XBradTC

A nuclear-armed U.S. ballistic missile submarine arrived in Scotland this week amid growing tensions with Moscow over Ukraine and Russia’s strategic arms buildup.The submarine, the USS Wyoming, arrived at the British naval base at Faslane, Scotland, Wednesday morning for what the U.S. Strategic Command said is a routine visit.However, ballistic missile submarine movements and port visits normally are not announced by the Navy or the Strategic Command, an indication the Wyoming’s port call is intended as strategic messaging to Moscow.The submarine visit “demonstrates the closeness of the U.S./U.K. defense relationship and our commitment to the collective security of all NATO member states,” Stratcom said in a brief statement.The submarine deployment followed an earlier unannounced visit by a British missile submarine to Kings Bay, Ga., the homeport of the Wyoming.

Source: U.S. Nuclear Missile Submarine Surfaces in Scotland

Port visits by SSBNs are rare in the first place. Normally, they go out on their 60 day patrols, and simply disappear for two months. Sending one to Scotland is a subtle message that the Navy can still send boomers where they want, and the Russians can’t really do anything about it.

Of course, the big advantage of the Trident II equipped Ohio’s is that they have a missile that has long enough range, and great enough accuracy, that they can provide a credible counterforce/countervalue threat just about from pierside. Earlier SSBNs, equipped with Polaris or Poseidon had to get much closer to Russia, due to their shorter ranged missiles, and only had the accuracy to provide a credible countervalue threat. That is, their missiles weren’t accurate enough to  target missile silos, only cities.