{"id":215157,"date":"2025-06-26T06:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215157\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T06:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T06:14:08","slug":"britains-powerful-new-fighters-allow-uk-to-stand-up-to-putin-nuclear-threat-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215157\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain’s powerful new fighters allow UK to ‘stand up to Putin nuclear threat’ | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vladimir Putin<\/a> will no longer be able to make nuclear threats against Britain with \u201cimpunity\u201d, an expert has said, after the Government announced it will bolster the UK<\/a>\u2019s deterrence. Britain will buy at least 12 F-35A fighter jets<\/a>, capable of firing US-made nuclear warheads, in what is the biggest strengthening of Britain\u2019s nuclear capabilities in a generation.<\/p>\n

The UK has been without an air-launched nuclear capability since 1998, and retired British Army<\/a> Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said the move is \u201chugely significant\u201d. The stealth fighters can carry US-made B61-12 gravity bombs and will join NATO<\/a>\u2019s nuclear airborne mission. Mr de Bretton-Gordon, a nuclear and chemical weapons expert, said the tactical nuke is more potent than any conventional weapon at the UK\u2019s disposal.<\/p>\n

He told the Express the B61 is powerful enough to \u201cflatten a village\u201d, while a strategic weapon like the UK\u2019s Trident missile<\/a> is still considerably more devastating.<\/p>\n

Mr de Bretton-Gordon, former commanding officer of the UK\u2019s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, said: \u201cThese are nuclear weapons that yield in the capability between one and kilotons. That\u2019s one to 10,000 tonnes of equivalent conventional explosives, so a very, very, large bang.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are designed to take out airfields, a large formation of troops. This would flatten a village, whereas a strategic nuclear bomb will flatten a city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strategic are 10, if not 100 times bigger, but [tactical weapons are] still bigger than any conventional explosive that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tactical, or substrategic, nukes, have a lower but still powerful yield.<\/p>\n

They are designed for specific battlefield uses, such as wiping out a column of heavy tanks, while strategic weapons like Trident focus on the concept of mutually assured destruction.<\/p>\n

The Russian President has sent several nuclear warnings to the West and Ukraine<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n

Russia<\/a> does possess tactical nukes, and Mr de Bretton-Gordon has previously warned that without the weapons, the UK lacks an \u201cescalation ladder\u201d to respond appropriately to such an attack.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe key thing about nuclear deterrence is equilibrium and parity, and really that in Europe \u2014 certainly with the indications that the Americans are stepping back \u2014 has come out of equilibrium and Putin\u2019s almost daily threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine<\/a> are really unanswered because Putin has assumed that we wouldn\u2019t use a strategic nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The retired senior officer added: \u201cI think it is a really good move and mainly, it\u2019s a demonstration to Putin that at last we are serious about the defence of this country and Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin can no longer threaten to use tactical nuclear weapons with impunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the supersonic aircraft, which will be based at RAF Marham in Norfolk, would be able to reach NATO\u2019s eastern flank \u201cvery quickly\u201d.<\/p>\n

The announcement of the 12 F-35As was made on Tuesday night ahead of the second day of the NATO summit in The Hague where allies have agreed to spend 5% of GDP on defence and security by 2035<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Government said the \u00a380 million jets will join the alliance\u2019s Dual Capable Aircraft (DCA) programme \u2014 an important part of NATO\u2019s nuclear deterrence.<\/p>\n

The aircraft will be purchased instead of 12 F-35Bs in the UK\u2019s next procurement package.<\/p>\n

Former Harrier pilot and military analyst, retired Air Vice Marshal Sean Bell, said \u201cyou get a lot more bang for your buck\u201d with the F-35A compared to the B.<\/p>\n

The B variant is currently in UK service and can operate from the Navy\u2019s aircraft carriers and land.<\/p>\n

The A can only operate from land but can launch the B61, while also having a greater range and payload.<\/p>\n

Mr Bell said some reports say that in certain scenarios, the F-35A is \u201cthree times more effective than the B simply due to the extra range\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told the Express: \u201cEven if you don’t consider the nuke option, it makes complete sense to have the A rather than the B \u2014 they go further, carry more stuff and are cheaper.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Government says 12 F-35As rather than F-35Bs will work out up to 25% cheaper per aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vladimir Putin will no longer be able to make nuclear threats against Britain with \u201cimpunity\u201d, an expert has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[11501,748,2993,393,15060,67579,4884,2821,1144,8041,2300,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-215157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-aircraft","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-defence","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-f-35","15":"tag-f-35a","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-nato","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-nuclear-weapons","20":"tag-raf","21":"tag-scotland","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114748198936759370","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}