It's incredibly hard to track missile subs as they're designed to be pretty much the quietest things in the ocean, even more so than attack subs (I think the term is "a hole in the water"), if you don't follow them from the moment they leave harbour you've got virtually no chance of finding them, and even if you do follow them from the harbour they're very hard to keep track of without using active measures (which in turn makes the following sub/ship a great big target for any escort that the missile sub might have at that point).
IIRC there have been several instances where subs have collided because they were that close to each other and they weren't aware of where the other one was.
If 2 nuclear subs at sea is fool-proof method of assuring MAD with Russia, then why do Americans and Russians have so many ICBMS split across silos/subs/bombers.
Soviets at one time were worried that US pre-emptive strike would not leave enough nukes to go round in order to assure MAD hence they even covered their silo sites with ABM systems (so did the Americans) to give time to launch.
To put things into perspective, Americans have 450 Land based ICBMS and 288 sub based ones....
Russians have 500 land based ICBMS alone and they are constantly upgrading them in order to make sure they cannot be intercepted.
This is given that both USA and Russia have substantially more time to react for an incoming attack than UK. Since we can actually have TU-160 flying 50 miles off London right now loaded with a nuke therefore dooming all those Vanguards that are in docks and throwing communications and whole command and control into havoc since the whole island will be obliterated within seconds.
We have 1 sub out in the waters and so do the French.
If I remember correctly, Vanguard carries 16 missiles, there will be at least 2-3 minute gap between the launches, once the first launch is done, location of the sub is literally pin-pointed.
It would take mere 20 minutes from an ICBM launched from Siberia to hit area of the sub within 200 meters.
Now imagine there are other subs or Tu-95 or Tu-160 in the area and we are reducing time to literally minutes that the sub has to live.
We`d be lucky to get 8 nukes into the skies with the French, with some, most likely being intercepted before they even got chance to re-enter into the atmosphere.
Whats left will be handled with Anti-Ballistic missile systems which Russians are even implementing on their S-500`s.
Few warheads might land, but I doubt we`ll score a hit against a major city... Given Russian history they`ll take it on the chin.
I dont know about you, but without USA I dont think EU has reasonable MAD principle against Russia...
Given Russian territory and history, they`ll be able to take on few nuke hits against their cities and get along just fine.
UK alone realistically has 16 ICBMS that can be launched (lone sub at sea) and you`d have to be an idiot to expect all those 16 to be launched in case of pre-emptive strike by Russians.
There is a reason that Americans and Russians have around 600-800 missiles spread out around multiple platforms, constantly upgrading them in order to make them harder to intercept.
I guess we ought to tell them that they got it all wrong... 1 sub at sea with 16 missiles is more than enough...
One sub, 16 missiles, 1 crew, 1 captain... You do realize how high the chance of everything going to poo there is? They can simply lose communications, captain could`ve lost the nuke key while taking a dump in the toilet, maybe the ICBM will get stuck in launch pad... possibilities are endless, you are putting all your faith of MAD into 1 vessel and into an idea that its somehow has a god mode on it... Maybe Putin himself would infiltrate the sub and blow it up. 007 style.
To put this again into historical perspective, die-hard soviet crew of a sub, with nuclear capabilities which was getting depth-charged by Americans and having lost all comms with Moscow and absolutely certain that WW3 had started did not use their nuclear arsenal.
