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Trident: Does the Nuclear Deterrent Work?

Dan Snow's History Hit

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Is There Always a British Submarine on Patrol?

It is still standard practice for the royal navy to have on patrol permanently, one of its four nuclear armed vangard class submarines ready to fire at the moment. The boats deploy with up to forty trident war heads, each of which is reckoned to have an explosive yield of somewhere between 90 and a hundred killotons. To put that in perspective, the bonb that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki were estimated at around 14 and 18 kila tons. So these are about seven or eight times more explosive than the bombs that levelled those two cities in august 19 forty five at the end of world war two.

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