The British Bomb

Although the civil nuclear programme was one of Britain s outstanding post-war programmes, it derived almost entirely from the military programme. Indeed, the first ten years of the British nuclear programme were almost entirely military in objective. This included the manufacture of uranium at Springfields, the production of plutonium at Windscale, quite a portion of the research undertaken at Harwell, and the work on the bomh itself at Fort Halstead in Kent, Foulness on the east coast and at Aldermaston. 

The two bombs used at the end of the war against Japan were of radically different design. There was the gun design ( Little Boy ) which used and the implosion 

Hence the decision was taken, even before the war had ended, to set up facilities in Britain to produce plutonium so that Britain could also make its own atomic weapons. There was debate as to whether it was worth producing as well, but it was thought that plutonium was a more efficient material for bomb making. There was discussion as to whether a diffusion plant for separation of uranium isotopes should be built as an insurance policy , but plutonium production was given priority, and it was some time before weapons grade uranium was produced. It is a moot point whether U or plutonium could have been produced first, but the decision to go for plutonium was almost certainly the correct one in the longer term, and there were not the resources at the time to do both. 

I have spoken to DCIGS [Deputy Chief of the Imperiaf Generaf Staff] on the scrambler. 

He had it in mind to add a paragraph to the DCIGS paper this afternoon to the effect that no formal decision seemed to have been taken for the extent of the effort to be put in this country on atomic bomb research and development, and no organisation had been given the clear responsibility for carrying out this work.  

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Marshall (Ref 1, Vol 3) states that the British used a mild but hot expl, Ophorite (qv), during WWI as an opening charge for incendiary shells and smoke bombs... 

Indeed it does, as can be shown by the fits made in Britain for bomb damage to houses, following World War II. These fits, illustrated in Fig. 17, now form part of the basis for the British Quantity-Distance tables for explosives safety. 

During WWII the British developed the "Piat Bomb and the "Bee-hive (Ref 30, p 4)... 

WWII. Trimonite. A castable mixt of PA 88— 90 MNNaphthalene 12—10% developed by the British as an improvement over Tridite (PA 80 DNPhenol 20%). Used as TNT substitute in bombs and shells (Ref 70, pp 370 to 372)... 

The British developed several intensive type bombs, such as the one filled with gasoline and ignited on impact by a Very cartridge but none was as successful as the small unit bombs developed by them later... 

A 40 lb air-burst bomb developed by the British was filled with yellow phosphorous and... 

Small unit bombs. The British originated the idea of dropping a large number of small unit bombs instead of one large scatter type bomb and consequently developed the 6.5 oz bomb... 

Following the British idea, the US Army developed two types of small bombs and called them "darts. ... 

Flaming Thermit. An incendiary mixture developed by the British during WWI and used in dietr small unit (cluster) bombs. It was a mixture of commercial thermit and barium nitrate... 

The definition given by Ordn Dept after SpinishrAmerican War was "A mechanical device, with or without explosive elements, used to explode a shell, bomb or other type of projectile . The British name for an unloaded fuze is pistol... 

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