Deployment of US Tactical Nuclear Weapons
Until 1992 UK forces also deployed US tactical nuclear weapons as part of a US-UK dual-key NATO nuclear sharing role. This arrangement commenced in 1958 as Project E to provide nuclear weapons to the RAF prior to a sufficient number of Britain's own nuclear weapons becoming available.
The weapons deployed included nuclear artillery, nuclear demolition mines and warheads for Corporal and Lance missiles in Germany; theatre nuclear weapons on RAF aircraft; Mark 101 nuclear depth bombs on RAF Shackleton maritime patrol aircraft, later replaced by a modern successor, the B-57 deployed on RAF Nimrod aircraft.
The Lance missiles were purchased in 1975, to replace Honest John missiles which had been bought in 1960; and were themselves a replacement for the US Corporal missiles deployed in Germany by the Royal Artillery. Not generally recognised is the fact that the Royal Artillery deployed a numerically greater quantity of US nuclear weapons than the RAF and Royal Navy combined, peaking at 277 in 1976-78; with a further 50 ADMs deployed with another British Army unit, the Royal Engineers, peaking in 1971-81. The dual-key agreement for controlling US tactical nuclear weapons, known as the Heidelberg Agreement, was made on 30 August 1961. The UK sponsored access for the Canadian Army Honest John missile deployments to the US/UK nuclear warhead storage sites.
During the 1980s nuclear armed USAF Ground Launched Cruise Missiles were deployed at RAF Greenham Common and RAF Molesworth. Until about 2006 the US continued to store nuclear weapons in the UK, when approximately 110 tactical B61 nuclear bombs stored at RAF Lakenheath for deployment by USAF F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft were removed.
The US now does not have any nuclear weapons in UK territory.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Weapons And The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words nuclear weapons, nuclear and/or weapons:
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“Could it not be that just at the moment masculinity has brought us to the brink of nuclear destruction or ecological suicide, women are beginning to rise in response to the Mother’s call to save her planet and create instead the next stage of evolution? Can our revolution mean anything else than the reversion of social and economic control to Her representatives among Womankind, and the resumption of Her worship on the face of the Earth? Do we dare demand less?”
—Jane Alpert (b. 1947)
“Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams—Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)