Policy Execution 1958–61

  • Richard Moore
Chapter
Part of the Nuclear Weapons and International Security since 1945 book series (NWIS)

Abstract

The British nuclear-weapons programme grew in maturity in the period between 1958 and 1961. At the end of 1958, there were probably only 58 deliverable first-generation Blue Danube bombs available to the RAF, and five of the interim megaton bomb Violet Club. Three years later, there were nearly 200 weapons of British manufacture in the stockpile, including much more operationally flexible designs: the light-weight kiloton weapon Red Beard and the megaton H-bomb Yellow Sun Mk.2. The acute constraints of fissile material shortage, engineering capacity and the testing moratorium were eased by the growing atomic relationship with the United States. Great strides appear to have been made at Aldermaston — not just in copying, or more strictly speaking anglicising, US nuclear warhead designs, but in original and joint US/UK work on new requirements. Collaboration with the US appears not to have led to a feeling of subordination, but to have increased confidence at Aldermaston. The RAF certainly also gained in confidence, exercising its growing number of V-bomber squadrons to forge a real nuclear bombing capability, with real targets in real war plans, and improving in particular its state of operational readiness. British nuclear weapons were deployed overseas, to equip RAF Canberras in Cyprus and naval strike aircraft worldwide.

Keywords

Nuclear Weapon Blue Water Enrich Uranium Ballistic Missile Photo Courtesy 
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Notes

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Copyright information

© Richard Moore 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  • Richard Moore
    • 1
  1. 1.Mountbatten Centre for International StudiesUniversity of SouthamptonUK

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