OT Nuclear U-Boats; how do they condense the steam?

No, they are not.

"I think the UK often has just one operational trident sub." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Governments lie about the real facts to placate the public.

There are no cash poor nuclear powers.

You need to be pretty well heeled to build a bomb

Wiki:

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None of those are 'cash poor' None of them lack at the very least a functional air force and some missile capability

Trains,

You are making this up, completely. Talking out of your arse really.

There was the diaspora in 1979.

I was down the boozer with an Iranian mate a couple of weeks ago and he was telling me with horror how his (English, Catholic) daughter was embracing her Iranian heritage, wanting to wear a head scarf etc. Him going, nooo, we never did that in Iran.

I think that is pretty much true and Israel does a bit the same with Iran, presenting them as an existential threat. I think in reality Iran is much more interested in Saudi. Israel hate rhetoric, is just lip service. Something that is free and pleases Muslims across the region.

I don't see how genuinely threatening Israel benefits Iran, Israel doesn't have anything they want. Much better to be the unfairly abused underdog, to have the bete noir to scare the local plebs into supporting you.

Exactly, but we won't, not after recent events. So they don't need them.

I thought total humiliation was the reason for Islamic militancy. They couldn't win in real life so they invent a fairy tale where they are superior.

North Korea.

Are they? It seems quite possible advance sub tracking could exist now, or in the near future.

At times of high

Are they? Subs in the open ocean vs a missile launcher vehicle in the interior of a country. Possibly with lots of missile launcher decoys. Sub decoys aren't so cheap..

doesn't have nuclear weapons. just *says* it has

So not a train - a missile.

That?s not an ad hominem, it?s a turn of phrase.

I did address the basic point, at the bottom.

More mindless pig ignorant bullshit particularly with the east and west coasts.

More mindless pig ignorant bullshit with the airforce.

Nope, statement of fact in that case.

And that is a bare faced lie with Afghanistan.

Pity about Afghanistan.

Bullshit. They would never stay forever.

More mindless bullshit.

We know it has because we have seen them test those and we know that?s where Pakistan got theirs.

Wrong.

Two points. You have to dump "low temperature" heat somewhere to have a thermodynamic cycle from which you extract energy. In a sub, the only place is the sea.

IIRC the Soviets have used fast reactors in subs, I think with lead or lead/bismuth cooling rather than sodium. I think everyone else uses pressurised water reactors.

While mixing sodium and water is bad news, the death knell for the Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor was corrosion, more accurately stress corrosion cracking, on the *water* side of the sodium to water heat exchanger where the steam is raised. This is hot, very pure water which poses more materials challenges than the the cold seawater-to-steam condenser.

Drill a few holes in the propeller....

or adopt WW2 acoustic mine sweeping technology by fitting a Kango vibrating hammer to the hull of the ship ;)

From

Don't we now need the nuclear deterrent more than ever? We are still in danger of WW3 as predicted by the Brexit project fear campaign!

and sinking a war ship that the Japanese had failed to do in Pearl harbour.

I am sure the *point* of the new deal is that the Astute-like subs will give Australia very much better intelligence capability on Chinese activities in the South China Sea and elsewhere. Undoubtedly the information will be shared completely with the USA and the UK. It also means Australia and its regional friends will have more credibility in protesting about Chinese activities to the UN, thus giving expansionist Chinese more diplomatic headaches.

It's a bit like Teddy Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick".

Not just the public. Having four (with two at sea much of the time, even if only one is notionally on service duty) gives an aggressor who has spotted one the Dirty Harry dilemma "Do you feel lucky, punk?"

Yeah right! Good point. An aggressor on the USA can be asked: "Can you destroy only 2,800 of my possibly deployed nuclear weapons or can you get all 2,821." 21 missed would be enough to devastate and nation.

There is no need for nuclear deployed missiles on subs. It makes no discernable difference to the viability of detering a first strike against the US.

Subs do give the USA a better chance of launching a first strike against somewhere like North Korea.

Why somewhere like the UK would want to put all its eggs in one basket (or maybe two baskets) is also a puzzle.

Not to me. Look up why Atlee's inner cabinet started the independent weapons programme. And hardly one basket, as Galtieri found to his cost.

Bollocks

You may THINK you will get most of the silos, you KNOW you wont get any of the subs

I don't see why you would say that. Subs can be tracked. The idea that a technology/technique will emerge that can be used to effectively locate all submarines is not that fanciful.

Audio. A network of listening devices. Some other property, I don't know what it is, but with advances in technology I wouldn't rule it out.

The problem is similar to computer security, if you give an opponent a clear attack vector they can hone their techniques.

Of course they can. They can be followed from base.

How would you know if they had done it?