China before France & UK UK Trident D-5 with FULL MIRV capability is superior (at the moment) to French SLBM's which are not fully MIRV'd and lack the payload and range. UK has capacity to strike 640 targets at 6,000 miles+; France undisclosed but with the limited MIRV capability this is a few hundred targets at 5,000 miles+. Still huge deterrent firepower. Add to this the UK submarine launched Tomahawks (non-nuke at present) and the RAF's higher ratio of strike aircraft and the UK is a ahead.

I understand france has more range, higher payload on thier weapons and the ability to deliver their weapons on enemy territory with extreeme accuracy better than thier chinese counterparts. china has only 20 intercontinental missiles the DF 31 which has a range of 8,000 miles or more. But i don't think in the sphere of counter measure systems they have the technology to compete with those of russia,us,uk or france

France + UK= Vassal states.

China; but look at the weight of the Chinese warheads! They're still fielding 10 megs on some missiles and there are batteries of IRBM's and SRBM's in the PLA. The French missiles you mention are the newere generation designed to enter service in 2010 to match the Trident D-5; in fact they will have fewer MIRV's. Existing French SLBM's are 1970's vintage and have a limited MIRV capability retrofitted which reduced the warheads; more accurate perhaps but a D-5 it is not. The new system will be.

You should make more accurate research.French M4 is fully MIRVed since the beginning.As it was at the beginning described as multi reentry vehicule some people thought it was only MRV (nonindependant).But in fact its MRV were independants.The reduced range compared to US is mainly due to decoys (and SMART decoys).As France had a limited number of warheads in the cold war and Moscow was protected by Galosh (and possibly the soviet could have deployed more), French put a lot of emphasis on decoys and warheads stealthiness which made them heavier. UK did also that with Chevaline program in a reduced scale and with a lot of difficulties. UK lacked tactical warheads now and have a limited number of warheads now (160 strategic). Also UK is totally unable to target hardened objectives without US datas due to lack of reco satellites and earth gravity model is furnished by US (France lauch 3 dedicated satellite to elaborate its own model).More over France can easily scale up as we produce everything in this matter ourselves and we have enough fissile material in reserve to field 5000 warheads.

PRC does not deploy 10 mt warheads. I wonder why you think they did? Inefficient. They don't do much more than a 2 mt thing. Not at all worth the cost - and weight - required. Which is why it is not done by anyone any more. It was a 50s idea (ours) and not a bright one.

Jacques Chirac announced in February 1996 that France would scrap its land-based nuclear missile force thus eliminating their tactical nuclear strike capability. This plan eliminated the 18 operational SSBS S3D missiles deployed in southern France as well as 30 Hades missiles and their associated TN90 warheads. The UK also has around 400 strategic warheads not 160. The New French ICBM, the M-51 has a 6000km range whereas Trident D-5 has a range of 12,000 km this due to the French budget cuts causing the cancellation of the M-5 which had a range of 11000km, the D-5 also carries 8x MIRV‘s compared to the M-51‘s 6x MIRV‘s. The Trident D-5 was jointly developed with AWE, British Aerospace and GEC Marconi (now BAE) working with Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in Sunnyvale, Calif. Both parties have the necessary technical details to fully produce Trident missile units independently. The UK’s actual warheads are designed and built by UK firm AWE. The yield of these thermonuclear warheads are believed to be 475 Kt using the MK.5 MIRV compared to the 100Kt yield of the French next generation TNO’s due in 2015. In regards to the British “Spy” Satellites. In 1987, the UK opted to enter a JOINT programme with the US which involved highly complicated agreements which saw the UK have a 50% stake in the NSA spy satellite network, including three Vortex-type birds going after UHF traffic and three Orion-type birds going after microwave traffic as well as Trident inertial stellar-aided guidance systems. Similarly, there are three Trumpet-types in highly inclined orbits, which obtain global coverage. These systems are controlled by GCHQ and NSA and each have joint agreements on how to task them and special systems are in place so that neither the UK nor US can lock each other out of the network thus voiding any claims of US control over them, not forgetting that a large part of NSA is based at Menwith Hill in the UK. The UK military communication satellite networks, Skynet 4/5 are entirely UK controlled (by the RAF). I think this is another example of the Isolationist theories of French Stratege.

UK having 400 strategic warheads? Bull, plain and simple. Any sources on that?

Here is your link and it is backed up by; Arms Control Today, Jane's Online and the Text of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/733162.stm

The rankings below are based on one factor not considered by previous postings: operational readiness and reliability in testing. There is some question if the USSR has any operational weapons? If it does, the number is tiny, and probably they don't know which they are. Some admirals just went to prison for not spending maintenance money. They reasoned "these weapons will not be used, so we can take the money, and no one will know." Then a drill tested the ability to just use the boosters, it all unraveled. Even the most ready ship could not do the job. A similar test on land also failed. The UK is ranked so high because it has the Trident, whose range and accuracy is fabulous. Also because UK has actually better readiness than anyone else. It has the only operational strategic forces in the world able to fire non-nuclear warheads, as well as nuclear ones, giving it some useful options in a crisis. France is behind UK because its systems are not as good, but it is also very operational. China is next due to numbers, pretty much. Israel is next in terms of actual strategic firepower. China actually has zero SSBNs for this purpose - it has never conducted a deterrent patrol and indeed never build even one operational missile for a SSBN. It is not widely known, but Israel has nuclear weapons at sea, although they lack the range of the SSBN powers. India is next, but will come up fast when its SSCN project completes. 1. USA 2. UK 3. France 4. China 5. Israel 6. India 7. Pakistan 8. Russia