Читать книгу Under Pressure. Living Life and Avoiding Death on a Nuclear Submarine онлайн

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Britain had joined the trans-Atlantic programme in 1960 but had struggled to revamp the newer missiles to its existing squadron of Vulcan bombers, the beautifully designed delta-winged, high-altitude strategic planes that had been Britain’s carrier of nuclear weapons since November 1953. With the withdrawal of airborne-launched ballistic missile systems, the plan was to switch to submarine-launched ballistic missiles, giving rise to the Polaris submarine programme. Britain would have their own submarines but would be supplied with American Polaris missiles. Building of the subs began in 1964, with Resolution being commissioned and finished in 1967, and completing her first patrol in 1968. Along with the other three subs comprising 10th Submarine Squadron’s Polaris fleet, until its decommissioning and replacement by Trident beginning in October 1994, Resolution was the most powerful weapon of war ever built in this country.

With the advances in missile defence made by the Soviets in the 1970s, it was deemed that the existing Polaris warheads were vulnerable to interception around the major Soviet cities, particularly Moscow. The way around this was to develop a system whereby the missiles on re-entry would launch a multitude of decoys and counter-measures that would offer too many incomprehensible targets, thus overwhelming Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences while the real warheads slipped through. This became known as the Chevaline Warhead System, and had been kept in strict secrecy by successive Labour and Tory administrations. It was a wholly British design and represented a fundamental shift away from methods used in the American programme. By 1982, Britain, with this new warhead in place, had a fully independent deterrent missile system.