Talk:Blue Danube (nuclear weapon)

Blueprints

The Blue Danube's genuine blueprints were put into a public library archive a decade ago due to public servant's silly diligence. Everybody could walk in and copy them. You could build the bomb with a CNC lathe in your garage then, guaranteed working. You only had to find some highly refined fissile material to fill it, that is the hard part.

Still, when BBC wrote about this issue last year, the blueprints were removed from public eye and put into secret archive. Weapons experts said nobody is likely to be interest in this design nowadays because it is so heavy at 1300 kilograms. 195.70.32.136 10:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the theft of several hundred pounds of high explosives and several tens of pounds of weapons grade uranium MIGHT just draw some attention...94.175.244.252 (talk) 14:07, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it was me guv.

It was in 2002, and I have to confess it was me who spotted the files and photocopied them, before speaking to a journalist contact and a Member of Parliament. The plans were withdrawn and reclassified 'SECRET' the following day. But I still have the photocopies. Nor can the Ministry of Defence erase my personal memory banks. Probably.

For a sight of the original newspaper report, Google my name, Brian Burnell, and it should pop-up at several sites including the original Daily Telegraph report. The files contained various engineering blueprints, but the two key documents were a sectional, dimensioned drawing on foolscap of Sir William Penney's original sketch (in his own hand) for the fissile core, and a drawing of the Urchin impact initiator. I still have a photocopy of that also.

However, I worked on Blue Danube as a young design engineer in the 1950's, and agreed then to abide by the UK's Official Secrets Act. That's not a disposable committment; its for life. Unless the files are later declassified again ....

While its true to say that no ill-intentioned person would copy this design (for a variety of reasons) there are easier ways for a sub-national group to build a workable if inefficient and crude weapon. But a common misconception is that it cannot or never will be done.

Remember that such a weapon would be built to be used shortly after completion. The elaborate and sophisticated products of weapons-engineering laboratories are very different, and are intended to serve a different purpose. Firstly, they are not designed to be used. They are designed to have a long shelf life, for long-term storage with minimal servicing while remaining ultra-reliable and safe. Their only expected usage is likely to be as a bargaining chip or to wave about a bit in the faces of other states. It is expected that they will never be used. A sub-national terrorist group isn't interested in a weapon of that sophistication. And they have so much experience and skill with conventional explosives they would be stupid to branch out into weapons that they have no experience of; and use of one would invite annihilation.

I can be contacted via my talk page.

The documents didn't really reveal anything that a determined person could have found out via the public domain and with a rudimentary understanding of the physics involved at the time anyway - it is a very old design (which also means that it uses a very large amount of fissile material, making ownership of the plans the very easiest by far part of building a device).

And you don't "agree" to abide by the official secrets act (do you really think we ask people pretty-please-don't-reveal-our-secrets!- the thing you sign is just a confirmation that you have been notified of the secrecy. Even if you didn't know it was a secret, and didnt sign anything, you are still bound by the act.

I'm not sure what the exact designation is here in the UK, but in the US, such things are called "born secret". That is, even if you do original research in your garden shed, without any secret documentation or knowledge, and figure out these things for yourself, it is automatically classified and you will be treated as if you are in possession of classified information.94.175.244.252 (talk) 14:26, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Tmayes

Those blue prints did reveal the use of a 4 piece levitated pit imploded by a hollow high explosive sphere as I stated. This information is correct and should have not been removed from this article by fast fission. I understand some persons are bound by the british official secrets act in discussing the Blue Danube design but some private persons who know about it can discuss it.

I have seen the actual blueprints of the Blue Danube nuclear weapon , and I know my description of its design is in fact actually correct. tmayes

People like fast fission* et el should realize there are some wickipedians who truly do have accurate , complete , and detailed information about nuclear weapon physics, and nuclear weapon design. Neither I nor them will actually publish anything on wickipedia that is not already in the public realm* because of the sensitive nature of this material. People like fast fission however are wrong to doubt what we do actualy write about nuclear weapons here and question its accuracy however**.I will not claim we are infallible ******* but people like fast fission are surely more fallible then we are when they write about this. tmayes

We have a little policy on here called verifiability (see Wikipedia:Verifiability). We can't just take your word on things, especially when you can't cite your sources. Especially when you've been horribly wrong in the past. --Fastfission 12:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC) I have never actually been horribly wrong in the past , but you have been

horribly wrong in the past. tmayes1965

The [British] Official Secrets Act.

Actually, Tmayes, whether a private person or not, whether you signed it or not, you would be bound by the Official Secrets Act like it or not, if you are a person of any nationality residing in, or visiting Britain. And any alleged breach would probably be extradictable.

When key workers in the UK are asked to 'sign the OSA' it does not mean that they are bound by it only after they sign it. Its just a procedural device so that afterwards the cops can more easily prove to a court that the alleged offender was compos mentis and aware of the law. All people are bound by it whether they sign or not; just as all people are bound by other laws on homicide, dangerous driving etc. Brian.Burnell 17:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Not everyone who knows the design of blue danube lives in or visits britian.

Perhaps not. However extradition to Britain to face the music is always a possibility. And we also know how to spell Britain. 94.1.2.86 (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Revert text to compare with the Hiroshima bomb

The British Chiefs of Staff had specified a Blue Danube yield of 10-12 kT to maximise the number of weapons that could be produced with the fissile material available. This yield was compared in my origional revision (dated 24 May 2006) to the Hiroshima bomb. Another user later added an inaccurate reference to Fat Man (should have been Little Boy) and then another user corrected the mistaken reference to Fat Man by changing 'Hiroshima bomb' to 'Nagaski bomb' which made the comparison worthless since the Nagasaki bomb was of approx double the yield of Blue Danube, and not what was intended.

• There were numerous factors embodied in the Chiefs reasons for selecting 10-12 kT.
• The available fissile material referred to above.
• The results of Air Ministry scientific studies on targetting that concluded that at that time there were few targets that required a greater yield than 10 kT, and that those few could be attacked with more than one bomb.
• The pre-detonation issue. Until 1956-57 all Blue Danube bombs used an all-Pu-239 core and the Chiefs were advised by AWRE that by limiting yield to 10 kT the small core size would limit the risk of pre-detonation to an acceptable figure.
• When U-235 became available in 1956 it became possible to overcome the predetonation issue by adopting composite cores of concentric shells of U-235 and Pu-239, and larger yields were possible without increasing the risk of pre-detonation. But the Chiefs were content to accept the targetting study recommendations of the Air Ministry scientists that 10 kT was enough.
• In accepting that composite cores should also be limited to 10-12 kT the Chiefs were also aware that at that yield, and with the fissile material available, the number of weapons possible would increase considerably, because the amount of Pu-239 required was less than that required for an all-Pu-239 core of similar yield.
• The yield specified by the Chiefs was 10 kT until the Director of AWRE, Sir William Penney advised the Chiefs that a composite core was barely possible at 10 kT and that the actual minimum yield that AWRE could produce was likely to be 12 kT. The Chiefs accepted that advice.
• Researchers should note that in the British terminology of the period, the term 'mixed core' was used for the American term 'composite core'. Sources are declassified Ministry of Defence documents archived as DEFE 32/3 E13. Brian.Burnell 00:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Strange claim

I would very much like to know what the basis for this quote from the page:

"Almost all modern fission devices use a composite core."

Really????

Back it up or remove it.

Yale s 06:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There is an unnecessary aggressive tone to the comment here. There are numerous references in public domain literature to mixed or composite cores. In US, UK, Soviet and Chinese weapons, and the editor did qualify his statement with the word "almost". 94.1.2.86 (talk) 19:16, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Blue Danube Bomb.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Blue Danube as a cultural reference

A category has been added that suggests that the codename, "Blue Danube" is some kind of cultural reference. I can't quite work this out , and it seems like OR to me - it seems just as likely that the Ministry of Supply had a long list of two-word codewords, eg "Green Grass", "Yellow Sun" etc and this was simply another name on that list that someone had dreamed up. So it seems very unlikely to be a genuine "cultural reference" to anything in particular? Thom2002 (talk) 21:33, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Rainbow codes were supposed to be random, or at least meaningless, but in practice they were manually chosen and often had vague cultural references (chosen after all by a group of Whitehall MOD civil servants who followed the Times crossword religiously). Red Dean (prominent communist clergyman), [The] Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger film), Blue Danube (popular music of the time), Orange William and Orange Nell (17th century historical puns), even Red Setter (a fashionable dog breed at this time). Andy Dingley (talk) 22:19, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Lol, I like it, thanks Andy. When I was researching the Polaris programme article, I found a (not necessarily reliable) story that said the "Super Antelope" upgrade programme was changed to "Chevaline" after a civil servant was told to phone up London Zoo and ask for the name of an animal like a big antelope, as they thought the codename "Super Antelope" was not refined enough for their Times crossword sensibilities. Thom2002 (talk) 07:00, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

There were several that had a horse racing context. A story that pops up frequently is that one civil servant with codename assignment duties in the Ministry had a fondness for the turf accountant and the form of horses, and that he tended to favour combinations of horse names. Then there was Red Duster (the British Merchant Navy Red Ensign), Red Rose (of Lancashire), Red Shoes (a movie), Blue Water and WE.177 was originally known as Red Flag. All have cultural references to English ears. Although supposed to be random, no one who had the slightest knowledge of the British H-bomb project would be surprised that the codename Yellow Sun was adopted for a thermonuclear weapon. 94.1.2.86 (talk) 19:16, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

"Super Antelope" was not used because it was too illustrative in relation to "Antelope", i.e., it being indicative of an improved "Antelope", and therefore gave away too much information. "Chevaline" OTOH still has a connection to "Antelope" albeit an obscure one.

The whole subject of British cold war codenames is very entangled and confusing, which of course, it was intended to be. This is not helped by them sometimes being applied somewhat inconsistantly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.18.153 (talk) 10:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes we're all f******* james bond aren't we?

Everyone talks about the leaked documents (including the, alleged, source himself) as if they arn't 50 year old blueprints of an entirely obsolete weapon that was probably on the cusp of declassification anyway, if it wasn't covered by some nuclear clause which keeps it under wraps for longer.

You've got the plans? Right, now all you need is a large amount of weapons grade uranium, that bit has got to be easy right?

They didn't even build any operational examples because they didn't have enough fissile material! With access to national-scale facilities and resources!

No, the leaking of this ancient document has not increased anyones threat level. Any terrorist with the competence to build a bomb, does not need those documents to do so. The actual hardes part of building a device (apart from gettting the fissile stuff) is the accuracy to which certain parts (the geometry and placing of the explosive lenses, the pit and its "levitation" [a cardboard cone, if you were wondering, and the placing and timing mechanisms of the detonators - this stuff isnt even classified) must be machined. The gross physical makeup of the device (measurements, materials, amounts and components) are actually fairly well known in the public domain - and can be calculated quite easily with a fair grounding in modern physics, remember, a lot of what is taught in classrooms today would have been science fiction 50 years ago.

The hard part is the engineering and the fissile materials, you can all get off your "I know secret stuff" high horses now.94.175.244.252 (talk) 14:40, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually the potential problem was not 'terrorists' getting access to the information, rather it was non-nuclear third-world governments who had the resources and time to invest in getting a viable nuclear weapon. So the releasing of the documents was more of a potential problem with nuclear non-proliferation.

Knowing theoretically how to build a bomb is one thing, but knowing how to build one that you can guarantee will work is another.

Part of the problem facing a non-nuclear country building a bomb is knowing whether the design chosen will subsequently work or not. The Blue Danube plans gave any potential breaker of the Non-Proliferation Treaty a known workable design. Knowing this can make a big difference as to whether that country wants to invest the considerable time and resources into starting a programme or not. Generally for this sort of potential user they are not bothered how powerful, physically big, or difficult a weapon may be for them so use, just whether it works or not. So the fact that a design may have been fifty years out of date is largely irrelevant. They just want something that works.

The Blue Danube warhead was anyway not of the type likely to be of interest to 'terrorists'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.18.153 (talk) 11:07, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

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