The Navy has four submarines based at Faslane which carry Trident missiles armed with nuclear warheads.
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Each U.S. SSBN is capable of carrying 24 Trident missiles with up to eight warheads per missile.
The government says it looked at other nuclear-deterrent systems, including launching adapted Trident missiles from land or ships, or firing cruise missiles from long-range aircraft.
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Of course the UK can still rain nuclear destruction with Trident missiles, sustain a deployment of several thousand troops overseas or one of two dozen or so combat aircraft.
Britain's deterrent costs less than half the amount of France's force de frappe, not least because Britain relies heavily on America to provide Trident missiles and even components for its warheads.
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Defence ties with America bring big benefits: intelligence is shared and Britain has preferential access to some American technology, not least the Trident missiles that help make Britain's nuclear deterrent cheaper than France's.
Mr Cameron had earlier visited HMS Victorious, one of the Royal Navy's four Vanguard-class submarines which keep Trident nuclear missiles continuously at sea, which is returning from its 100th patrol.
If it chose not to take this draconian step, the Navy would be obliged to slow the rate of production and delivery of the 153 Trident II missiles currently authorized so as to minimize the adverse effects of shutting down the line entirely.
The future of the Trident submarine-based nuclear missiles would be excluded from the defence review, the prime minister said.
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Thus, the U.S. has sought to organize its nuclear forces so that no enemy can launch a disarming first strike, mainly by fielding three distinctly different types of weapons: manned bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in hardened silos, and sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles on stealthy Trident submarines.
The American makers of Trident are currently working on extending the life of the missiles, so the same weapons will be on the newer boats.
But the number of submarines will be reduced as will the number of missiles per submarine, and a replacement for the Trident II missile is not scheduled until 2042.
By continuing with the planned delivery of missiles now in the pipeline, the Navy could fit out the first D-5 capable Trident submarines.
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