers, which was a factor in the subsequent 1969 decision by the Treasury and the Royal Navy to restrict future nuclear submarine construction to a single yard. Revenge and the hunter-killer HMS Conqueror were the last built at Cammell Laird. When
26358-429: The relationship between the Polaris programme and the hunter-killer programme. At this time point, Valiant was under construction, but the second boat of the class, HMS Warspite , was yet to be laid down at Barrow. The possibility of the two projects competing for resources was foreseen, but the Admiralty elected to continue with its construction. The interdependence between the two projects extended well beyond
26549-584: The rest of 60 missiles in reserve. As such, this type of weapon was intended to be banned under the START II agreement, however the START II agreement was never activated, and neither Russia nor the US has adhered to the agreement. Any defense system against nuclear missiles such as SDI will be more effective against limited numbers of missiles launched. At very small numbers of targets, each defensive asset will be able to take multiple shots at each warhead, and
26740-562: The sale of the Trident missile system. During the early part of the Second World War , Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys . In August 1943, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , Winston Churchill and the President of the United States , Franklin Roosevelt , signed the Quebec Agreement , which merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project . The British government trusted that
26931-399: The scope of the Nassau Agreement. One remaining obstacle in the path of the programme was how it would be integrated with the MLF. The British response to the MLF concept "ranged from unenthusiastic to hostile throughout the military establishment and in the two principal political parties". Apart from anything else, it was estimated to cost as much as £100 million over ten years. Nonetheless,
27122-513: The scope of the Polaris Sales Agreement, which the staff of CPE saw as open-ended, but that of SPO saw as limited in nature. The choice of Vickers-Armstrongs as shipbuilder was a foregone conclusion, as its yard at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria was the only one in the UK with experience in nuclear-powered submarine construction. The firm was thoroughly familiar with the heightened requirements nuclear-powered submarine construction entailed in terms of cleanliness, safety and quality control, and
27313-431: The shipyard; Valiant would be the first boat powered by the Rolls-Royce pressurised water reactor , which would also be used in the new Polaris ballistic missile submarines. In early 1963 the reactor was still in the prototype stage at Dounreay . The overlap between the two projects was sufficiently substantial that in May 1963 it was decided that CPE would be responsible for both. The Joint Steering Task Group (JSTG)
27504-452: The size of the yard and its labour force, and the desired speed of construction, the Admiralty decided that Vickers would build two boats, and the others would be built elsewhere. Tenders were invited from two firms with experience in building conventional submarines, Cammell Laird in Birkenhead , and Scotts in Greenock , on 25 March. Cammell Laird was chosen, and a letter of intent was sent on 7 May 1963. Some £1.6 million of new equipment
27695-531: The standard 56-day US Navy patrol cycle, two boats would be on station 250 days a year. There was also no margin for the possibility of the temporary interruption to service of one boat due to an accident. From an operational point of view, having two boats on patrol meant there was a capability to destroy twenty cities; one would only be capable of destroying seven or eight, based on an assumption of 70 per cent reliability, and Leningrad and Moscow requiring two and four missiles respectively. Two boats also complicate
27886-457: The task of missile defence, as the missiles come from two different directions. The purchase of an additional boat did not necessarily require that of sixteen more missiles, nor even for two more crews, and a second construction line at Cammell Laird permitted work on a fifth boat to proceed without impacting schedules for the other boats. The fifth boat was estimated to cost £18 million; cancellation charges would be less than £1 million. The matter
28077-430: The technologies required for a ballistic missile submarine—a long-range solid propellant rocket, a light-weight thermonuclear warhead, a compact missile guidance system , and an inertial navigation system for the submarine—did not exist in 1955. A turning point came during Project Nobska in the summer of 1956, when Edward Teller predicted that a 270-kilogram (600 lb) warhead would become available by 1963. This
28268-626: The theories of nuclear deterrence and mutual assured destruction, full countervalue retaliation would be the likely fate for any state that unleashed a first strike. To maintain credible deterrence, nuclear-weapons states have taken measures to give their enemies reason to believe that a first strike would lead to unacceptable results. The main strategy relies on creating doubt among enemy strategists regarding nuclear capacity, weapons characteristics, facility and infrastructure vulnerability, early warning systems, intelligence penetration, strategic plans, and political will. In terms of military capabilities,
28459-412: The three warheads with multiple decoys, chaff , and other defensive countermeasures , in what was known as a Penetration Aid Carrier (PAC). It was the most technically complex defence project ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. The system also involved "hardening" the warheads—making them resistant to the effects of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The Americans used a material known as 3DPQ,
28650-411: The transfer of submarine reactor technology was incorporated in the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement , which allowed the UK to acquire nuclear weapons systems from the United States, thereby restoring the nuclear Special Relationship . One of Burke's first actions as CNO was to call for a report on the progress of ballistic missile research. The US Navy was involved in a cooperative venture with
28841-564: The victim of the first-strike launching a retaliatory second strike on the attacker. Nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) carrying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), commonly known as "boomers" in the US and "bombers" in the UK, are widely considered the most survivable component of the nuclear triad . The depths of the ocean are extremely large, and nuclear submarines are highly mobile, are very quiet, have virtually unlimited range, and can generate their own oxygen and potable water. In essence, their undersea endurance
29032-434: Was already changing with the ascension of officers like Mackenzie and Luce. In March 1963, it was decided that the Polaris boats would be based at Faslane on the Firth of Clyde , not far from the US Navy's base at Holy Loch. The conventional submarines of the 3rd Submarine Squadron already had a forward base there, with jetties, facilities and the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone . The design and construction of
29223-617: Was accepted that training of the first two crews at least would have to be conducted in the United States, and arrangements for this were made with SPO. SPO also convinced the US Air Force that the Polaris Sales Agreement meant that the Royal Navy should have access to the Eastern Test Range, for which it was to be charged the same fee as the US Navy. The US Navy had two training facilities, at Dam Neck in Virginia Beach, Virginia , and at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu , Hawaii . They were not identical, and were oriented towards training in maintenance rather than operations. Shepard's group pushed for
29414-415: Was an operational system of four Resolution -class ballistic missile submarines , each armed with 16 Polaris A-3 ballistic missiles. Each missile was able to deliver three ET.317 thermonuclear warheads . This configuration was later upgraded to carry two warheads hardened against the effects of radiation and nuclear electromagnetic pulse , along with a range of decoys. The British Polaris programme
29605-407: Was announced in December 1962 following the Nassau Agreement between the US and the UK. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided the formal framework for cooperation. Construction of the submarines began in 1964, and the first patrol took place in June 1968. All four boats were operational in December 1969. They were operated by the Royal Navy , and based at Clyde Naval Base on Scotland's west coast,
29796-584: Was called in Nassau, Bahamas . Macmillan rejected the US offers of paying half the cost of developing Skybolt, and of supplying the AGM-28 Hound Dog missile instead. This brought options down to Polaris, but the Americans would only supply it on condition that it be used as part of a proposed Multilateral Force (MLF). Kennedy ultimately relented, and agreed to supply Britain with Polaris missiles, while "the Prime Minister made it clear that except where Her Majesty's Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake, these British forces will be used for
29987-447: Was codenamed "Reggie". This became known as the ET.317 . Its development involved an increase of about 500 staff at Aldermaston compared to that anticipated for Skybolt, with 4,500 staff expected to be working on nuclear weapons by 1969. When it came to the Re-Entry System (RES), the US Navy was using the Mark 2 Mod 0 RES, but had a new version, the Mark 2 Mod 1 under development. In order to meet Polaris in-service deadline of May 1968,
30178-420: Was conducted in Nevada on 26 August 1976. By 1979, the cost had risen to £935 million, with test firings conducted from the Eastern Test Range and the Woomera Test Range , including three off Cape Canaveral by Renown , along with another series of nuclear tests in Nevada. Chevaline's existence, along with its formerly secret codename, was revealed by the Secretary of State for Defence, Francis Pym , during
30369-463: Was conducted on 26 October 1963. Most of the problems encountered involved failures of the re-entry body to separate correctly. The A-3 became operational on 28 September 1964, when USS Daniel Webster commenced her first operational patrol. In the wake of the decision to acquire the A-3, a US-UK Joint Re-Entry Systems Working Group (JRSWG) was created to examine issues surrounding the warhead and re-entry vehicle. The Americans revealed that work
30560-444: Was considered by the Cabinet Defence and Overseas Policy Committee on 25 February 1964, and then by the full Cabinet later that morning, and the decision was taken to approve the fifth boat, provided the money could be found elsewhere in the defence budget. After Wilson took office, one of the first acts of the incoming Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healey , was to ask the Navy for the case for building five Polaris boats. This
30751-411: Was controversy when this project became public knowledge in 1980, as it had been kept secret by four successive governments while incurring huge expenditure. Polaris patrols continued until May 1996, by which time the phased handover to the replacement Trident system had been completed. During the early part of the Second World War , the UK had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys . At
30942-399: Was declined; the British government wanted Polaris. Kennedy backed down and abandoned his attempts to persuade the UK to accept the MLF in return for Macmillan's promise to assign UK Polaris boats to NATO. The two leaders concluded the Nassau Agreement , which would see the purchase of US missiles to serve aboard UK-built submarines, on 21 December 1962. This statement was later formalised as
31133-418: Was designated as the refit yard for the Polaris boats, as works were already underway there to support Dreadnought . HM Dockyard, Chatham , was subsequently upgraded to handle the hunter-killer submarines, and Rosyth was reserved for the 10th Submarine Squadron , as the Polaris boats became. To train the required crews, a Royal Navy Polaris School (RNPS) was built adjacent to the base at Faslane, although it
31324-609: Was designed to discover intentions of NATO to initiate a nuclear first-strike. This poor timing drove the world very close to nuclear war, possibly even closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis over 20 years before. Because of the low accuracy (large circular error probable ) of early generation intercontinental ballistic missiles (and especially submarine-launched ballistic missiles ), counterforce strikes were initially only possible against very large, undefended targets like bomber airfields and naval bases. Later generation missiles with much improved accuracy made counterforce attacks against
31515-454: Was discussed. While the cost was a factor, the main obstacle was political, and the Wilson government publicly ruled out the purchase of Poseidon in June 1967. Without an agreement on improvement, the Special Relationship began to decay. The Americans were unwilling to share information about warhead vulnerability unless the British were going to proceed to applying it. The result was Chevaline , an improved front end (IFE) that replaced one of
31706-458: Was endorsed by the First Lord of the Admiralty , Lord Carrington , in May 1963, and was officially made by Thorneycroft on 10 June 1963. The choice of the A3 created a problem for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston , for the Skybolt warhead that had recently been tested in the Tendrac nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site in the United States would require a redesigned Re-Entry System (RES) in order to be fitted to
31897-437: Was established by Article II of the Polaris Sales Agreement. It was modelled after the Steering Task Group that oversaw the Special Projects Office. It met for the first time in Washington on 26 June 1963. The respective liaison officers acted as the secretaries of the JSTG. These were appointed in April 1963, with Captain Peter La Niece taking up the position in Washington, and Captain Phil Rollings in London. The agenda for
32088-430: Was formally named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System . The Board of the Admiralty met on 24 December 1962 and decided to adopt Le Fanu's proposal that a special organisation be created to manage the project. It did not create a replica of SPO, however, but a smaller administrative and organisational cadre . Mackenzie, the Flag Officer Submarines (FOSM), was informed on 26 December 1962 that he would be appointed
32279-540: Was furnished by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir David Luce , on 19 October 1964. The government was under considerable pressure to reduce annual defence expenditures below £2 billion, and Healey considered whether three boats would be sufficient. Luce and Mountbatten advised that it would not. Wilson was aware that the government had only a narrow majority, and that Douglas-Home's attack on his party's nuclear deterrent policy had cost votes. Cabinet finally decided on 12 January 1965 that there should be four boats. The decision
32470-422: Was in progress to add penetration aids to the re-entry vehicle, but promised that it would not have any effect on the interface between the missile and the UK re-entry vehicle. The British team did not think they were necessary, and in the end the Americans never deployed them with the A-3. The initial assumption at the Admiralty was that the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston would produce
32661-423: Was intended as a counterpart to the United States Navy Special Projects Office (SPO), with whom it would have to deal. The principal finding of the Zuckerman mission was that the Americans had developed a new version of the Polaris missile, the A3. With a range extended of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km), it had a new weapons bay housing three re-entry vehicles (REBs or Re-Entry Bodies in US Navy parlance) and
32852-446: Was launched in September 1966, and commenced its first deterrent patrol in June 1968. The annual running costs of the Polaris boats came to around two per cent of the defence budget, and they came to be seen as a credible deterrent that enhanced Britain's international status. Along with the more celebrated 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the Polaris Sales Agreement became a pillar of the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and
33043-561: Was much lighter than the 730-kilogram (1,600 lb) warhead of the Jupiter, and led the US Navy to pull out of the joint Jupiter project in late 1956 in order to concentrate on the development of a solid-fuel rocket , which became Polaris . In May 1958, Burke arranged for the appointment of a Royal Navy liaison officer, Commander Michael Simeon, on the SPO staff. In 1955, the SPO staff consisted of 45 officers and 45 civilians; by mid-1961, it had grown to 200 officers and 667 civilians. By then, over 11,000 contractors were involved, and it had
33234-465: Was necessary in order to be in immediate contact with the Admiralty, the ministers, and the key departments. He was initially given two rooms and a closet at the Admiralty. Most of the Polaris Executive was located in Bath, Somerset , where the Admiralty's technical and logistics departments had been relocated in 1938, "the connection between bath, water and boats having not escaped the administrative minds in Whitehall." Initially they were accommodated in
33425-412: Was not significantly greater than £235 million in April 1972 (equivalent to £3.37 billion in 2023). What disturbed the committee more was that a major project had gone on for a decade without any disclosure of its costs to Parliament or any requirement that they should be. The range of the Chevaline system was 1,950 nautical miles (3,610 km) compared to 2,500-nautical-mile (4,600 km) range of
33616-402: Was noted that while the missile was limited in range, the submarine could roam the oceans, and could attack China, for example. With the cancellation of Blue Streak in the air, the British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group (BNDSG) produced a study on 23 December 1959 that argued that Polaris was expensive and unproven, and given the time it would take to build the boats, could not be deployed before
33807-418: Was officially announced on 15 February. One important matter that SPO raised was that A-3 production would in due course be closed down, and the missile replaced by a new model under development then known as the B3, which eventually became the Poseidon . Thus, a final decision on the number of missiles and spare parts was required. This gravely concerned the British government. If the USN upgraded to Poseidon,
33998-450: Was opposed to this on the grounds that it would unduly disrupt the hunter-killer submarine programme, and it would add more new features to a design that already had enough. The chosen design was suggested by Daniel's superior, Sidney Palmer. The reactor section would be similar to that of Valiant , which would be joined with a machinery space to the American-designed but mainly British-built missile compartment. The forward section would be of
34189-429: Was particularly favourable to Britain, as the US was charging only the unit cost of Skybolt, absorbing all the research and development costs. With this agreement in hand, the cancellation of Blue Streak was announced in the House of Commons on 13 April 1960. The subsequent American decision to cancel Skybolt created a political crisis in the UK, and an emergency meeting between Macmillan and President John F. Kennedy
34380-417: Was planning an attack. NATO's deployment of these missiles was a response to the Soviet deployment of the SS-20 Saber , which could hit most European NATO bases within minutes of launch. These mutual deployments led to a destabilizing strategic situation, which was exacerbated by malfunctioning U.S. and Soviet missile launch early warning systems, a Soviet intelligence gap that prevented the Soviets from getting
34571-455: Was required to prepare the yard for Polaris work. Two berths and the jetty were rebuilt, and works were also necessary on the roads and river wall. A 9.4-metre (31 ft) cofferdam was built to allow construction of a new slipway and other works to be carried out in dry rather than tidal conditions. New facilities were also added in Barrow, and the Walney Channel was dredged. Traditional battleship or battlecruiser names were chosen for
34762-441: Was shaken by the Profumo affair . In October 1963, Macmillan fell ill with what was initially feared to be inoperable prostate cancer , and he took the opportunity to resign on the grounds of ill-health. He was succeeded by Alec Douglas-Home , who campaigned on the UK's nuclear deterrent in the 1964 election . While of low importance in the minds of the electorate, it was one on which Douglas-Home felt passionately, and on which
34953-545: Was suspended in October 1952 to conserve plutonium production for nuclear weapons, and by 1954 the Royal Navy had concluded that it would not be possible until the 1960s. The US Navy 's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus became operational on 17 January 1955. One reason the Royal Navy lagged behind its American counterpart was the lack of a high-ranking champion who would push nuclear submarine development. This changed when Admiral Lord Mountbatten became First Sea Lord in April 1955. In June he secured
35144-410: Was tested in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952. During the 1950s, the UK's nuclear deterrent was based around the V-bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF), but developments in radar and surface-to-air missiles made it clear that bombers were becoming increasingly vulnerable, and would be unlikely to penetrate Soviet airspace in the 1970s. Free-fall nuclear weapons were losing credibility as
35335-574: Was the only significant departure from Le Fanu's original blueprint. Some staff were assigned to the Polaris Executive and responsible only to the CPE; but there were also "allocated staff", who were seconded to the Polaris Executive, but who remained responsible to another organisation, such as the Directors-General of Ships and Weapons; and "designated staff", who were not employed on the Polaris project full-time, and remained part of their parent organisations. Mackenzie established his own office and that of his immediate staff in London, which he considered
35526-440: Was the same as the number of Skybolt missiles, which were considered sufficient to devastate forty cities. To achieve this capability, the BNDSG calculated that this would require eight Polaris submarines, each with 16 missiles with one-megaton warheads. It was subsequently decided to halve the number of missiles, and therefore submarines, based on a decision that the ability to destroy twenty Soviet cities would have nearly as great
35717-415: Was there any need to conserve battery power, as the reactor supplied enough power for a small town. A Polaris boat had a crew of 14 officers and 129 ratings. Every sailor had his own bunk, so there was no hot bunking . Meals were served in a dining hall. The crew included a doctor and supply officers. Before commencing an eight-week patrol, a submarine was stocked with enough food for 143 men. Supplies for
35908-453: Was to take the incomplete nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine HMS Valiant , cut it in half, and insert the Polaris missile compartment in its midsection. This was a path that the Americans had taken with the George Washington class in order to build ships as quickly as possible in order to address the missile gap , the purported numerical superiority of the Soviet Union's missile force, which turned out to be illusory. Daniel
36099-463: Was uncertain about the legality of transferring such technology to the UK, and Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover , the head of the US Navy's nuclear propulsion project, was opposed. But the United States Department of Defense supported the British request, and Mountbatten won Rickover over during a visit to the UK in August 1956. Rickover withdrew his objections in early 1957. In December 1957, Rickover proposed that Westinghouse be permitted to sell
36290-433: Was understandably alarmed, circulating a paper that refuted the Admiralty 's position point by point, attacking Polaris as having the same striking power but having less accuracy and a smaller warhead than Blue Streak, at 20 times the cost. The US Navy had already polished the counter-arguments, noting that second strike weapons only had to target cities, for which Polaris warhead's size and accuracy were adequate. Moreover, it
36481-423: Was unpredictable. The Treasury costed a four-boat Polaris fleet at £314 million by 1972–1973. A Cabinet Defence Committee meeting on 23 January 1963 approved the plan for four boats, with the Minister of Defence, Peter Thorneycroft noting that four boats would be cheaper and faster to build than eight. A mission led by Sir Solly Zuckerman , the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence , left for
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