Blue Danube

Petunia 6 PAN 0.25 1 4 15 24 Injury Blue Danube Parti Pink 139... 

A. Shestopalov, and A.E. Fedorov, 11th Blue Danube Symposium on Heterocyclic Chemistry. Tihany, Hungary, June 10-13,2007, Budapest PO No. 50 (2007). 

Policymaking was not made any easier by the rapidity of technical change in nuclear warfare, on the one hand, and by the slowness of the development of British delivery systems, on the other. The first examples of Blue Danube, the production model of the British atomic bomb, were delivered to Bomber Command s Armament School in November 1953 to enable RAF personnel to be trained in their storage, service and use. It would have been possible to adapt the ageing Lincoln piston-engined bombers to carry Blue Danube, but the decision was taken to... 

Riva, R. 10th Blue Danube Symposium on Heterocyclic Chemistry, 2003,... 

F. FtilOp, L. Lazar, A. Lakatos, G. Bernath, and F. G. Riddell, poster presentation on the 4th Blue Danube Symposium on Heterocyclic Chemistry, St. POlten, Austria, 1994, PO 23. 

H. Bolcskei, E. Gaecs-Baitz, C. Szantay, G. Kalaus and C. Szantay, Blue Danube Symp. Heterocycl. Chem. Abstr. Short Pap., 7th, eds., A. Kotschy and G. Hajos,Str. 207,1998. 

MI1 J. Reiter, in 7lh Blue Danube Symposium on Heterocyclic... 

The Air Ministry had been making plans for a bomb for some time a memo of 9 August 1946, sets out a requirement for an atomic bomb, although it does seem from the memo that the air staff were unaware of the exact size of the Fat Man design, since they state For aircraft design purposes, it has been assumed that the atomic bomb may be in two sizes, either 5 or 3 in diameter, weighing 10,000 lb or 8,0001b respectively . This tentative requirement would soon be refined into an official Operational Requirement (OR 1001), which in turn would become the weapon known as Blue Danube. 

Blue Danube bombs were delivered to Bomber Conunand, although it did not enjoy a high reputation in the RAF ... 

There is evidence accumulating in Bomber Command that the unserviceability and defect rate among the components of Blue Danube are very high. The two main reasons are probably that (a) Blue Danube is the first nuclear weapon we have made, (b) it was introduced into service at a much earher stage in its development than it should have been for pohtical reasons. [A comment was written in pencil in the margin Hear, hear ]... 

A service issue Blue Danube was dropped at the Maralinga range in Australia by a Valiant bomber in the Buffalo test of 11 October 1956. The weapon was downrated to 16 kT and was set for a burst height of 500 feet. A live weapon dropped from an operational aircraft was a demonstration that Britain now had a fully operational independent deterrent. 

Blue Danube and Red Beard obviously had many features in common since the hssile cores of Blue Danube can be converted for Red Beard in half a day s work at AWRE. They cannot afterwards be used in Blue Danube . ... 

Figure 5.3. Red Beard — the successor to Blue Danube, and often described as a tactical nuclear weapon.

The quantity of fissile material in the core of these devices still remains classified, but a cost analysis undertaken for the Treasury makes interesting reading. Thus for Red Beard, a memo stated that 22 warheads had been sold in 1959/60, containing 100.76 kg costed at 92,000 per kilogram. This works out at 4.58 kg per warhead. Since the cores of Red Beard and Blue Danube were virtually identical, it could be assumed that the core of Blue Danube was also 4.58 kg. 

Having said that, a design for a pure fission warhead based on Orange Herald was later pressed into service as a megaton warhead for the RAF under the code name of Green Grass. This was reduced in size so as to economise in fissile material, and was installed in the Blue Danube bomb casing. The new bomb was known as Violet Club. 

Green B amboo in the Blue Danube case. This would be a boosted weapon intermediate in the use of fissile material. Safety would be effected by filling the centre of the fissile assembly with an inert padding which could be removed when making the bomb ready just before take-off. Hence the weapon would be safe in transit but not in flight. There would be practical difficulties to the application of the... 

The first tests were carried out in 1957 at Operation Grapple in the middle of the Pacific, in what was probably the largest peacetime post-war operation ever undertaken by the services (and notable for the large number of National Service persoimel involved — National Service being a form of conscription for young men, soon to be abolished). AH the tests were carried out as air drops from a Valiant bomber, high over the Pacific, so as to minimise fallout. The devices themselves were all fitted inside the Blue Danube bomb casing. 

Prokopcova, H., Lengar, A., Kappe, C. O. (2005). 11th Blue danube symposium on heterocyclic chemistry, 28th August-1st September, Brno, Czech Republic. 

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