The Brits Still Have Our Back

It should have been a cruise missile.

Royal Navy fires warning shot at Spanish patrol boat ‘hassling’ US nuclear submarine attempting to dock at Gibraltar

The Royal Navy has fired a warning shot at a Spanish patrol boat as it tried to 'hassle' a US nuclear submarine attempting to dock at Gibraltar, it has emerged.

Ohio Class USS Florida,  SSGN 728

560' long, 18,750 tons
Four 533mm torpedo tubes, 154 BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles

Spanish Guardia Civil vessel Rio Cedena twice tried to disrupt the visit by ballistic missile sub USS Florida as it was approaching the British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of Spain. Flares were fired across its bow as it sailed in front of the American submarine and the Royal Navy reportedly dispatched its squadron patrol vessel HMS Sabre.

Spanish Patrol/Party Boat SS Sangria
57' long, 8000 lbs.
MG-82 5.56mm machine gun, 24 six packs Alhambra Premium Lager

Story here.

This is not the first time that Spain has played sea squirrel with England, but now they have involved a warship of the US Navy. Smart.

In a 2010 incident the Royal Navy almost blew up another Spanish patrol boat:

The Civil Guard patrol boat ignored warnings as it came close to the heavily armed warship HMS Somerset and the fast patrol boat HMS Sabre.

The two Royal Navy vessels were carrying out an anti-terror exercise in an area where ships are always on high alert for attacks.

Britain has made an official complaint to Spain following the latest in a series of confrontations between the two countries around Gibraltar.

[...]Senior British military officials were said to be "furious" when they learned what happened, and said the Spanish ship risked being "blown out of the water" by its recklessness. A Navy source told the Gibraltar Chronicle: "Racing towards a well-armed warship is madness. It's irresponsible and incredibly risky."

The reason for this brash action? Spain has had a 300 year woody for Gibraltar.

Spain refuses to recognise that the waters outside Gibralter's three-mile port perimeter are British and has repeatedly tried to reclaim them. Britain was given Gibraltar and the waters around it in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, but Spain has said it will never renounce its claim to sovereignty.