[ikalugin]

Nuclear weapons are a bit terminal.

Plus, if you were actually trying to deal with the problem you would be better off starting by cutting support to Saudi Arabia.

To derail the topic back, closer to the original topic. What do you think about European cruise missile strike capability into the 2020s? For example it appears that both UK and France have a shortage of CM capable platforms, and I am not sure if there isnt a shortage of munitions as well.
Russia may also have munitions shortage to accumulate proper munition reserves for the launcher capacity we are building up.

To illustrate my point, let us look at the RN (RAF and FAA wise the limit would probably be the number of munitions availiable and not the number of launchers/platforms), it appears that in terms of CM capable platforms RN plans to have:
- 6 Astute class, 36 TTs, up to approx. 108 TLAM patern weapons.*
- 8 T26 class, 192 mk.41 cells, up to 192 TLAM patern weapons.**
which gives us approx 300 LAMs in the RN's capacity.***

Historic experience shows that typical expenditures are above that number significantly and while some of that expenditure can be attributed to the airpower (RAF and FAA) it does make one wonder if RN would benefit from a dedicated LAM platform, for example and SSGN, for example based on the SSBN desighn with the US patern payload modules.

*I assume approx. 1/2 load of LAMs per SSN the rest - torpedoes, AShMs, self propelled decoys, etc.
**Because of how RN does not operate and appears to be unwilling to operate in the future SAMs or ASROC out of the mk.41 I assume that it would be filled with LAMs.
***I am not aware of any real plans to fit T45s with the mk.41 or any other full strike length VLS nor about installation of such a VLS to any other future ship class.