Yellow Sun

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A cutaway diagram of a Yellow Sun casing with Red Snow warhead

Yellow Sun was the first British operational high-yield strategic nuclear weapon. The name actually refers only to the outer casing, the warhead (or physics package) was known as "Green Grass in Yellow Sun Mk.1" and "Red Snow in Yellow Sun Mk.2". The ENI or electronic neutron initiator (generator) was Blue Stone. The casing was some 21 feet (6.4 meters) long, 48 inches in diameter, and quite heavy at about 7,250 lb. Unlike contemporary U.S. bombs of similar power it did not use a parachute to retard its fall, instead, the blunt nose was intended to slow the fall of the weapon sufficiently to permit the bomber to escape the detonation. Electrical power was supplied by duplicated ram-air turbines located behind the twin air intakes in the flat nose. The earlier Blue Danube design had relied on lead-acid batteries that had proven to be unreliable and time-consuming in flight-preparation.

Yellow Sun Stage 1 and Stage 2 were the original designations. Stage 1 was intended as an interim design to carry a one megaton Green Bamboo warhead of the "layer-cake" type thought similar to the Soviet JOE.4 and the US "Alarm Clock" concepts. These hybrid designs are not now regarded as truly thermonuclear, but were then thought to be a stepping-stone on the route to a fusion bomb. Stage 2 was to follow when a true thermonuclear warhead based on the Granite design became available.

The 45 inch diameter of Green Bamboo determined the 48 inch diameter of both Yellow Sun and the Powered Guided Bomb Blue Steel. After Green Bamboo was abandoned a decision was made to use the Interim Megaton Weapon known as Green Grass in the Yellow Sun casing and designate it as Yellow Sun Mk.1 until better warheads were available for a Mk.2. Green Grass was of similar layout to Green Bamboo, although it was not thermonuclear, being a very large unboosted pure fission warhead that was based in part on the core of the Orange Herald device tested at Grapple, with some of the implosion and firing features of Green Bamboo. Five Green Grass warheads were fitted in larger, older casings derived from Blue Danube and known as Violet Club. These five warheads were later transferred to the Yellow Sun Mk.1 casings and supplemented by further warheads totalling thirty-seven. Green Grass yield was originally stated to the Royal Air Force (RAF) as 500 kT, but the designers estimate was later revised downwards to 400 kT. The Green Grass warhead was never tested. It used a dangerously large quantity of fissile material thought to be in excess of 70 kg, considerably more than an uncompressed critical mass. It was kept subcritical by being fashioned into a thin-walled spherical shell. To guard against accidental crushing of the core into a critical condition the shell was filled with 133,000 steel ball-bearings weighing 450 kg. These had to be removed before flight. The RAF thought it unsafe.

A diagram of the Green Grass warhead's steel ball-bearing safety device, shown left, filled (safe) and right, empty (live)

RAF Service designations were Bomb, Aircraft HE 7000lb HC Mk.1 or Bomb, Aircraft HE 7000lb HC Mk.2. In RAF jargon the letters "HC" (from High Capacity) referred to nuclear bombs in the megaton range. Kiloton range tactical bombs were designated with the letters "MC" (Medium Capacity).

A Yellow Sun-cased bomb on its trolley

Deployment started in 1959-60. Yellow Sun Mk.1 was intended as an "emergency" weapon, and had not been engineered for reliable long-term stockpiling. It was always envisaged that a Mk.2 version would be available later fitted with a true thermonuclear warhead derived from the Granite type tested at Grapple, or an American type made available after the 1958 Anglo-US Bilateral Agreement. It was carried only by RAF V-bombers. In September 1958 a decision was made to abandon the Granite type warheads intended for Yellow Sun Mk.2 (and Blue Steel, and Blue Streak MRBM) and instead adopt the US W-28 warhead used in the US Mk-28 nuclear bomb. This was anglicised to adapt it to British engineering practices, and manufactured in Britain using British fissile materials and known as Red Snow.

Red Snow was both more powerful, lighter and smaller than Green Grass. It was always envisaged that the Yellow Sun bomb casing would be adapted for successor warheads to minimise unessential development time and cost. Yellow Sun Mk. 2 entered service in 1961, and remained the primary air-dropped strategic weapon until replaced with WE.177B in 1966.

Although the first British designed thermonuclear weapon to be deployed, Yellow Sun was not the first to be deployed with the RAF. US Mk-15/39 and Mk-28 thermonuclear bombs and others had been supplied to the RAF for use in V-bombers prior to the deployment of Yellow Sun. Some bombers of the V-force only ever used American weapons supplied under dual-key arrangements.

[edit] See also

• Rainbow Codes

[edit] External links

• UK Nuclear Weapon History
• UK Nuclear and Chemical Weapons site
• Britain's Nuclear Weapons - note: contains much old, possibly inaccurate, information that may have been superseded in the light of subsequent, recently de-classified, documents.