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Angepain posted:I stand corrected. mods change filename in thread title to Covid.xls, britain does not stand for this kind of modern xml nonsense  e: United Nations Security Council Resolution 181, adopted on August 7, 1963, was concerned with an arms build-up by the Republic of South Africa and fears that those arms might be used to further the racial conflict in that country. The resolution was adopted by nine votes to none; France and the United Kingdom abstained. Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Oct 5, 2020 |
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Oct 5, 2020 17:28
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kingturnip posted:I'll just assume that this data gently caress-uppery is somehow related to data-losing genius Dido Harding having taken over at Public Health England in the last couple of months its fun seeing PHE throwing blame back and forth since they basically also hosed everything up that they were responsible for before the genius took over basically no segment of british "central government" didn't completely poo poo its pants this year
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Oct 5, 2020 17:37
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radmonger posted:And presumably if a PM out of nowhere said ‘fire all the missiles at Dublin’, some general would say ‘no, that is an illegal order’. You see this is *not* an example of a "Deep State" thing, at least not since the Nuremburg trials. It is in fact just "State", because that's how the democratically-elected leadership of the country have set up our sunshine delivery system. Because I can't resist a Clancywank derail: Every member of the military is under a legal (not to mention ethical) obligation to refuse an order that is illegal; the UK nuclear chain of command *specifically* emphasises this - there is no "football" like the Americans use which allows the President to directly order a launch. While theoretically given by the PM exercising the prerogative of the Crown, the launch command must be approved by the Minister of Defence, the Chief of the Defence Staff, First Sea Lord (or head of the branch of the military with the nukes if we ever dust the Vulcans off or decide to give squaddies a bunch of second-hand Davy Crocketts), although realistically any order to launch would have been decided on by consultation between at least the first three along with the Cabinet and the rest of the Defence Staff. Even then the weapons may only be launched with the specific agreement of both the Captain and Weapons Officer of the sub(s). All of the people in that chain are specifically permitted, in fact instructed, to refuse the order if they consider it to be illegal or otherwise illegitimate. Letters of Last Resort are - surprisingly - also compatible with this framework; the chain of command all agree the circumstances under which they are to be opened constitute a legal reason to launch the nukes wherever the gently caress the Captain wants to, and there's no real way for the PM to order the Captain to do more than this so legally he's in the clear, but also at that point who gives a poo poo about legality, and it's strongly suspected that they give the Captain the option to just chuck the nukes overboard and try and find somewhere not glowing to settle down.
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Oct 5, 2020 18:01
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goddamnedtwisto posted:You see this is *not* an example of a "Deep State" thing, at least not since the Nuremburg trials. It is in fact just "State", because that's how the democratically-elected leadership of the country have set up our sunshine delivery system. So does this mean if the captain and weapons officer decide to, they can launch the nukes whenever they want?
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Oct 5, 2020 18:34
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That's true as a matter of practical concern even if it's not as a legal one.
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Oct 5, 2020 18:41
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ANYTHING YOU SOW posted:So does this mean if the captain and weapons officer decide to, they can launch the nukes whenever they want? They can launch at a list of pre selected targets, they don't have the access to pick their own, but aye if it's in range the whole lot can be delivered within the hour
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Oct 5, 2020 18:53
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DesperateDan posted:They can launch at a list of pre selected targets, they don't have the access to pick their own, but aye if it's in range the whole lot can be delivered within the hour And it's free, if you've got Royal Navy Prime.
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Oct 5, 2020 18:58
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ANYTHING YOU SOW posted:So does this mean if the captain and weapons officer decide to, they can launch the nukes whenever they want? it's hard to find someone to answer that before the development of a solid body of nuke case law also after
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Oct 5, 2020 19:02
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ANYTHING YOU SOW posted:So does this mean if the captain and weapons officer decide to, they can launch the nukes whenever they want? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, because this is pretty much the only way we could have a meaningful nuclear deterrent - the very soonest we would know about a Soviet launch from an Arctic sub or a TEL around the Finnish border is about 12 minutes before impact if a satellite happened to be in the exact right position at the exact right time. If we had to rely on BMEWS then it's nearer 5. UK nuclear planning has always been based around the idea that the PM and most of the rest of the chain of command would be interesting shadows on the wall before anyone could remember the combination for the briefcase with the codes in it. In the days when the RAF V-bomber force had the nukes, the Transition-to-War plans had an equivalent of Letters of Last Resort held on the bombers which would be kept on the runway, engines warmed up, for days on end, to be launched as soon as the warning went off. No need for a THX-118 Discriminator - they would know pretty conclusively whether or not war had started by looking over their shoulders. Hilariously the plans did say that they would drop/launch their weapons then turn back, reload, and rearm, and enough weapons were kept on hand to do this, and it was of course practiced extensively, even though everybody knew that Lincolnshire would be an interesting cloud over the North Sea by the time the Vulcans made it back (nobody ever expected the Valiants to make it back). Subs at least don't have to rely on a bunch of handlebar-moustached blokes to get their engines ticking over before the sun suddenly rose above them, but they have their own problems. Bear in mind that communications with subs are tricky anyway - they have to have an antenna poking above the surface (which is of course easily detected) to pick up a radio transmission, and so there's generally a 24 hour or more lag in getting a message to them. We're rumoured to be able to use the American ELF radio system to transmit messages to them while they're underwater but ELF is incredibly slow, rumoured to be as low as 2 characters per second, so we're unlikely to get more than "Oh gently caress" out before the line suddenly goes dead. So yes, the Captain and WO *can* launch weapons on their own initiative. They have standing orders that describe the circumstances under which they can do so - this includes (it's rumoured) that the BBC World Service isn't transmitting, but basically they have a couple of ways of inferring that property prices in London have suddenly dropped precipitously. Once these are fulfilled, they open the Letter of Last Resort which tells them what to do (again it's rumoured that most PMs basically say "Do whatever, who gives a gently caress", but as the letters are destroyed after each patrol nobody knows for sure). Firing weapons outside of their orders would not be in the greatest traditions of the Royal Navy, so we don't have to worry about that. Just in case they run out of rum and the lash and sodomy isn't enough to stop them deciding to wipe Scunthorpe off the map though, there are a couple of failsafes. The first is, of course, the fact it requires both the Captain and the WO to agree to launch (and pull triggers at opposite ends of the sub) - the idea that *two* RN officers would disobey orders is just plain inconceivable to anyone who's never met anyone in the Navy. There's also the fact that the missiles are pre-targeted before they leave port - they will have effectively a menu of targets they can choose from, but no capability to just type in that one pub that kicked them out the other night. So yeah, it's completely loving ridiculous, but it's also perfectly sensible and logical by the completely loving ridiculous standards of nuclear weapons.
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Oct 5, 2020 19:20
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aren't our nukes massively poo poo at targeting or something, im sure theresa may covered up a misfire that nearly took out florida or whatever lol
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Oct 5, 2020 19:20
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DesperateDan posted:They can launch at a list of pre selected targets, they don't have the access to pick their own, but aye if it's in range the whole lot can be delivered within the hour Allegedly, to a Trident launched from the Atlantic, everywhere inhabited on Earth is in range. Just bear that in mind before you start getting cocky, Tuvalu.
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Oct 5, 2020 19:25
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gh0stpinballa posted:aren't our nukes massively poo poo at targeting or something, im sure theresa may covered up a misfire that nearly took out florida or whatever lol The targeting (at least as far as we know) is very, very good. The rocket motors... not so much. Trident II is rumoured to have a 1/5 launch failure rate in tests.
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Oct 5, 2020 19:26
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goddamnedtwisto posted:The targeting (at least as far as we know) is very, very good. The rocket motors... not so much. Trident II is rumoured to have a 1/5 launch failure rate in tests. ah this might be what im thinking of. im sure she hid something about a nuke failure that nearly caused an incident off the US coast.
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Oct 5, 2020 19:28
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gh0stpinballa posted:aren't our nukes massively poo poo at targeting or something, im sure theresa may covered up a misfire that nearly took out florida or whatever lol
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Oct 5, 2020 19:30
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If Labour ever get in again the sub captain will open his special letter and it will be a funny note saying 'I'm sorry to say there are no nukes left. Also you're going to jail for being British' We can never allow this to happen
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Oct 5, 2020 19:32
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gh0stpinballa posted:ah this might be what im thinking of. im sure she hid something about a nuke failure that nearly caused an incident off the US coast. Yeah that was a motor failure that sent the (unarmed) missile hurtling 90 degrees off course, potentially towards the US mainland, before it was destroyed remotely (test vehicles have the warheads replaced with telemetry and communications equipment for obvious reasons). It did lead to a lot of interesting talk about what might happen if someone has a brainfart and accidentally launches a live missile instead of the test one. The consensus, based on nothing more than whispers and wishful thinking, is that a) there is a remote destruct capability at least in the launch phase that can be triggered by either the launch vehicle or one of the observers, and b) Target Zero on all US-built ballistic missiles is either White Sands or the Nevada Test Site because if every last thing goes wrong dropping a few more nukes there is probably the least harmful outcome, not least because if the launch is from the area around Bermuda where they test the subs or Wyoming where they test the silo-based missiles, this puts them on a Very Definitely Not Flying Towards Anyone With Nukes trajectory.
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Oct 5, 2020 19:35
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I thought the US dismantled all their ELF in 2004? It's not exactly easy to hide either, given the 'large particle collider' size required.
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Oct 5, 2020 19:40
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Private Speech posted:I thought the US dismantled all their ELF in 2004? It's not exactly easy to hide either, given the 'large particle collider' size required. There's some interesting theories about that, some of them literally  , but the consensus is "They've still got some way of doing it" because there doesn't seem to be any other way to communicate with an underway sub and there's no way at all the US MIC would ever say "Nah we don't need to replace this".
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Oct 5, 2020 19:47
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goddamnedtwisto posted:There's some interesting theories about that, some of them literally how tf do you know so much about so much stuff?
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Oct 5, 2020 19:56
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goddamnedtwisto posted:
This is interesting but scary! That the targets are pre set doesnt reasure me much as presumbly most of the targets are in countries that would instantly retaliate, so there's still a decent chance of wiping out Scunthorpe. That we are relying on the officers being good old chaps who wouldnt do that sort of thing seems is just crazy.
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Oct 5, 2020 20:09
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Necrothatcher posted:how tf do you know so much about so much stuff? Short answer: boring job, Wikipedia.
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Oct 5, 2020 20:14
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Any weapons system at the end of the day has to rely on people. Any member or members of the Cabinet having a magic button that could communicate with submarines wouldn't inspire confidence either.
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Oct 5, 2020 20:14
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Necrothatcher posted:how tf do you know so much about so much stuff? I was just going to write this exact thing!
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Oct 5, 2020 20:41
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Short answer: boring job, Wikipedia. Brown moses?
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Oct 5, 2020 20:44
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VideoGames posted:Brown moses? I wish. I've said it before and I'll say it again - CIA, if you're reading this, I'm perfectly willing to accept cash to subtly weave defences of imperialism into a post about unconventional traction methods in early London train systems.
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Oct 5, 2020 20:59
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:I was just going to write this exact thing! Slightly longer answer now I'm not eating dinner - I've been obsessed with nuclear weapons and the cold war since long before I had the internet, basically as a result of growing up through the 2 Minutes to Midnight era. My school made us all watch Threads when it came out... I was 8. The next day they tested the flood warning system in the docks, which uses air raid sirens. TBH it's no surprise I still have insomnia three decades later. Of course once you start digging into it, it touches on so many little pleasure centres of my brain - there's the simple wow factor, for want of a better term, of the whole concept of nukes. There's the nerdy details, the whole cloak-and-dagger feel of discussing them, the sheer Britishness of so much of it all, from nuclear bombers that accidentally turn into whistles to the PM's Bentley being equipped with 2p bits so the PM can ring back to Number 10 if the balloon goes up... it's a way more fertile field for a weird obsession than most, IMO. Most of my other weird little pockets of knowledge are basically offshoots of that same drive - I just let myself fall down rabbit holes and normally find stuff that's interesting down there. I also have a weird memory which coincidentally works perfectly with the internet - I am absolutely *terrible* at recalling facts (as every member of my family can tell you 3-5 days after their birthday) but fantastic at remembering the general shape of things, and able to work backwards from there with some quick Google work to fill in the gaps. (Of course this then completely fucks me up when I step out of my areas of weird expertise and/or meet actual experts in the field, and probably the most valuable skill I've learned in the last decade or so is the ability to admit that I might not always be absolutely 100% correct on something)
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Oct 5, 2020 21:14
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https://twitter.com/_doublearrow/status/1313179875600142339 And if you think *I'm* nerdy...
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Oct 5, 2020 21:18
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goddamnedtwisto posted:Slightly longer answer now I'm not eating dinner - I've been obsessed with nuclear weapons and the cold war since long before I had the internet, basically as a result of growing up through the 2 Minutes to Midnight era. My school made us all watch Threads when it came out... I was 8. The next day they tested the flood warning system in the docks, which uses air raid sirens. TBH it's no surprise I still have insomnia three decades later. similarly fascinated by the cold war. you got any book tips or links to share?
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Oct 5, 2020 21:37
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goddamnedtwisto posted:There's some interesting theories about that, some of them literally You can communicate with underwater subs over VLF, but only down to about ~40m; subs will usually stay deeper, and trail a communcations buoy instead of coming up to the surface. There's a bunch of VLF transmitters all over the place. The RN has one in Cumbria (and used to have one in Wales and another near Rugby). The USN has a few in the US, and can probably use NATO ones in Europe too.
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Oct 5, 2020 21:38
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gh0stpinballa posted:similarly fascinated by the cold war. you got any book tips or links to share? The Secret State by Paul Hennesey covers most of the political and some of the technical/military aspects in the UK. War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell (if you can find a copy) is probably the definitive (unclassified) work on where we were when Threads was made. I've not read it yet, but I've heard good things about Britain and the Bomb by W.J. Nuttall as a bridge between those two, covering the gap between the high political viewpoint of the former and the worms-eye civil-defence perspective of the latter. For general British Cold War shenanigans, the first two thirds or so of Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford covers a lot of that ground from a slightly more light-hearted way and is generally a good read. More generally, https://fas.org/ is an incredibly deep rabbit hole of articles on (mostly American) nuclear weapons strategy and technology, admittedly from a pretty pro-MIC standpoint. Back issues of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the guys who publish the Doomsday Clock) are periodically published at their website - https://thebulletin.org/ - or you can subscribe to get all of them in one go (not worth it unless you're *really* going headfirst into it, IMO).
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Oct 5, 2020 21:52
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urgh the date on this tweet https://twitter.com/_marklehman/status/1205261617606332417?s=20
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Oct 5, 2020 22:36
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the state of this https://twitter.com/PARLYapp/status/1313221597319266306?s=20
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Oct 5, 2020 22:37
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goddamnedtwisto posted:You see this is *not* an example of a "Deep State" thing, at least not since the Nuremburg trials. It is in fact just "State", because that's how the democratically-elected leadership of the country have set up our sunshine delivery system. I can now understand how Hideo Kojima could create CIA Station Chief Hot Coldmann.
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Oct 5, 2020 22:39
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Jose posted:the state of this lol none of this poo poo is getting rolled back ever huh
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Oct 5, 2020 22:43
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goddamnedtwisto posted:(Of course this then completely fucks me up when I step out of my areas of weird expertise and/or meet actual experts in the field, and probably the most valuable skill I've learned in the last decade or so is the ability to admit that I might not always be absolutely 100% correct on something) I've bad news for you, if you were hoping to become the new Dominic Cummings, you've blown it right here. Randomcheese3 posted:You can communicate with underwater subs over VLF, but only down to about ~40m; subs will usually stay deeper, and trail a communcations buoy instead of coming up to the surface. There's a bunch of VLF transmitters all over the place. The RN has one in Cumbria (and used to have one in Wales and another near Rugby). The USN has a few in the US, and can probably use NATO ones in Europe too. Ooohhh there was a prog on tv last night (Unexplained Mysteries or similar) about a strange humming noise a lot of people around the world people hear and it was put down to Extra Low Frequencies from submarines!
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Oct 5, 2020 22:44
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Oct 5, 2020 22:48
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I'd like a guarantee on low future electricity prices. Every time I've even considered a heat pump system because it's started costing in the wholesale energy market has put 1.5p on electricity and knocked halfpenny off gas. Also I'd like all the institutional smoothbrains in the comments pretending they know a thing about small modular reactors to be interred in one. Or at least in the massive vars of piss generating cheap hydrogen.
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Oct 5, 2020 22:58
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it's all bollocks because nothing matters and no one cares but it would be extremely funny if Starmer's Labour going full  flags and forces and families and Bojo's Tories talking about a four day week and green industrial revolution meant the two of them managed to triangulate right past each other, in rhetoric at least
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Oct 5, 2020 23:00
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Jose posted:the state of this Labour could have voted it down lol
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Oct 5, 2020 23:01
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just throw the whole loving party in the bin https://twitter.com/CraigHackneyCub/status/1313234630670274562?s=20
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Oct 5, 2020 23:02
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