Armed with multiple thermonuclear warheads, Britain's Trident nuclear missiles are launched from one of four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. The Trident nuclear missile system is also carried by fourteen US Navy Ohio-class nuclear submarines.

There have been 172 successful test flights of the D5 Trident nuclear missile since design completion in 1989, the most recent being from the USS Rhode Island in May 2019. There have been fewer than 10 test flights that were failures. The most recent being from HMS Vengeance, one of Britain's four nuclear-armed submarines, off the coast of Florida in June 2016.

The Royal Navy operates their Trident missiles from a pool shared with the Atlantic squadron of the US Navy Ohio-class SSBNs at King's Bay, Georgia. The pool is 'co-mingled' and missiles are selected at random for loading onto either British or American nuclear submarines.

The UK has not had a programme to develop an independent delivery system since the cancellation of the Blue Streak in 1960. Instead, it purchased US delivery systems for UK use, fitting them with warheads designed and manufactured by the UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment. Under the 1963 Polaris Sales Agreement, the US supplied the UK with Polaris missiles and nuclear submarine technology. Nuclear-capable American aircraft have been based in the UK since 1949, but the last US nuclear weapons were withdrawn in 2006.

In 1982, the Polaris Sales Agreement was amended to allow the UK to purchase Trident II missiles. Since 1998, when the UK decommissioned its tactical WE.177 bombs, the Trident has been the only operational nuclear weapons system in British service. The delivery system consists of four Vanguard-class submarines based at HMNB Clyde in Scotland. Each submarine is armed with up to sixteen Trident II missiles, each carrying warheads in up to eight multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). With at least one submarine always on patrol, the Vanguards perform a strategic nuclear deterrence role and also have a sub-strategic capability.

On Board Britain's Trident
On Board Britain's Nuclear Submarine Trident
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