Information AboutWe177 |
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The WE177 was the last air-launched atomic bomb in the Inventory of the United Kingdom . It was a free-fall, parachute retarded Thermonuclear Weapon which became operational in late 1966 , replacing the Red Beard . It was also used as the basis for a nuclear depth charge deployed by Royal Navy vessels. WE 177 was produced in three models:-
Type A and B weapons were carried by strike aircraft, including the Avro Vulcan , Blackburn Buccaneer , SEPECAT Jaguar , Panavia Tornado , and Harrier . At one time, eight Tornado squadrons were nuclear capable. Two paint-schemes are known to have been used on WE177:- overall white with orange and green bands (early paint-scheme from the 1960s) and overall green with red details (later paint-scheme from the mid-1970s onwards). Most of the examples of WE177 training rounds in museums are of the green-painted variety. The tactical and strategic versions of WE177 had air-burst capability, as evidenced by the white translucent window in the nose of the bomb which housed a radar altimeter. As with all British thermonuclear weapons, the tritium gas used in the bomb core was generated at the military nuclear reactor at Chapelcross . Like all nuclear weapons using Tritium (which decays over time) the WE177 required servicing every 5 to 8 years at AWE sites Llanishen or Burghfield. The safety and arming systems on the WE177 series (Permissive Action Links) were similar to those used on comparable American nuclear weapons such as the B61 . The physical safety characteristics of WE177 were also comparable eg using PBX , the concept of being "one point safe", plus the ability to activate its thermal batteries and fry the circuitry if it detected unauthorised interference. During the Falklands war of 1982, some Royal Navy ships had WE177C bombs on board as they headed south. Having nuclear armed ships was standard procedure during the Cold War. However, all bomb-containers were removed before the ships arrived in South Atlantic combat zone. Retirement (Not Disputed) Following the 1997 General Election the Defence Secretary, George Robertson , ordered the Strategic Defence Review to reassess all of the UK's military commitments and equipment. Only Trident and the Eurofighter were exempt from the review. One of the recommendations of this report was the withdrawal of all remaining WE177s, which was announced in March 1998 . All of the weapons had been dismantled at the AWE facility in Burghfield by the end of August that year, as Britain disassembled all nuclear weapons other than the warheads of the Trident Missile s of the Royal Navy 's ''Vanguard''-class Submarines . At the time of writing (April 2006) Trident is the UK's sole nuclear weapons system, although some British aircraft would be capable of dropping US nuclear weapons eg the B61 and B83 free-fall bombs.
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