Nuclear deterrent atomic bomb

The British aircraft industry appeared to be backward compared with its American and Soviet counterparts, but this was mainly because the expectation that the maximum danger of war lay in the future, about 1957, led to a gap in British development and production of a number of important weapons systems. The timing of up-to-date strategic bombers was linked to the development of the British atomic bomb, which, although first tested in October 1952, would not be ready for operational use until about 1956. Meanwhile Britain was wholly dependent on the United States for nuclear deterrence. 

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