The British Government in the story evacuated to Belfast, so its doubtful that the captain of the Trident submarine on patrol would go against the orders that he would still receive from the Government.1) What would have happened to the patrolling Trident Submarine when the UK fell? I Believe it would depend on what Blair wrote in his 'Letters of Last Resort', but the Royal Navy's boomers by all accounts do not have the same PALs as US and Russian boats, so the Skipper can de facto act of his own accord.
2) Perhaps a more sensible option than fighting the infected head on during the initial outbreak would have been to implement a 'hunker down' strategy.
Once it became clear that the Army was losing major engagements in Cambridge and then Luton, strategy should have changed. I would have instituted a lockdown/shelter in place order, telling everybody to lock their doors, close all curtains and barricade themselves in their homes. The Army meanwhile would fortify its garrisons with layers upon layers of concertina wire, landmines and ditches and simply defend its bases, where soldiers (and their immediate families) live. It would be much easier for a garrison to mount an all-round defence of its base, with the waves of infected falling into ditches and getting caught up in concertina-wire, with infantrymen on catwalks behind fences taking them out with direct fire, all the while supported by Artillery units garrisoned on the same bases (think Catterick and Colchester) - DPICM rounds would be perfect for breaking up large hordes of infected if they can be procured from the US in time.
With everybody barricading themselves in their homes, the infected would have nobody to infect and thus the disease would burn itself out far more rapidly. Then the Army could begin offensive operations, moving out of its garrisons to mop up any surviving infected and re-secure the country.
Also, the British Army at the time had the whole 1st Armoured Division based in Germany. There is no way in hell the whole division would have been able to redeploy to the UK mainland in the alloted time, meaning that when the Army breaks from its garrisons to go on the offensive, there is a whole division (just under 1/2 of the Army's deployable combat formations at the time) that can be used in addition to attrited formations that have been fighting in the UK since the first outbreak.
Casualties from statvation and also from those poor people unable to look after themselves at home would of course be massive, perhaps in the tens of millions, but in the dire circumstances of this TL, it beats watching the whole country sink under the tide of the infection.
Well hindsight is 20/20, the British military really should've used different tactics to fight the infected during the 2002 outbreak, it wasn't helped that during the first critical 24 hours of the Cambridge outbreak the authorities were reluctant to issue an immediate shoot on sight policy for the infected, if the British had the hindsight to know that there was nothing that could be done to "save" the sick people then the outbreak could have been limited to just the East Anglia region. It should be noted @kspence92 was forced to write a story that would have the collapse of the British Military being plausibly explained in a span of just 28 days, since he made sure to have the story remain cannon compliant to the events that were mentioned in the films.
Looking at the suggestions, I don't know if the "hunker down" strategy would have work well, one major problem is that people would have likely still panicked and started looting for food once their limited supplies ran out, trust in their Governments lockdown plan would collapse especially when news breaks out that apart from their immediate family members the military has given up defending most of the cities and are instead focused on having garrisons fortifying their bases into infected kill zones. I wouldn't be surprised if the attempt of adopting this controversial strategy would lead to political infighting in the British Government and anger in certain parts of the military. Many civilians would likely refuse to listen to the orders to lockdown and instead attempt to evacuate to anyway, spreading the virus. Ultimately the looting, evacuations, infighting, anarchy and the collapse of both the UK power grid and the water pumps, would all conspire together to prevent the Rage virus from burning out quickly, but most of the British Military would survive in the scenario, providing that their stockpiles of ammunition, fuel and food do not run out.
Last edited: