Nuclear tipped Tomahawks are featured 40 seconds in.
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Even compared to Trump China is a more extreme and unsubtle bully in its foreign relations with less powerful nations in the Asia-Pacific. Australia really needs to consider submarine torpedo tube launched nuclear tipped cruise missiles (SLCMs) to be capable of deterring future Chinese aggression. Perhaps the future Shortfins will mount such nuclear SLCMs.
Perhaps the US restarting production of the BGM-109A Tomahawk Land Attack [Cruise] Missiles – Nuclear (TLAM-A) with a W80 thermonuclear warhead may be the quickest way to nuclear arm Australia, Japan and South Korea. Perhaps nuclear TLAM-As still exist disassembled in storage?
To give an idea of plain Chinese bullying behaviour Angus Grigg and Laura Tingle have written an excellent commentary in the Australian Financial Review, March 23, 2017, which begins:
"Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has urged Australia not to take sides as happened during the cold war, warning strategic tensions in the region threatened prosperity, as he held out the prospect of greater access for Australian products and services to China.
On the first day
of his official visit [to Australia], the Premier issued a less than subtle reminder that
Australia enjoyed a $US50 billion trade surplus with China last year and
suggested this could be jeopardised by instability in the region.
"We don't
want to see taking sides, as happened during the Cold War," he told a
lunch hosted by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at Parliament House on [March
23, 2017]...”
Pete
8 comments:
There is still time to design in a VLS plug which is better for salvo and weapons management. But feature creep will cost money which DCNS may not mind.
KQN
Hi Pete
Deployment of THAAD in SK made China furious, and she is bullying thoroughly SK. Especially, Lotte who offer land for THAA was under cyber attack [1]. Australia should beware of China. If Austrail makes her angry, she will not hesitate to stop ore import from Australia.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/southkorea-usa-thaad-lotte-idUSL4N1FR15K
Regards
@Pete
I don't see the US lacking in nuclear deterrent. It probably has nearly 10x the deliverable nuclear weapons that China has. Unless the US is willing to start a nuclear war, which I don't think is a good idea, the idea is pointless. What WOULD be useful is an increased capability to use standoff weapons against mainland targets, but even more so, the absolute will and appearance of being ready to use them against not only military targets but economic and political targets. IE, if the CCP thinks their club house is going to blow up and that instead of sinking their carrier, the US is ready to blow up the yard they are built in, I suspect there would be a real deterrent effect. Where as the US clearly isn't going to start a nuclear war over anything in the Pacific rim unless someone else pops a nuke first. Although at that point, China has conveniently made a half dozen targets in the SCS that can be nuked without fear of civilian casualties.
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Josh
Yeah over the SCS I suspect:
All Xi is saying is, give war a chance.
https://youtu.be/0yU0JuE1jTk?t=15s
Cheers
Pete
Hi Anonymous [at 24/3/17 10:27 PM]
Truly regrettable is China's fiend-like DDOS attack on South Korea's Lotte Duty Free shop.
Nuclear SLCMs can be rather problematical:
"During the course of its flight along this “ingress route” a Tomahawk missile can
drift off course and fly into the terrain that is supposed to guide it – an event
known as “clobbering.” During the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003,
approximately ten conventionally-armed Tomahawk missiles went astray, crashing in
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran. In response to the political fallout from these stray
missiles, the Navy suspended launches of Tomahawk missiles from ships in the
Mediterranean and Red Seas. These Tomahawks were newer and had more modern guidance
systems than the nuclear versions kept in storage since 1992."
"Navy officials are rightly concerned about the political consequences if a US nuclear
weapon were to fall in a friendly country like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea or
Japan. The 1966 crash of a US B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons near
Palomares, Spain – which strained relations with US allies and eventually resulted in
changes to US Air Force operational practices – remains a potent memory."
See:
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/202560/why-the-navy-should-retire-tlam-n/
I suggest reading the entire article, it has some interesting food for thought on the
dangers of nuclear SLCMs.
Hi Anonymous of 25/3/17 2:42 PM
Yes, nothing happened in terms of America's nuclear tipped Tomahawks.
But wait Pakistan is intentionaly developing nuclear tipped Babur SLCMs [1] for quick use in the South Asian cold war against India. One cannot even pin on America - the risk of a jihadi hacker tampering with nuclear Baburs! Not to be outdone India is a developing a potential nuclear SLCM counter - the Nirbhay cruise missile [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babur_(cruise_missile)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirbhay#Description
Cheers
Pete
"But wait Pakistan is intentionaly developing nuclear tipped Babur SLCMs [1] for quick
use in the South Asian cold war against India."
The Babur may have been developed by reverse-engineering Tomahawk cruise missiles that
"clobbered" in Pakistan:
"Pakistan’s Babur-3 submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) that was tested just
weeks ago in the Indian Ocean is an evolution of the land-based Babur-2. The Babur
series of cruise missiles were developed partially via reverse engineering US Navy
BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles that crashed in Pakistan in 1998."
See:
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/6959/pakistan-closer-to-nuclear-second-strike-capability-after-sub-missile-test
================
"There has been widespread speculation that Pakistan had access to unexploded
Tomahawk BGM 109 cruise missiles launched by the US on targets in Afghanistan2 and the
Babur is the result of reverse engineering the Tomahawk missile. There are obvious
similarities in the two missiles."
See:
http://eprints.nias.res.in/345/1/2007_R-5_An_Assessment_of_Pakistan%27s_Babur_HATF_7_Cruise_Missile.pdf
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