150-625: The Polaris Sales Agreement was a treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom which began the UK Polaris programme . The agreement was signed on 6 April 1963. It formally arranged the terms and conditions under which the Polaris missile system was provided to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom had been planning to buy the air-launched Skybolt missile to extend the operational life of
300-550: A phenolic thermosetting material infused with quartz fibres , in the heat shield of the warheads, which also acted as a defence against irradiation . Its adoption by the British warhead saved on research, but required a redesign of their warhead. The new warhead was designated the A-3TK, the old one being the A-3T. In 1972 Chevaline was estimated to cost £235 million. Agreement was reached with
450-634: A Joint Steering Task Group that met regularly to provide advice. This was accepted, and would become part of the final agreement. However, a follow-up British mission under Leslie Williams, the Director General Atomic Weapons at the Ministry of Aviation, whose members included Challens and Rear Admiral Frederick Dossor, was given a letter by the SPO with a list of subjects that were off limits. These included penetration aids , which were held to be outside
600-590: A Labour government that retention of a British Polaris force was necessary." In June 1968 it was agreed that the Polaris boats would be assigned to NATO. On 14 June 1969, Commander Henry Ellis, the head of the Royal Navy's Plans Division, formally notified his RAF counterpart that the Royal Navy was assuming the responsibility for the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent. For submarine captains accustomed to patrols in other submarines,
750-690: A Polaris missile, at an estimated cost of between £30 million and £40 million. The alternative was to make a British copy of the W58. While the AWRE was familiar with the W47 warhead used in the A2, it knew nothing of the W58. A presidential determination was required to release information on the W58 under the MDA, but with this in hand, a mission led by John Challens , the Chief of Warhead Development at
900-441: A Polaris patrol required a different mindset. Instead of locating, stalking and closing on prospective targets, the Polaris boat was itself the hunted, and had to avoid any contact with other vessels. For submariners accustomed to diesel-powered boats, the Polaris boats were very pleasant indeed. There was no need to conserve water, as there was distilling capacity to spare, so the crew could have hot showers and laundry facilities. Nor
1050-437: A budget of $ 2 billion. SPO had to overcome formidable technological challenges; but its success was also due to Burke's marketing of Polaris as a second strike weapon. In this role, its capabilities were highlighted and its limitations minimised. The first Polaris boat, USS George Washington , fired a Polaris missile on 20 July 1960, and commenced its initial operational patrol on 16 November 1960. The idea of moving
1200-630: A complicating factor was foreseen, but it had experience with nuclear weapons development. Mackenzie had been the Flag Officer Submarines until 31 December 1962, when Le Fanu had appointed him the Chief Polaris Executive (CPE). As such, he was directly answerable to Le Fanu as Controller of the Navy. His CPE staff was divided between London and Foxhill, near Bath, Somerset , where Royal Navy had its ship design, logistics and weapons groups. It
1350-664: A copy of the W58. However, this would require techniques and equipment not employed in the UK before, and the AWRE Warhead Safety Coordinating Committee (WSCC) reported in December 1963 that the design of the W58 primary did not meet UK safety standards. The decision was therefore taken in March 1964 to substitute the British fission primary , codenamed "Katie", used in the WE.177 B developed for Skybolt. The fusion secondary
1500-681: A debate in the House of Commons on 24 January 1980. Sea trials were held in November 1980. The system became operational in mid-1982 on Renown , followed by Revenge in 1983, Resolution in 1985, and Repulse in 1987. One hundred A-3TK warheads were produced between 1979 and 1982. The final cost reached £1,025 million. However, the Public Accounts Committee noted that due to inflation, £1 billion in April 1981 (equivalent to £3.87 billion in 2023)
1650-650: A deep technical mission to the United States to study the latest developments in the design of ballistic missile submarines. They met with Rear Admiral Pete Galantin , Raborn's successor as the head of SPO, and executives at the Electric Boat Company , which was building the American Polaris boats. While it was desirable to hew closely to the American design, this would involve retooling the British shipyards and purchasing American equipment. An alternative proposal
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#17328516195391800-455: A deterrent effect as the ability to destroy forty. The Admiralty considered the possibility of hybrid submarines that could operate as hunter-killers while carrying eight Polaris missiles, but McNamara noted that this would be inefficient, as twice as many submarines would need to be on station to maintain the deterrent, and cautioned that the effect of tinkering with the US Navy's 16-missile layout
1950-406: A deterrent. To address this problem, the United Kingdom embarked on the development of a Medium Range Ballistic Missile called Blue Streak . By 1959—before it had even entered service—serious concerns had been raised about its own vulnerability, as it was liquid-fuelled and deployed above ground, and therefore extremely vulnerable to a pre-emptive nuclear strike . The Royal Navy began seeking
2100-502: A distance sufficient to allow attacking personnel to evade the effect of the weapon or defensive fire from the target area. Typically, they are used against land- and sea-based targets in an offensive operation. The name is derived from their ability to engage the target while standing off outside the range at which the defenders are likely to engage the attacker. Typical stand-off weapons include cruise missiles , glide bombs and short-range ballistic missiles . Standoff missiles belong to
2250-459: A fault in the American neutron initiators , and had to be repeated as Flintlock/Charcoal on 10 September 1965. This tested a design of the ET.317 using less plutonium. With four Polaris boats each carrying 16 missiles each with three warheads, there were 192 warheads in total. This modification therefore saved 166 kg of plutonium worth £2.5 million. Additional active materials required were obtained from
2400-452: A few miles from Glasgow . At least one submarine was always on patrol to provide a continuous at-sea deterrent. In the 1970s it was considered that the re-entry vehicles were vulnerable to the Soviet anti-ballistic missile screen concentrated around Moscow . To ensure that a credible and independent nuclear deterrent was maintained, the UK developed an improved front end named Chevaline . There
2550-546: A finger on the nuclear trigger through multinational crewing of the ships carrying the nuclear missiles. On 7 November 1962, McNamara met with Kennedy, and recommended that Skybolt be cancelled. He then briefed the British Ambassador to the United States , David Ormsby-Gore . At a conference in the Caribbean, Macmillan insisted that the UK would be retaining an independent deterrent capability. Kennedy's offer of Hound Dog
2700-637: A joint discovery, but the United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) ended technical cooperation. The British government feared resurgence of United States isolationism , as had occurred after the First World War , in which case the UK might have to fight an aggressor alone; or that the UK might lose its great power status and its influence in world affairs. It therefore restarted its own development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research . The first British atomic bomb
2850-464: A new 200-kilotonne-of-TNT (840 TJ) W58 warhead to penetrate improved Soviet anti-missile defences expected to become available around 1970. A decision was therefore required on whether to purchase the old A2 missile or the new A3. The Zuckerman mission came out in favour of the new A3 missile, although it was still under development and not expected to enter service until August 1964, as the deterrent would remain credible for much longer. The decision
3000-494: A new Mark 2 weapon bay housing three re-entry vehicles. This arrangement was originally described as a "cluster warhead" but was replaced with the term Multiple Re-Entry Vehicle (MRV). They were not independently targeted (as a MIRV missile is) but the three warheads were spread about a common target, landing about 1 nautical mile (1.9 km) apart and one second apart so as to not be affected by each other's radiation pulse . They were stated to be equivalent in destructive power to
3150-538: A new base was undertaken by the Ministry of Public Building and Works . Construction was not straightforward, as the ground was rocky and the rainfall was high. Works included a new jetty, accommodation, recreational facilities, workshops, emergency power sources, a mobile repair facility and a calibration laboratory. The new base opened in August 1968. It was served by a weapons store at nearby Coulport . HM Dockyard, Rosyth ,
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#17328516195393300-460: A new design. The 130-metre (425 ft) boat would have a displacement of 7,600 tonnes (7,500 long tons), more than twice that of HMS Dreadnought , the Royal Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine. Following British practice, the boats would be identical, with no deviation allowed. The value of this was driven home by a visit to the submarine tender USS Hunley , where the costs of non-standard components were evident. The project
3450-505: A nuclear role as early as 1945, when the Naval Staff suggested the possibility of launching missiles with atomic warheads from ships or submarines. In 1948 it proposed using carrier-based aircraft for nuclear weapons delivery , although atomic bombs small enough to be carried by them did not yet exist. Its "carriers versus bombers" debate with the RAF resembled the similar inter-service dispute in
3600-461: A result of purely British requirements. This added about £2 million to the cost of the system. The government denied speculation that the Nassau Agreement permitted the addition of electronic mechanisms in the missile to give the United States a veto over its use. The A-3 missile that replaced the earlier A-1 and A-2 models in the US Navy had a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km) and
3750-638: A single one-megaton warhead. It was believed that the MRV arrangement would also make the warhead harder to intercept with an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) similar to that of the American Nike Zeus system. Testing of the A-3, with its new guidance and re-entry packages commenced on 7 August 1962, and continued until 2 July 1964. Thirty-eight test firings were carried out, with the longest range achieved being 2,284 nautical miles (4,230 km). The first submerged launch
3900-507: A total of 128 missiles, with 128 one-megaton warheads. It was subsequently decided to halve this, based on the decision that the ability to destroy twenty Soviet cities would have nearly as great a deterrent effect as the ability to destroy forty. The Admiralty considered the possibility of hybrid submarines that could operate as hunter-killers while carrying eight Polaris missiles, but McNamara noted that this would be inefficient, as twice as many submarines would need to be on station to maintain
4050-437: A typical patrol might include 1,587 kilograms (3,500 lb) of beef, 2,268 kilograms (5,000 lb) of potatoes, 5,000 eggs, 1,000 chickens, 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) of sausages, and 1 tonne (0.98 LT) of beans. Polaris skippers paid great attention to morale on their boats, which tended to sag around the fifth and sixth weeks of a patrol. The original US Navy Polaris had not been designed to penetrate ABM defences, but
4200-489: A veto on the use of British nuclear weapons. The British Resolution -class Polaris ballistic missile submarines were built on time and under budget, and came to be seen as a credible deterrent. Along with the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the Polaris Sales Agreement became a pillar of the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and the United States. The agreement was amended in 1982 to provide for
4350-598: A voice in the planning process without full access to nuclear weapons, while the Standing Naval Force Atlantic was established as a joint naval task force, to which NATO nations contributed ships rather than ships having multinational crews. There was little dissent in the House of Commons from the government's nuclear weapons policy; it had bipartisan support until 1960, with only the Liberals temporarily dissenting in 1958. Despite opposition from its left wing
4500-593: The Resolution class . Resolution was launched on 15 September 1965, and commissioned on 2 October 1967. Resolution conducted a test firing at the American Eastern Range on 15 February 1968. The first Cammell Laird boat, Renown followed, and was launched on 25 February 1967. The second Vickers boat, Repulse , was launched on 11 November 1967. Concerns about the Walney Channel proved justified; when
4650-612: The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell was directed towards development of a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor which January 1952 studies showed was too large for use by the Royal Navy, and not into a Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) of the kind that the US Navy had under development, as the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority did not see this kind of reactor as having civil application. Submarine propulsion research
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4800-659: The Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence , left for the United States to discuss Polaris on 8 January 1963. It included the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff , Vice Admiral Sir Varyl Begg ; the Deputy Secretary of the Admiralty, James Mackay; Rear Admiral Hugh Mackenzie ; and physicist Sir Robert Cockburn and F. J. Doggett from the Ministry of Aviation. That the involvement of the Ministry of Aviation might be
4950-721: The Hound Dog air-launched cruise missile , which was cheaper, more accurate, and actually worked; the first five Skybolt test launches were all failures. McNamara was also concerned about the UK retaining an independent nuclear force, and worried that the US could be drawn into a nuclear war by the UK. He sought to draw the UK into a Multilateral Force (MLF), an American concept under which North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nuclear weapons would remain in US custody, thereby heading off nuclear proliferation within NATO, but all NATO nations would have
5100-631: The Polaris Sales Agreement , which was signed on 6 April 1963. British politicians did not like to talk about "dependence" on the United States, preferring to describe the Special Relationship as one of "interdependence". As had been feared, the President of France , Charles de Gaulle , vetoed the UK's application for admission to the EEC on 14 January 1963, citing the Nassau Agreement as one of
5250-658: The Quebec Conference in August 1943, the prime minister , Winston Churchill , and the president of the United States , Franklin Roosevelt , signed the Quebec Agreement , which merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined British, American and Canadian project. The British government trusted that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as
5400-464: The V bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF), but the possibility of the crewed bomber becoming obsolete by the late 1960s due to improvements in anti-aircraft defences was foreseen. In 1953, work began on a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) called Blue Streak , but by 1958, there were concerns about the vulnerability of this liquid-propellant-missile to a pre-emptive nuclear strike . To extend
5550-533: The hunter-killer submarine programme. The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John , denounced the "millstone of Polaris hung around our necks" as "potential wreckers of the real navy". The number of missiles required was based on substituting for Skybolt. To achieve the same capability, the BNDSG calculated that this would require eight Polaris submarines, each of which would have 16 missiles, for
5700-633: The 24 in the American Ohio class . The first Vanguard -class submarine, HMS Vanguard , entered operational service in December 1994, by which time the Cold War had ended. UK Polaris programme The United Kingdom's Polaris programme , officially named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System , provided its first submarine -based nuclear weapons system . Polaris was in service from 1968 to 1996. Polaris itself
5850-521: The A-3. With a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km), it had a new weapons bay housing three re-entry vehicles (REBs or Re-Entry Bodies in US Navy parlance) and a new 200-kilotonne-of-TNT (840 TJ) W58 warhead expected to become available around 1970. A decision was urgently required on whether to purchase the old A-2 missile or the new A-3, as the A-2 production lines would shut down within two years. The Zuckerman mission came out strongly in favour of
6000-543: The AWRE and the Admiralty. While it could not be carried by the ten George Washington - and Ethan Allen -class boats, it could be accommodated on the British Resolution class. Zuckerman attended a meeting with Rear Admiral Levering Smith , the director of SPO, and John S. Foster, Jr. , the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , at which the provision of Poseidon to the UK
6150-520: The AWRE, visited the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory from 22 to 24 January 1963, and was shown details of the W58. The Zuckerman mission found the SPO helpful and forthcoming, but there was one major shock. The British were expected to contribute to the research and development costs of the A3, backdated to 1 January 1963. These were expected to top $ 700 million by 1968. Skybolt had been offered to
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6300-723: The Admiralty complex there, spread over three different sites. To allow the Polaris Executive to be co-located, a block of single-storey prefabricated offices was built at Foxhill on the south side of Bath, which was occupied in February 1964. By 1966, including allocated but not designated staff, the Polaris Executive had 38 staff at the London office, 430 in Bath, 5 at the Ministry of Aviation , and 31 in Washington. An early issue that arose concerned
6450-550: The Americans to conduct another series of tests in Nevada. The first of these, Arbor/Fallon, was conducted on 23 May 1974. By 1975, the cost of Chevaline had risen to £400 million, but it was protected from the budget cuts that affected the rest of defence spending by its own secrecy. Its main technical problem was that the PAC was heavier than the warhead it replaced, which reduced the range of
6600-459: The Americans were given permission to base the US Navy's Polaris boats at Holy Loch in Scotland. The financial arrangement was particularly favourable to the UK, as the US was charging only the unit cost of Skybolt, absorbing all the research and development costs. Far from taking this as a defeat, the Royal Navy's planning for the eventual purchase of Polaris was accelerated. A June 1960 paper by
6750-604: The British V bombers , but the United States decided to cancel the Skybolt program in 1962 as it no longer needed the missile. The crisis created by the cancellation prompted an emergency meeting between the President of the United States , John F. Kennedy , and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , Harold Macmillan , which resulted in the Nassau Agreement , under which the United States agreed to provide Polaris missiles to
6900-799: The Chief Polaris Executive (CPE); the term was henceforth used to refer to both the man and his organisation. Rowland Baker, who had been the head of the Dreadnought Project Team, was appointed the Technical Director. Captain C. W. H. Shepard, who had worked on the Seaslug missile project, became the Deputy Director for Weapons, and Captain Leslie Bomford was appointed the Polaris Logistics Officer. The creation of this position
7050-426: The Director General, Weapons, Rear Admiral Michael Le Fanu , recommended that a Polaris project should be created along the same lines as SPO. The Kennedy administration expressed serious doubts about Skybolt. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was highly critical of the US bomber fleet, which he doubted was cost effective in the missile age. Skybolt suffered from rising costs, and offered few benefits over
7200-413: The Foreign Office argued that Britain must support the MLF. The Nassau Agreement had invigorated the MLF effort in the United States. Kennedy appointed Livingston T. Merchant to negotiate the MLF with the European governments, which he did in February and March 1963. While reaffirming support for those parts of the Nassau Agreement concerning the MLF, the British were successful in getting them omitted from
7350-552: The Labour party supported British nuclear weapons but opposed tests, and Labour Opposition Leader Hugh Gaitskell and shadow foreign secretary Aneurin Bevan agreed with Sandys on the importance of reducing dependence on the American deterrent. Bevan told his colleagues that their demand for unilateral nuclear disarmament would send a future Labour government "naked into the conference chamber" during international negotiations. Gaitskell's Labour party ceased supporting an independent deterrent in 1960 via its new "Policy for Peace", after
7500-435: The Nassau conference. He found McNamara eager to help, and enthusiastic about the idea of Polaris costing as little as possible. The first issue identified was how many Polaris boats should be built. While the Vulcans to carry Skybolt were already in service, the submarines to carry Polaris were not, and there was no provision in the defence budget for them. Some naval officers feared that their construction would adversely impact
7650-425: The Pacific or Indian Ocean, but with only four a depot ship would be required, which would cost around £18 to £20 million. A base would be required, and Fremantle in Australia was suggested. In any case, it would not be possible before all four boats were operational. The proposal ran into opposition from the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Lyman Lemnitzer , who pressed on 2 January 1967 to have
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#17328516195397800-470: The Polaris Sales Agreement to delete the exclusion of penetrating aids. Under the Polaris Sales Agreement, the United Kingdom paid a five per cent levy on the cost of equipment supplied in recognition of US research and development costs already incurred. For Trident, a payment of $ 116 million was substituted. The United Kingdom procured the Trident system from America and fitted them to their own submarines, which had only 16 missile tubes like Polaris rather than
7950-424: The Polaris Sales Agreement. The British team completed drafting the agreement in March 1963, and copies were circulated for discussion. The contracts for their construction were announced that month. The Polaris boats would be the largest submarines built in Britain up to that time, and would be built by Vickers Armstrong Shipbuilders in Barrow-in-Furness and Cammell Laird in Birkenhead . For similar reasons to
8100-405: The Polaris boats assigned to NATO as promised under the Nassau Agreement. In January 1968, the issue became moot when Cabinet decided to withdraw British forces from East of Suez . The prospect of cancelling Polaris was also discussed, but Wilson fought for its retention. In the end, "the economic, strategic and diplomatic benefits of the Polaris system were even ultimately great enough to persuade
8250-455: The Polaris boats to NATO, in accord with the Nassau Agreement. The first decision required was how many Polaris boats should be built. While the Avro Vulcans to carry Skybolt were already in service, the submarines to carry Polaris were not, and there was no provision in the defence budget for them. Some naval officers feared that their construction would adversely impact the hunter-killer submarine programme. The number of missiles required
8400-512: The Polaris boats, signifying that they were the capital ships of their time. All were named after ships that Mountbatten had served on. The first boat, HMS Resolution , was laid down by Vickers on 26 February 1964; the second, HMS Renown , by Cammell Laird on 26 June 1964. They were followed by two more boats the following year, one at each yard: HMS Repulse at Barrow on 16 June 1965, and HMS Revenge at Birkenhead on 19 May 1965. The Polaris boats became known as
8550-499: The Port crew, and Commander Kenneth Frewer, the Starboard crew. On 16 October 1964, in the midst of the election campaign that brought the Wilson government to office, China conducted its first nuclear test . This led to fears that India might follow suit. Consideration was therefore given to the possibility of basing Polaris boats in the Far East. A planning paper was drawn up in January 1965. The Navy Department reported that with five boats it would be possible to have one on patrol in
8700-424: The RNPS to have equipment that looked identical to an actual Polaris submarine, and performed or simulated its operation. Would-be submarine captains went through the Submarine Command Course , known as the Perisher. This had always been an extremely tough course; now it became tougher still. It was designed to test candidates to their utmost, and to allow them to explore and accept their limitations. Despite passing
8850-412: The Royal Navy a nuclear submarine reactor, which would allow it to immediately proceed with building its own nuclear-powered submarine. The British government endorsed this idea, as it saved a great deal of money. The British development of the hydrogen bomb , and a favourable international relations climate created by the Sputnik crisis , facilitated the amendment of the McMahon Act to permit this, and
9000-415: The Royal Navy had to ensure that its small Polaris force operating alone, and often with only one submarine on deterrent patrol, could penetrate the ABM screen around Moscow. The Americans upgraded to Poseidon, which had MIRV warheads. Although it suffered from reliability problems that were not completely resolved until 1974, it represented a clear improvement over Polaris, and became the preferred option of
9150-401: The Royal Navy project officer in Washington, D.C., while Captain Phil Rollings became the US Navy project officer in London. The Joint Steering Task Group held its first meeting in Washington on 26 June 1963. The shipbuilding programme would prove to be a remarkable achievement, with the four Resolution -class submarines built on time and within the budget. The first boat, HMS Resolution
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#17328516195399300-427: The Royal Navy's list of priorities, and the Royal Navy Submarine Service had formed, like the Fleet Air Arm , something of a private navy within the Royal Navy. Unlike the Fleet Air Arm though, it had no representation on the Board of the Admiralty such as the Fleet Air Arm enjoyed through the Fifth Sea Lord , and the only submarine flag officer billet was FOSM. Few submariners expected to rise to flag rank, but this
9450-421: The Royal Navy. The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John , denounced the "millstone of Polaris hung around our necks" as "potential wreckers of the real navy". Even among the submariners there was a notable lack of enthusiasm for lurking in the depths staying out of trouble as opposed to the more active mission of the hunter-killer submarines. In earlier times submarine construction had been low on
9600-410: The UK at unit cost , with the US absorbing the research and development costs, but no such agreement had been reached at Nassau for Polaris. Thorneycroft baulked at the prospect of paying research and development costs, but McNamara pointed out that the United States Congress would not stand for an agreement that placed all the burden on the United States. Macmillan instructed the British Ambassador to
9750-410: The UK would have to either follow suit or maintain Polaris alone. "True to form", commented Patrick Gordon Walker , "we either buy weapons which don’t exist or buy those destined for the junkyard of Steptoe & Son ." Under Article XI of the Polaris Sales Agreement, the UK contributed five per cent of research and development costs of Polaris incurred after 1 January 1963, plus any costs incurred as
9900-406: The US Army to develop the Jupiter missile , although there were concerns about the viability and safety of a liquid-fuel rocket at sea. To handle the Navy's side of the joint project, the United States Secretary of the Navy , Charles Thomas , created the Special Projects Office (SPO), with Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr. , a naval aviator , as its director. Apart from nuclear propulsion,
10050-457: The US Navy, the Royal Navy decided to base the boats at Faslane , on the Gareloch , not far from the US Navy's base on the Holy Loch. The drawback of the site was that it isolated the Polaris boats from the rest of the navy. The Polaris Sales Agreement was signed in Washington, D.C., on 6 April 1963 by Ormsby-Gore and Dean Rusk , the United States Secretary of State . The two liaison officers were appointed in April; Captain Peter la Niece became
10200-448: The US. Some 5.37 tonnes of UK-produced plutonium was exchanged for 6.7 kg of tritium and 7.5 tonnes of highly enriched uranium between 1960 and 1979. Warhead manufacture commenced in December 1966. It was originally estimated that Polaris would require 6,000 officers and men. Although less than what had been required for the V-bombers, this was still substantial, and the well-trained personnel required had to be found from within
10350-409: The United Kingdom instead. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided for the implementation of the Nassau Agreement. The United States would supply the United Kingdom with Polaris missiles, launch tubes, and the fire control system . The United Kingdom would manufacture the warheads and submarines. In return, the US was given certain assurances by the United Kingdom regarding the use of the missile, but not
10500-433: The United Kingdom. This was led by Paul H. Nitze , the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs , and included Walt W. Rostow , the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department , and Admiral Ignatius J. Galantin , the head of the SPO. The Americans had ideas about how the programme should be organised. They foresaw the UK Polaris programme having project officers from both countries, with
10650-434: The United States , Sir David Ormsby-Gore , to inform Kennedy that Britain was not willing to commit to an open-ended sharing of research and development costs, but, as a compromise, would pay an additional five per cent for each missile. He asked that Kennedy be informed that a breakdown of the Nassau Agreement would likely cause the fall of his government. Ormsby-Gore met with Kennedy that very day, and while Kennedy noted that
10800-751: The United States at this time that led to the " Revolt of the Admirals ". The demand for a nuclear-capable carrier bomber led to the development of the Blackburn Buccaneer . It required a small warhead, which drove the development of the Red Beard . The Defence Research Policy Committee (DRPC) considered the prospect of arming submarines with nuclear missiles, but its March 1954 report highlighted technical problems that it did not expect to be resolved for many years. Studies of nuclear reactors for nuclear marine propulsion commenced in December 1949, but research at
10950-399: The United States to discuss Polaris on 8 January 1963. It included the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff , Vice Admiral Sir Varyl Begg ; the Deputy Secretary of the Admiralty, James Mackay; Rear Admiral Hugh Mackenzie ; physicist Sir Robert Cockburn ; and F. J. Doggett from the Ministry of Aviation. Its principal finding was that the Americans had developed a new version of the Polaris missile,
11100-533: The United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as a joint discovery, but the 1946 McMahon Act ended cooperation. Fearing a resurgence of United States isolationism , and Britain losing its great power status, the British government restarted its own development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research . The first British atomic bomb was tested in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952. The subsequent British development of
11250-403: The United States. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided an established framework for negotiations over missiles and re-entry systems. The legal agreement took the form of amending the Polaris Sales Agreement through an exchange of notes between the two governments so that "Polaris" in the original now also covered the purchase of Trident. There were also some amendments to the classified annexes of
11400-532: The Vickers yard still managed to complete the hunter-killer Valiant in 1966 and Warspite the following year. The final boat, Revenge , was completed on 4 December 1969. There was concern in 1966 when it was discovered that the distance between the bulkheads in the torpedo storage department on Renown differed from that on Resolution by 1 inch (25 mm). An even more disturbing revelation occurred in November 1966, when eleven pieces of broken metal were found in
11550-621: The approval of the Board of Admiralty to build a nuclear-powered submarine. This coincided with Admiral Arleigh Burke 's appointment as the US Navy's Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) in August. Mountbatten visited the United States in October, and through his friendship with Burke, arranged for US Navy cooperation in submarine development. Burke's support was crucial, as the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
11700-434: The cancellation of Blue Streak made nuclear independence less likely. Labour also adopted a resolution supporting unilateral disarmament. Although Gaitskell opposed the resolution and it was reversed in 1961 in favour of continuing support of a general Western nuclear deterrent, the party's opposition to a British deterrent remained and became more prominent. Macmillan's government lost a series of by-elections in 1962, and
11850-630: The components had to be ordered by May 1964. The Ministry of Aviation and the Admiralty therefore opted for the Mark 2 Mod 0 RES. To validate the design, a programme of nuclear tests was required, which was estimated to cost around £5.9 million. This was authorised by Douglas-Home on 28 November 1963. A series of underground tests were carried out at the Nevada Test Site in the United States, starting with Whetstone/Cormorant on 17 July 1964. The next test, Whetstone/Courser on 25 September 1964 failed due to
12000-448: The course, some officers still turned down the opportunity to command a Polaris boat, even though it ended their careers. The Royal Navy adopted the US Navy practice of having two crews for each boat, but instead of calling them the "Gold" and "Blue" crews as in the US Navy, they were known as the "Port" and "Starboard" crews. The commanders of the first boat, HMS Resolution , were appointed in October 1965. Commander Michael Henry commanded
12150-473: The deterrent out to sea, Polaris offered the prospect of a deterrent that was invulnerable to a first strike, and reduced the risk of a nuclear strike on the British Isles. The British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group (BNDSG) produced a study that argued that SLBM technology was as yet unproven, that Polaris would be expensive, and that given the time it would take to build the boats, it could not be deployed before
12300-399: The deterrent, and cautioned that the effect of tinkering with the US Navy's 16-missile layout was unpredictable. The Treasury costed a four-boat Polaris fleet at £314 million by 1972/73. A Cabinet Defence Committee meeting on 23 January 1963 approved the plan for four boats, with Thorneycroft noting that four boats would be cheaper and faster to build. A mission led by Sir Solly Zuckerman ,
12450-492: The early 1970s. The Chiefs of Staff Committee therefore recommended the purchase of the American Skybolt , an air-launched ballistic missile , with Polaris as a possible successor in the 1970s. The British government decided to cancel Blue Streak if it could acquire Skybolt. The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan , met with President Dwight Eisenhower at Camp David in March 1960, and arranged to buy Skybolt. In return,
12600-555: The early 1970s. The Cabinet Defence Committee therefore approved the acquisition of Skybolt in February 1960. The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan , met with the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower , in March 1960, and secured permission to buy Skybolt. In return, the Americans could base the US Navy 's Polaris ballistic missile submarines in the Holy Loch in Scotland. The financial arrangement
12750-466: The effectiveness and operational life of the V bombers, an air-launched, rocket-propelled standoff missile called Blue Steel was developed, but it was anticipated that the air defences of the Soviet Union would improve to the extent that V bombers might still find it difficult to attack their targets. A solution appeared to be the American Skybolt missile, which combined the range of Blue Streak with
12900-543: The effectiveness, cost and development time of Polaris compared with that of Blue Streak and the V-bomber force. The working party indeed saw clear advantages in Polaris. At this point, the Minister of Defence , Duncan Sandys , requested a paper on Polaris, and was given one that strongly argued the case for Polaris. Sandys was cautious about Polaris, as it was still under development, so its costs were uncertain. The Air Ministry
13050-514: The entire missile. This drove debate about the number of decoys that were required. The Chief of the Defence Staff, Field Marshal Sir Michael Carver suggested giving up on the "Moscow criterion" and re-targeting Polaris to devastate less strongly defended cities. This was regarded as politically and militarily problematic, but was reluctantly accepted. At the same time, the government elected to press on with Chevaline. Another test, Anvil/Banon,
13200-403: The five per cent offer "was not the most generous offer he had ever heard of", he accepted it. McNamara, certain that the United States was being ripped off, calculated the five per cent on top of not just the missiles, but their fire control and navigation systems as well, adding around £2 million to the bill. On Ormsby-Gore's advice, this formulation was accepted. An American mission now visited
13350-415: The government had already spent £1.5 million upgrading the yard's facilities. The only concern was whether the large Polaris boats could navigate the shallow Walney Channel . A formal letter of intent was sent to Vickers on 18 February, and its selection as lead yard was publicly announced on 11 March 1963. The question then naturally arose as to whether Vickers should build all the Polaris boats. Given
13500-546: The hydrogen bomb , and a favourable international relations climate created by the Sputnik crisis , led to the McMahon Act being amended in 1958, and the restoration of the nuclear Special Relationship in the form of the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA), which allowed Britain to acquire nuclear weapons systems from the United States. Britain's nuclear weapons armament was initially based on free-fall bombs delivered by
13650-515: The initial decision to build four Polaris boats was taken in January 1963, neither the financial nor the operational implications of this decision were certain, so an option to acquire a fifth boat was provided for, with a decision to be taken later in the year. By September 1963, CPE came to the conclusion that a fifth boat was absolutely necessary. Due to the required refit cycles, a five boat force would, at certain times, only have one boat at sea. Given
13800-627: The latter, although it was still under development and not expected to enter service until August 1964, as the deterrent would remain credible for much longer. The decision was endorsed by the First Lord of the Admiralty , Lord Carrington , in May 1963, and was officially made by Thorneycroft on 10 June 1963. While the Zuckerman mission was in Washington, R. J. Daniel of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors led
13950-473: The launch was delayed by half an hour due to a protest by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , the falling tide left insufficient clearance, and the boat became stuck in the mud. The more experienced Vickers yard worked faster than Cammell Laird, and despite labour problems, Repulse was commissioned on 28 September 1968, before Renown on 15 November 1968. This achievement was all the more remarkable because
14100-543: The main reasons. He argued that the UK's dependence on the United States through the purchase of Polaris rendered it unfit to be a member of the EEC. The US policy of attempting to force the UK into their MLF proved to be a failure in light of this decision, and there was little enthusiasm for it from other NATO allies. By 1965, the MLF concept began fading away. Instead, the NATO Nuclear Planning Group gave NATO members
14250-458: The majority of voters agreed with his position. The Labour Party election manifesto called for the Nassau Agreement to be renegotiated, and on 5 October 1964, the leader of the Labour Party , Harold Wilson , criticised the independent British deterrent as neither independent, nor British, nor a deterrent. Douglas-Home narrowly lost to Wilson. In office, Labour retained Polaris, and assigned
14400-476: The meetings was normally agreed about three weeks beforehand via an exchange of teletype messages, with position papers exchanged about a week beforehand. Meetings were normally held over three days. Initially the JSTG met quarterly, but this was reduced to three times a year in 1965. The flow of information tended to be towards the UK. The JSTG was not an adversarial forum, but from the start there were disagreements over
14550-653: The mobile basing of the Blue Steel, and was small enough that two could be carried on an Avro Vulcan bomber. An institutional challenge to Skybolt came from the United States Navy , which was developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the UGM-27 Polaris . The US Chief of Naval Operations , Admiral Arleigh Burke , kept the First Sea Lord , Lord Mountbatten , apprised of its development. By moving
14700-417: The nuclear deterrent away from the densely populated UK and out to sea had considerable appeal in the UK. It not only implicitly addressed the drawbacks of Blue Streak in that it was not vulnerable to a pre-emptive nuclear strike, but invoked the traditional role of the Royal Navy, and its second-strike capability made it a more credible deterrent. In February 1958, Mountbatten created a working party to examine
14850-436: The original system, which reduced the sea-room in which British submarines could hide. The Polaris system was also upgraded through the replacement of the solid fuel motors after some test-firing failures. The re-motoring programme commenced in 1981, and new motors were installed in all missiles by 1988. This cost £300 million. Standoff missile Standoff weapons are missiles or bombs which may be launched from
15000-526: The purposes of international defence of the Western Alliance in all circumstances." A joint statement to this effect, the Nassau Agreement , was issued on 21 December 1962. With the Nassau Agreement in hand, it remained to work out the details. Vice Admiral Michael Le Fanu had a meeting with the United States Secretary of Defense , Robert S. McNamara , on 21 December 1962, the final day of
15150-468: The reactor circuits. Their removal set the programme back two months. The Cammell Laird boats had a reputation for not being as well built as those of Vickers, which was a factor in the subsequent 1969 decision by the Treasury and the Royal Navy to restrict future nuclear submarine construction to a single yard. Revenge and the hunter-killer HMS Conqueror were the last built at Cammell Laird. When
15300-429: The relationship between the Polaris programme and the hunter-killer programme. At this time point, Valiant was under construction, but the second boat of the class, HMS Warspite , was yet to be laid down at Barrow. The possibility of the two projects competing for resources was foreseen, but the Admiralty elected to continue with its construction. The interdependence between the two projects extended well beyond
15450-540: The sale of the Trident missile system. During the early part of the Second World War , Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys . In August 1943, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , Winston Churchill and the President of the United States , Franklin Roosevelt , signed the Quebec Agreement , which merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project . The British government trusted that
15600-399: The scope of the Nassau Agreement. One remaining obstacle in the path of the programme was how it would be integrated with the MLF. The British response to the MLF concept "ranged from unenthusiastic to hostile throughout the military establishment and in the two principal political parties". Apart from anything else, it was estimated to cost as much as £100 million over ten years. Nonetheless,
15750-562: The scope of the Polaris Sales Agreement, which the staff of CPE saw as open-ended, but that of SPO saw as limited in nature. The choice of Vickers-Armstrongs as shipbuilder was a foregone conclusion, as its yard at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria was the only one in the UK with experience in nuclear-powered submarine construction. The firm was thoroughly familiar with the heightened requirements nuclear-powered submarine construction entailed in terms of cleanliness, safety and quality control, and
15900-484: The shipyard; Valiant would be the first boat powered by the Rolls-Royce pressurised water reactor , which would also be used in the new Polaris ballistic missile submarines. In early 1963 the reactor was still in the prototype stage at Dounreay . The overlap between the two projects was sufficiently substantial that in May 1963 it was decided that CPE would be responsible for both. The Joint Steering Task Group (JSTG)
16050-554: The size of the yard and its labour force, and the desired speed of construction, the Admiralty decided that Vickers would build two boats, and the others would be built elsewhere. Tenders were invited from two firms with experience in building conventional submarines, Cammell Laird in Birkenhead , and Scotts in Greenock , on 25 March. Cammell Laird was chosen, and a letter of intent was sent on 7 May 1963. Some £1.6 million of new equipment
16200-531: The standard 56-day US Navy patrol cycle, two boats would be on station 250 days a year. There was also no margin for the possibility of the temporary interruption to service of one boat due to an accident. From an operational point of view, having two boats on patrol meant there was a capability to destroy twenty cities; one would only be capable of destroying seven or eight, based on an assumption of 70 per cent reliability, and Leningrad and Moscow requiring two and four missiles respectively. Two boats also complicate
16350-457: The task of missile defence, as the missiles come from two different directions. The purchase of an additional boat did not necessarily require that of sixteen more missiles, nor even for two more crews, and a second construction line at Cammell Laird permitted work on a fifth boat to proceed without impacting schedules for the other boats. The fifth boat was estimated to cost £18 million; cancellation charges would be less than £1 million. The matter
16500-430: The technologies required for a ballistic missile submarine—a long-range solid propellant rocket, a light-weight thermonuclear warhead, a compact missile guidance system , and an inertial navigation system for the submarine—did not exist in 1955. A turning point came during Project Nobska in the summer of 1956, when Edward Teller predicted that a 270-kilogram (600 lb) warhead would become available by 1963. This
16650-412: The three warheads with multiple decoys, chaff , and other defensive countermeasures , in what was known as a Penetration Aid Carrier (PAC). It was the most technically complex defence project ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. The system also involved "hardening" the warheads—making them resistant to the effects of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The Americans used a material known as 3DPQ,
16800-411: The transfer of submarine reactor technology was incorporated in the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement , which allowed the UK to acquire nuclear weapons systems from the United States, thereby restoring the nuclear Special Relationship . One of Burke's first actions as CNO was to call for a report on the progress of ballistic missile research. The US Navy was involved in a cooperative venture with
16950-481: Was already changing with the ascension of officers like Mackenzie and Luce. In March 1963, it was decided that the Polaris boats would be based at Faslane on the Firth of Clyde , not far from the US Navy's base at Holy Loch. The conventional submarines of the 3rd Submarine Squadron already had a forward base there, with jetties, facilities and the submarine depot ship HMS Maidstone . The design and construction of
17100-789: Was accepted that training of the first two crews at least would have to be conducted in the United States, and arrangements for this were made with SPO. SPO also convinced the US Air Force that the Polaris Sales Agreement meant that the Royal Navy should have access to the Eastern Test Range, for which it was to be charged the same fee as the US Navy. The US Navy had two training facilities, at Dam Neck in Virginia Beach, Virginia , and at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu , Hawaii . They were not identical, and were oriented towards training in maintenance rather than operations. Shepard's group pushed for
17250-415: Was an operational system of four Resolution -class ballistic missile submarines , each armed with 16 Polaris A-3 ballistic missiles. Each missile was able to deliver three ET.317 thermonuclear warheads . This configuration was later upgraded to carry two warheads hardened against the effects of radiation and nuclear electromagnetic pulse , along with a range of decoys. The British Polaris programme
17400-506: Was announced in December 1962 following the Nassau Agreement between the US and the UK. The Polaris Sales Agreement provided the formal framework for cooperation. Construction of the submarines began in 1964, and the first patrol took place in June 1968. All four boats were operational in December 1969. They were operated by the Royal Navy , and based at Clyde Naval Base on Scotland's west coast,
17550-747: Was called in Nassau, Bahamas . Macmillan rejected the US offers of paying half the cost of developing Skybolt, and of supplying the AGM-28 Hound Dog missile instead. This brought options down to Polaris, but the Americans would only supply it on condition that it be used as part of a proposed Multilateral Force (MLF). Kennedy ultimately relented, and agreed to supply Britain with Polaris missiles, while "the Prime Minister made it clear that except where Her Majesty's Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake, these British forces will be used for
17700-549: Was codenamed "Reggie". This became known as the ET.317 . Its development involved an increase of about 500 staff at Aldermaston compared to that anticipated for Skybolt, with 4,500 staff expected to be working on nuclear weapons by 1969. When it came to the Re-Entry System (RES), the US Navy was using the Mark 2 Mod 0 RES, but had a new version, the Mark 2 Mod 1 under development. In order to meet Polaris in-service deadline of May 1968,
17850-532: Was conducted in Nevada on 26 August 1976. By 1979, the cost had risen to £935 million, with test firings conducted from the Eastern Test Range and the Woomera Test Range , including three off Cape Canaveral by Renown , along with another series of nuclear tests in Nevada. Chevaline's existence, along with its formerly secret codename, was revealed by the Secretary of State for Defence, Francis Pym , during
18000-463: Was conducted on 26 October 1963. Most of the problems encountered involved failures of the re-entry body to separate correctly. The A-3 became operational on 28 September 1964, when USS Daniel Webster commenced her first operational patrol. In the wake of the decision to acquire the A-3, a US-UK Joint Re-Entry Systems Working Group (JRSWG) was created to examine issues surrounding the warhead and re-entry vehicle. The Americans revealed that work
18150-502: Was considered by the Cabinet Defence and Overseas Policy Committee on 25 February 1964, and then by the full Cabinet later that morning, and the decision was taken to approve the fifth boat, provided the money could be found elsewhere in the defence budget. After Wilson took office, one of the first acts of the incoming Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healey , was to ask the Navy for the case for building five Polaris boats. This
18300-411: Was controversy when this project became public knowledge in 1980, as it had been kept secret by four successive governments while incurring huge expenditure. Polaris patrols continued until May 1996, by which time the phased handover to the replacement Trident system had been completed. During the early part of the Second World War , the UK had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys . At
18450-399: Was declined; the British government wanted Polaris. Kennedy backed down and abandoned his attempts to persuade the UK to accept the MLF in return for Macmillan's promise to assign UK Polaris boats to NATO. The two leaders concluded the Nassau Agreement , which would see the purchase of US missiles to serve aboard UK-built submarines, on 21 December 1962. This statement was later formalised as
18600-418: Was designated as the refit yard for the Polaris boats, as works were already underway there to support Dreadnought . HM Dockyard, Chatham , was subsequently upgraded to handle the hunter-killer submarines, and Rosyth was reserved for the 10th Submarine Squadron , as the Polaris boats became. To train the required crews, a Royal Navy Polaris School (RNPS) was built adjacent to the base at Faslane, although it
18750-503: Was discussed. While the cost was a factor, the main obstacle was political, and the Wilson government publicly ruled out the purchase of Poseidon in June 1967. Without an agreement on improvement, the Special Relationship began to decay. The Americans were unwilling to share information about warhead vulnerability unless the British were going to proceed to applying it. The result was Chevaline , an improved front end (IFE) that replaced one of
18900-586: Was endorsed by the First Lord of the Admiralty , Lord Carrington , in May 1963, and was officially made by Thorneycroft on 10 June 1963. The choice of the A3 created a problem for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston , for the Skybolt warhead that had recently been tested in the Tendrac nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site in the United States would require a redesigned Re-Entry System (RES) in order to be fitted to
19050-677: Was established by Article II of the Polaris Sales Agreement. It was modelled after the Steering Task Group that oversaw the Special Projects Office. It met for the first time in Washington on 26 June 1963. The respective liaison officers acted as the secretaries of the JSTG. These were appointed in April 1963, with Captain Peter La Niece taking up the position in Washington, and Captain Phil Rollings in London. The agenda for
19200-430: Was formally named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System . The Board of the Admiralty met on 24 December 1962 and decided to adopt Le Fanu's proposal that a special organisation be created to manage the project. It did not create a replica of SPO, however, but a smaller administrative and organisational cadre . Mackenzie, the Flag Officer Submarines (FOSM), was informed on 26 December 1962 that he would be appointed
19350-597: Was furnished by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir David Luce , on 19 October 1964. The government was under considerable pressure to reduce annual defence expenditures below £2 billion, and Healey considered whether three boats would be sufficient. Luce and Mountbatten advised that it would not. Wilson was aware that the government had only a narrow majority, and that Douglas-Home's attack on his party's nuclear deterrent policy had cost votes. Cabinet finally decided on 12 January 1965 that there should be four boats. The decision
19500-422: Was in progress to add penetration aids to the re-entry vehicle, but promised that it would not have any effect on the interface between the missile and the UK re-entry vehicle. The British team did not think they were necessary, and in the end the Americans never deployed them with the A-3. The initial assumption at the Admiralty was that the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston would produce
19650-507: Was intended as a counterpart to the United States Navy Special Projects Office (SPO), with whom it would have to deal. The principal finding of the Zuckerman mission was that the Americans had developed a new version of the Polaris missile, the A3. With a range extended of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km), it had a new weapons bay housing three re-entry vehicles (REBs or Re-Entry Bodies in US Navy parlance) and
19800-498: Was launched in September 1966, and commenced its first deterrent patrol in June 1968. The annual running costs of the Polaris boats came to around two per cent of the defence budget, and they came to be seen as a credible deterrent that enhanced Britain's international status. Along with the more celebrated 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the Polaris Sales Agreement became a pillar of the nuclear Special Relationship between Britain and
19950-611: Was much lighter than the 730-kilogram (1,600 lb) warhead of the Jupiter, and led the US Navy to pull out of the joint Jupiter project in late 1956 in order to concentrate on the development of a solid-fuel rocket , which became Polaris . In May 1958, Burke arranged for the appointment of a Royal Navy liaison officer, Commander Michael Simeon, on the SPO staff. In 1955, the SPO staff consisted of 45 officers and 45 civilians; by mid-1961, it had grown to 200 officers and 667 civilians. By then, over 11,000 contractors were involved, and it had
20100-563: Was necessary in order to be in immediate contact with the Admiralty, the ministers, and the key departments. He was initially given two rooms and a closet at the Admiralty. Most of the Polaris Executive was located in Bath, Somerset , where the Admiralty's technical and logistics departments had been relocated in 1938, "the connection between bath, water and boats having not escaped the administrative minds in Whitehall." Initially they were accommodated in
20250-464: Was not significantly greater than £235 million in April 1972 (equivalent to £3.37 billion in 2023). What disturbed the committee more was that a major project had gone on for a decade without any disclosure of its costs to Parliament or any requirement that they should be. The range of the Chevaline system was 1,950 nautical miles (3,610 km) compared to 2,500-nautical-mile (4,600 km) range of
20400-482: Was noted that while the missile was limited in range, the submarine could roam the oceans, and could attack China, for example. With the cancellation of Blue Streak in the air, the British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group (BNDSG) produced a study on 23 December 1959 that argued that Polaris was expensive and unproven, and given the time it would take to build the boats, could not be deployed before
20550-559: Was officially announced on 15 February. One important matter that SPO raised was that A-3 production would in due course be closed down, and the missile replaced by a new model under development then known as the B3, which eventually became the Poseidon . Thus, a final decision on the number of missiles and spare parts was required. This gravely concerned the British government. If the USN upgraded to Poseidon,
20700-510: Was opposed to this on the grounds that it would unduly disrupt the hunter-killer submarine programme, and it would add more new features to a design that already had enough. The chosen design was suggested by Daniel's superior, Sidney Palmer. The reactor section would be similar to that of Valiant , which would be joined with a machinery space to the American-designed but mainly British-built missile compartment. The forward section would be of
20850-476: Was particularly favourable to Britain, as the US was charging only the unit cost of Skybolt, absorbing all the research and development costs. With this agreement in hand, the cancellation of Blue Streak was announced in the House of Commons on 13 April 1960. The subsequent American decision to cancel Skybolt created a political crisis in the UK, and an emergency meeting between Macmillan and President John F. Kennedy
21000-504: Was required to prepare the yard for Polaris work. Two berths and the jetty were rebuilt, and works were also necessary on the roads and river wall. A 9.4-metre (31 ft) cofferdam was built to allow construction of a new slipway and other works to be carried out in dry rather than tidal conditions. New facilities were also added in Barrow, and the Walney Channel was dredged. Traditional battleship or battlecruiser names were chosen for
21150-490: Was shaken by the Profumo affair . In October 1963, Macmillan fell ill with what was initially feared to be inoperable prostate cancer , and he took the opportunity to resign on the grounds of ill-health. He was succeeded by Alec Douglas-Home , who campaigned on the UK's nuclear deterrent in the 1964 election . While of low importance in the minds of the electorate, it was one on which Douglas-Home felt passionately, and on which
21300-545: Was suspended in October 1952 to conserve plutonium production for nuclear weapons, and by 1954 the Royal Navy had concluded that it would not be possible until the 1960s. The US Navy 's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus became operational on 17 January 1955. One reason the Royal Navy lagged behind its American counterpart was the lack of a high-ranking champion who would push nuclear submarine development. This changed when Admiral Lord Mountbatten became First Sea Lord in April 1955. In June he secured
21450-519: Was tested in Operation Hurricane on 3 October 1952. During the 1950s, the UK's nuclear deterrent was based around the V-bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF), but developments in radar and surface-to-air missiles made it clear that bombers were becoming increasingly vulnerable, and would be unlikely to penetrate Soviet airspace in the 1970s. Free-fall nuclear weapons were losing credibility as
21600-680: Was the only significant departure from Le Fanu's original blueprint. Some staff were assigned to the Polaris Executive and responsible only to the CPE; but there were also "allocated staff", who were seconded to the Polaris Executive, but who remained responsible to another organisation, such as the Directors-General of Ships and Weapons; and "designated staff", who were not employed on the Polaris project full-time, and remained part of their parent organisations. Mackenzie established his own office and that of his immediate staff in London, which he considered
21750-440: Was the same as the number of Skybolt missiles, which were considered sufficient to devastate forty cities. To achieve this capability, the BNDSG calculated that this would require eight Polaris submarines, each with 16 missiles with one-megaton warheads. It was subsequently decided to halve the number of missiles, and therefore submarines, based on a decision that the ability to destroy twenty Soviet cities would have nearly as great
21900-415: Was there any need to conserve battery power, as the reactor supplied enough power for a small town. A Polaris boat had a crew of 14 officers and 129 ratings. Every sailor had his own bunk, so there was no hot bunking . Meals were served in a dining hall. The crew included a doctor and supply officers. Before commencing an eight-week patrol, a submarine was stocked with enough food for 143 men. Supplies for
22050-566: Was to take the incomplete nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine HMS Valiant , cut it in half, and insert the Polaris missile compartment in its midsection. This was a path that the Americans had taken with the George Washington class in order to build ships as quickly as possible in order to address the missile gap , the purported numerical superiority of the Soviet Union's missile force, which turned out to be illusory. Daniel
22200-529: Was uncertain about the legality of transferring such technology to the UK, and Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover , the head of the US Navy's nuclear propulsion project, was opposed. But the United States Department of Defense supported the British request, and Mountbatten won Rickover over during a visit to the UK in August 1956. Rickover withdrew his objections in early 1957. In December 1957, Rickover proposed that Westinghouse be permitted to sell
22350-484: Was understandably alarmed, circulating a paper that refuted the Admiralty 's position point by point, attacking Polaris as having the same striking power but having less accuracy and a smaller warhead than Blue Streak, at 20 times the cost. The US Navy had already polished the counter-arguments, noting that second strike weapons only had to target cities, for which Polaris warhead's size and accuracy were adequate. Moreover, it
22500-474: Was unpredictable. The Treasury costed a four-boat Polaris fleet at £314 million by 1972–1973. A Cabinet Defence Committee meeting on 23 January 1963 approved the plan for four boats, with the Minister of Defence, Peter Thorneycroft noting that four boats would be cheaper and faster to build than eight. A mission led by Sir Solly Zuckerman , the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence , left for
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