Recent from talks
Yellow Sun (nuclear weapon)
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Yellow Sun (nuclear weapon)
Yellow Sun was the first British operational high-yield strategic nuclear weapon warhead. The name refers only to the outer casing; the warhead (or physics package) was known as "Green Grass" in Yellow Sun Mk.1 and "Red Snow" (a US design) in Yellow Sun Mk.2.
Yellow Sun was designed to contain a variety of warheads. The initial plan was that it would carry an layer-cake type warhead known as "Green Bamboo", and then replace it with a true thermonuclear warhead known as "Green Granite". After signing a weapon technology agreement with the US, both concepts were dropped. Green Granite would be replaced by Red Snow at an earlier service date. This meant the interim Green Bamboo was less important and it was replaced by the less powerful and simpler "Green Grass".
A unique feature of the Yellow Sun casing was its completely flat nose. This provided two benefits, one was that the drag allowed the bomb to fall behind the bomber a safe distance before detonation, and the other was that it did not generate the complex pattern of shock waves that a classically curved nose created, which made it difficult to measure altitude barometrically.
Mark 1 with Green Grass began to enter service in 1959, replacing the massive Blue Danube over the next year. Mark 2 with Red Snow began to replace it in 1961. Beginning in 1966, Yellow Sun was replaced by the WE.177, based on another US design.
The casing was around 21 feet (6.4 m) long, and 48 inches (1.2 m) in diameter. The Mark 1 version with the Green Grass warhead weighed 7,250 pounds (3,290 kg). The Mark 2 Yellow Sun using the lighter Red Snow warhead had ballast added to maintain overall weight, ballistic and aerodynamic properties, and avoid further lengthy and expensive testing, and changes to the electrical power generating and airburst fuze.
Unlike contemporary United States bombs of similar destructive power, Yellow Sun did not deploy a parachute to retard its fall. Instead, it had a completely flat nose which induced drag, thereby slowing the fall of the weapon sufficiently to permit the bomber to escape the danger zone. Additionally, the blunt nose ensured that Yellow Sun did not encounter the transonic/supersonic shock waves which had caused many difficulties with barometric fuzing gates which had plagued an earlier weapon, Blue Danube.
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 which had proven to be both unreliable and to require time-consuming pre-flight warming.
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 Sloika 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 Green Granite design became available.
Hub AI
Yellow Sun (nuclear weapon) AI simulator
(@Yellow Sun (nuclear weapon)_simulator)
Yellow Sun (nuclear weapon)
Yellow Sun was the first British operational high-yield strategic nuclear weapon warhead. The name refers only to the outer casing; the warhead (or physics package) was known as "Green Grass" in Yellow Sun Mk.1 and "Red Snow" (a US design) in Yellow Sun Mk.2.
Yellow Sun was designed to contain a variety of warheads. The initial plan was that it would carry an layer-cake type warhead known as "Green Bamboo", and then replace it with a true thermonuclear warhead known as "Green Granite". After signing a weapon technology agreement with the US, both concepts were dropped. Green Granite would be replaced by Red Snow at an earlier service date. This meant the interim Green Bamboo was less important and it was replaced by the less powerful and simpler "Green Grass".
A unique feature of the Yellow Sun casing was its completely flat nose. This provided two benefits, one was that the drag allowed the bomb to fall behind the bomber a safe distance before detonation, and the other was that it did not generate the complex pattern of shock waves that a classically curved nose created, which made it difficult to measure altitude barometrically.
Mark 1 with Green Grass began to enter service in 1959, replacing the massive Blue Danube over the next year. Mark 2 with Red Snow began to replace it in 1961. Beginning in 1966, Yellow Sun was replaced by the WE.177, based on another US design.
The casing was around 21 feet (6.4 m) long, and 48 inches (1.2 m) in diameter. The Mark 1 version with the Green Grass warhead weighed 7,250 pounds (3,290 kg). The Mark 2 Yellow Sun using the lighter Red Snow warhead had ballast added to maintain overall weight, ballistic and aerodynamic properties, and avoid further lengthy and expensive testing, and changes to the electrical power generating and airburst fuze.
Unlike contemporary United States bombs of similar destructive power, Yellow Sun did not deploy a parachute to retard its fall. Instead, it had a completely flat nose which induced drag, thereby slowing the fall of the weapon sufficiently to permit the bomber to escape the danger zone. Additionally, the blunt nose ensured that Yellow Sun did not encounter the transonic/supersonic shock waves which had caused many difficulties with barometric fuzing gates which had plagued an earlier weapon, Blue Danube.
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 which had proven to be both unreliable and to require time-consuming pre-flight warming.
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 Sloika 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 Green Granite design became available.
Recent media