HMS Vanguard hovered under the surface of the Atlantic as it prepared to launch a Trident missile from a Royal Navy boat for the first time in nearly a decade.
After performing all the necessary checks, Commander Ben Smith, the commanding officer of the boat, one of Britain’s four nuclear-armed submarines, told his crew: “Missiles for strategic launch.” It was time for the weapons engineer officer, normally a lieutenant commander, to press the red trigger, modelled on a Colt 45 Peacemaker handgun.
In the event of war, the boat would have been carrying up to eight Trident missiles armed with nuclear warheads capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people. However, this was a test and the missile was fitted with dummy warheads. Grant Shapps,
