WI: Terrorists attacked nuclear warhead convoy in Glasgow, 2014

ben0628

Banned
Well since a conventional attack is pure asb, what if a suicide bomber drove a van full of explosives into the convoy?
 
Paint gets a bit scorched, unless it's a very big bomb in which case the bomb vehicles are potentially mobility killed, and they call for backups.

As for the protesters, in theory an attack could get close disguised as protesters, although they could only be armed with pistols at most so would rapidly die when the attack became overt.

Seriously guys, it's defended by professional soldiers most of whom will have fought defending convoys in Iraq/Afghanistan and the convoys have been going for 50 years or so. They've thought about and probably seen this sort of scenario many times.
 
One other thought - the Civik Nuclear Constabulary lanyards say "Deter, Defend, Deny, Recover" - you've all been thinking about the "Defend" bit, but it's only part of the problem for any attacker.
 
One other thought - the Civik Nuclear Constabulary lanyards say "Deter, Defend, Deny, Recover" - you've all been thinking about the "Defend" bit, but it's only part of the problem for any attacker.
Exactly. There's the "Deny" bit, i.e. reducing the warheads (and especially the cores) to uselessness via the disablement systems or recovering them if they're successfully taken.
Unlike some here I don't doubt that a sizable, well-trained, coordinated and heavily armed group could eliminate the security escort and gain control of the carrier vehicles temporarily, i.e. by the use of anti-armour weapons on the escort vehicles, shooting down the escort helicopter and killing the carrier vehicle teams with heavy machine gun fire, perhaps aided by the use of chemical agents.
However unless the aim is merely to destroy the warheads and spread the radioactive material around this isn't enough. Removing the warheads from the carrier vehicle(s) without destroying them is (deliberately) difficult, extracting the cores would be time consuming (not to mention requiring specialist skills and tools) and the damn things are rather heavy. Escape by air (or possibly water if the ambush location was suitable) would be the only way but this would require at least one heavy-lift helicopter and would be vulnerable to interception.

Now hitting the carrier vehicles with ATWs and contaminating an area would be more plausible (though itself rather difficult as this is an anticipated scenario).
 
The "Deter" bit is also an intelligence matter - how easy do you think it would be to assemble a trained jihadi infantry company/battalion complete with heavy weapons in the middle of Glasgow without detection? Because as soon as it is detected that convoy is going somewhere else or not travelling at all until the threat is neutralised.
 
Having been paid to plan and execute small tactical raids and other military ops my thought is the level of expertise, talent, and planning/preparation for any level of success will be fairly high. Success depends on the attackers political & operational goals. Some might be happy with creating a scene of burning broken vehicles, and corpses strewn about. Others might be good with actually controlling and or damaging the nuclear weapons for a while, before recovery. Still others might aim at complete & indefinite control or even detonation however unlikely that might be.

Getting Some AT rockets/missiles into position, or a truck bomb for creating a disorder scene is still going to be above the amateur level. Planning, timing, rehearsal, reliable people, ext are not easy to bring together.
 
The "Deter" bit is also an intelligence matter - how easy do you think it would be to assemble a trained jihadi infantry company/battalion complete with heavy weapons in the middle of Glasgow without detection? Because as soon as it is detected that convoy is going somewhere else or not travelling at all until the threat is neutralised.
Bloody difficult. I'd suggest employing professionals, which of course has it's own risks.
 
By definition, terrorists (especially the 'lonely outcasts inspired by ISIS' variety) tend to attack what they perceive as easy targets. An attempt on a nuclear convoy is more or less as far away from the usual modus operandi as you can get.
 

Moglwi

Monthly Donor
Guarding the nuclear warheads in germany included comadering transport to chase warheads and shooting at people coming to the wire entire guard force was a entire company of infantry who know what the roe for the convoy
 
Because they'd have guns and be trying to steal the warhead instead of, you know, protest about it.


You sure about that?

Depending in how big the protests are, a couple jihadis with nail bombs in backpacks/suicide vests under coats could slip into the protests almost unnoticed. Especially seeing how one dumb protestor managed to get on top of a nuclear transport vehicle without getting himself shot. They certainly couldn't steal the nukes, but they could kill or maim a bunch of protestors, maybe a couple soldiers, and cause a massive panic like no other the UK has experienced since 7/7.

Imagine that: the BBC headlines screaming "NUCLEAR CONVOY ATTACKED IN GLASGOW: 10 DEAD". There would be a huuuuuuge panic, at the very least. It wouldn't matter how close they actually came, or that there would have been no chance of one of the nukes going off; all people would think is "holy shit, terrorists nearly blew up nukes in Glasgow!" Politicians of all stripes would be screaming for heads to roll.
 
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Pangur

Donor
First comment is to assume that there will be security that you can see and then security what you cant see. It would seem to be a very fair assumption these days that there will be a drone over head keeping watch on people and things close to where the convoy is.
 
You sure about that?

Depending in how big the protests are, a couple jihadis with nail bombs in backpacks/suicide vests under coats could slip into the protests almost unnoticed. Especially seeing how one dumb protestor managed to get on top of a nuclear transport vehicle without getting himself shot. They certainly couldn't steal the nukes, but they could kill or maim a bunch of protestors, maybe a couple soldiers, and cause a massive panic like no other the UK has experienced since 7/7.

Imagine that: the BBC headlines screaming "NUCLEAR CONVOY ATTACKED IN GLASGOW: 10 DEAD". There would be a huuuuuuge panic, at the very least. It wouldn't matter how close they actually came, or that there would have been no chance of one of the nukes going off; all people would think is "holy shit, terrorists nearly blew up nukes in Glasgow!" Politicians of all stripes would be screaming for heads to roll.

The question is could they steal it. They could hurt the convoy guards sure, I don't think anyone is disputing that. Or that there wouldnt be political fallout. But could they take a nuke, the answer is no.

Also if I were a terrorist I wouldnt bank on your plan working. Those people got close thanks to luck, I wouldn't bank on disguising myself as a protestor because I'd assume they'd stop me before I got close.
 
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