Eight years ago, the Royal Navy test-fired a Trident II D5 missile from the submarine HMS Vengeance. Instead of heading to its intended splash-down in the southern Atlantic, the projectile, mercifully unarmed, flew in the opposite direction over the United States. On January 30 this year, off Florida, another test-firing was attempted. Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, and Admiral Sir Ben Key, the first sea lord, were in attendance. This time the 58-tonne missile barely got airborne, its first stage boosters failing to ignite. It merely “plopped” into the sea and sank.
The projectile narrowly missed HMS Vanguard, which had launched it. Vanguard was commissioned in 1993 with an expected service life of 25 years. Its last refit took seven years. The Dreadnought class
