Wonderfully reassuring to read that Jim Carroll regards the Daily Telegraph as the font of all knowledge and clearly states that he implicitly believes every word it prints.

By the way Jim was Osama bin Laden, that businessman of note as you seem to regard him (On the sketchiest and doubtful evidence - if any at all) a member of any Chamber of Commerce, or was he a Rotarian? The only "companies" identified were all exposed as fronts for channelling funds for Al-Qaeda.

Laughable Shaw? Then please point out all those "laughable errors" - My bet is that Shaw will remain silent.

To answer Raggy's questions:

1: There are 18 submarines capable of carrying and launching Trident II D-5 Missiles - As far as the Royal Navy goes HMS Vengeance is a submarine that has just undergone a major refit:

"In 2012, Vengeance started a 40 month refit at HMNB Devonport near Plymouth which refueled her reactor and renewed her machinery and electronics. During that period her sister ship Vigilant took her place in the patrol rotations. She sailed from Devonport on 4 December 2015, her place in refit being taken by Vanguard. Vengeance then went through trials from January 2016 to June 2016 and fired an unarmed D5 missile during her Demonstration and Shakedown Operation (DASO) which allowed her to return to the fleet. Whilst the firing of the missile was a success, the missile itself suffered a failure during flight and the test was terminated."

At $37.7 million per shot "live firings" are restricted and not haphazard as Raggy jokingly outlined - my bet 40 months down the line when HMS Vanguard reaches the same point in her DASO she too will conduct a "live firing" using the US Range off Florida. I take it that even you Raggy would concede that if you have worked on and renewed machinery and electronics related to the launch systems on a nuclear ballistic missile submarine that those systems would have to be tested with a "live firing" before being accepted as fully operational?

2: There have been no modifications or design changes related to the Missile that would require a missile test, any such tests would by necessity have been carried out by Lockheed-Martin and nobody apart from the American and British Governments would have been aware of them, such tests would not have been plastered all over the media.