My Trident or yours?

[uk 75]

One of the classic British justifications in the pub/bar rather than Parliament or Whitehall is that Russia cannot tell whether a Trident missile launch is British or American? This means that we can drag the US into oblivion with us.
Polaris served for some time with the US using it too but once it was replaced with Poseidon could the Russians tell the difference?
The pub discussion usually ends with "as long as it can reach Paris". Of course the French SLBM cannot imitate a Trident (or can it?) but it can reach London so we are all doomed anyway.
Joking apart how true are these pub tales?

 

[Arjen]

"as long as it can reach Paris"

Bury the hatchet. This is the time to cherish our allies.

 

[archipeppe]

The scenario would be even more complicated if Italian Navy would have introduced into service the ALFA SLBM.

 

[zen]

In my understanding each missile tends to have certain unique characteristics of flight.
Which is why certain chaps be likely pouring over the data acquired on the recent Russian missile use against Ukraine.

 

[Scott Kenny]

One of the classic British justifications in the pub/bar rather than Parliament or Whitehall is that Russia cannot tell whether a Trident missile launch is British or American? This means that we can drag the US into oblivion with us.
Polaris served for some time with the US using it too but once it was replaced with Poseidon could the Russians tell the difference?
The pub discussion usually ends with "as long as it can reach Paris". Of course the French SLBM cannot imitate a Trident (or can it?) but it can reach London so we are all doomed anyway.
Joking apart how true are these pub tales?

Different missile flight paths due to different ranges, and different engine power levels.

At launch, the rocket exhaust will be emitting energy based on rate of acceleration and weight of missile. Do a little fancy computation based on received energy and you will know how heavy the missile is (this is also why it's impossible to have a decoy for a spaceship under thrust that is lighter than the ship it is trying to simulate). Knowing how heavy the missile is will tell you which general class a missile is (Polaris, Poseidon, Trident 1, Trident 2).

Where you detect the launch coming from can also suggest what type of missile it is. Polaris missiles are going to be launching from much shorter distances away than Tridents, so a launch from the Baltic Sea or Arctic Ocean close to Finland is much more suggestive of a Polaris than Trident. But an Ohio or Vanguard could have snuck up to the Arctic and thrown some depressed-trajectory shots at relatively close targets instead of staying out in more open waters and used the huge range advantage. But a depressed-trajectory shot is much shorter range and lower apogee than a standard ballistic flight, so you'd see that on the radars.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

One of the classic British justifications in the pub/bar rather than Parliament or Whitehall is that Russia cannot tell whether a Trident missile launch is British or American? This means that we can drag the US into oblivion with us.
Polaris served for some time with the US using it too but once it was replaced with Poseidon could the Russians tell the difference?
The pub discussion usually ends with "as long as it can reach Paris". Of course the French SLBM cannot imitate a Trident (or can it?) but it can reach London so we are all doomed anyway.
Joking apart how true are these pub tales?

You have quite different pub conversations than me, clearly.

 

[Yellow Palace]

At launch, the rocket exhaust will be emitting energy based on rate of acceleration and weight of missile. Do a little fancy computation based on received energy and you will know how heavy the missile is (this is also why it's impossible to have a decoy for a spaceship under thrust that is lighter than the ship it is trying to simulate). Knowing how heavy the missile is will tell you which general class a missile is (Polaris, Poseidon, Trident 1, Trident 2).

You also know that an Annihilator missile stage burns for 69 seconds, whereas an Eviscerator missile stage burns for 84 seconds. Or whatever the real numbers are. Some tolerance on that of course, depending on trajectory and random variation, but if it's still burning at 80 seconds you can be pretty sure it's an Eviscerator.

But an Ohio or Vanguard could have snuck up to the Arctic and thrown some depressed-trajectory shots at relatively close targets instead of staying out in more open waters and used the huge range advantage. But a depressed-trajectory shot is much shorter range and lower apogee than a standard ballistic flight, so you'd see that on the radars.

You can also, technically, do a lobbed trajectory for short range. Launch to a higher apogee than normal and come straight back down, with a very long flight time. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there were some target sets where a near-vertical RV trajectory was useful.