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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

UK plan for Trident replacement takes shape

Vanguard-classThe UK's next-generation ballistic-missile submarines will have 12 missile tubes rather than the 16 aboard the existing Vanguard-class Trident-armed submarines, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on 17 March.

"Our latest assessment is that we can meet this requirement with 12 - not 16 - missile tubes, as are on current submarines," Brown told the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference in London.

The earlier Resolution-class Polaris submarines were armed with 16 tubes, the same number as are installed on US Polaris and Poseidon armed submarines, while the US Navy's current Ohio-class Trident submarines have 24 launch tubes.

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1 comment:

  1. A reduction is a surprise but I suppose the Russians dropped from 20 to 16 tubes as well.

    Pete

    ReplyDelete

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