Illogical, Captain

Part of Britain's aviation and military past makes its last flight this weekend. A Vulcan bomber flew past Portobello beach this lunchtime. These planes were very much a part of the Cold War, carrying the UK's nuclear bombs. And so a bit of history... [gleaned from Wikipedia, where else?]

The Vulcan bombers were designed to carry Britain's first tactical nuclear weapons, the ”Blue Danube” gravity bombs. At 10-12 kilotons these fission bombs were similar in size to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The UK’s independent deterrent was slow to develop with ‘only’ 10 bombs by 1955 and 14 by 1956 and therefore an arrangement was made with the USA to use US-owned Mk.5 bombs. These Mk.5 bombs were returned to the USA when the UK had sufficient weapons of its own.

The “Blue Danube” bombs were replaced by “Red Beard” nuclear weapons (in first 15 kiloton and then 25 kiloton versions) and the UK started to introduce strategic nuclear weaponry with the “Yellow Sun” series. Inside the casing at first was the “Green Bamboo” and then the “Green Grass” interim megaton devices, before the first UK thermonuclear warhead, “Red Snow”. [What is it with all these colourful names? As opposed to the US names - the “Red Snow” was a variant of the US W28 warhead.]

From 1962, three of the Vulcan squadrons were armed with the “Blue Steel” missile, a rocket-powered bomb, which also contained the 1.1 Mt “Red Snow” warhead. The RAF and the US Strategic Air Command cooperated in the Single Integrated Operation Plan to ensure ‘coverage’ of all major Soviet targets from the late 1950s. From 1962 two jets in every major RAF base were on permanent standby, armed with nuclear weapons and ready to be airborne within the “four minute warning” of an impending USSR nuclear strike against the UK.

When JFK cancelled the Skybolt system [the US starting to get the whole naming of weapons thing] the Vulcans were equipped with a different weapon - the WE.177 - but its low-altitude delivery from the high-altitude Vulcans probably meant they would have been ineffective had they ever been used in anger. Which fortunately for us all they never were. 

The Polaris submarines took over the UK’s strategic nuclear strike capacity although Vulcans were still armed with WE.177s in a so-called ‘tactical nuclear strike’ role. [Would a tactical nuclear strike in the Cold War era ever have not escalated into a full-on nuclear war and destruction of the planet?]

And is it the question over the renewal of Trident, the replacement for Polaris, that is the real reason for all this hoopla over the Vulcan? Harking back to when the UK was still a world power. Flying around Edinburgh to not-so-subtly remind Scotland that we 'need' to renew Trident, when there are much better things to spend our money on. Now, surely wasting all that money on a weapon you hope never to use against an enemy that no longer exists, that is illogical, captain.