Free Republic

The Defense Department is seeking "alternative concepts" to cut the huge cost of acquiring new submarines armed with nuclear ballistic missiles that would patrol the world's oceans for decades to come, according to DOD's No. 2 policy official. Defense Secretary Robert Gates questioned the program's affordability last month, days before launching a broad push to find savings across the department. The new SSBN(X) subs would replace the existing Ohio-class boomers that DOD considers the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. The Navy estimates the lead SSBN(X), slated for purchase in 2019, would cost $9 billion, and a dozen would...

Because of opposition from the Liberal Democrats to the program, Britain's new government will revisit the costs of replacing the Trident nuclear deterrent. Once first results trickled in, it was clear that Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg would be the kingmaker. And he was. Now the junior partner in a coalition with Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, Clegg will try to leave a mark in British politics over the next years. There is hardly any issue on which both parties are so starkly apart than military spending. While the Conservatives have accused Gordon Brown's Labor government of underfunding the armed...

Russia has completed yet another investigation into repeated failures of its new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile). The latest finding is that there was a design flaw in the third stage of the missile. Earlier investigations had found faulty missile components, the use of cheap component substitutes and poor manufacturing practices. But now the Russians believe they have identified and fixed all the flaws, and are planning several more test firings this year. So far, only five of the 13 test firings were successful. Some insiders assert that only one of the 13 tests was an unqualified success. This...

While the new Russian Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) continues to fail flight tests, its U.S. counterpart, the much older, 58 ton, 44 foot long Trident II, has not failed to launch successfully in twenty years. Since 1989, none of more than 120 test launches have failed. The Trident had two failures during its 49 development test launches, but since then, it has been the most reliable SLBM to ever enter service. Each Trident II costs about $65 million, and entered service in 1990. Some of them are fired every year, to insure that the current configuration (of hardware...