Red Snow was a British thermonuclear weapon. Its physics package was identical to that of the United States W28 nuclear warhead used in the B28 nuclear bomb and AGM-28 Hound Dog missile, with an explosive yield of approximately 1.1 megaton.
The Red Snow warhead was developed after a September 1958 decision to adopt the US warhead for British use, following the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement. It entered service in 1961, remaining in use until 1972, when it was replaced by the WE.177 bomb. Perhaps 150 were produced.
Red Snow was used as both a free-fall bomb and as the warhead of the Blue Steel missile. In the gravity bomb role, it was fitted into the casing of the Yellow Sun weapon, even though the Red Snow warhead was considerably smaller than that of the original Yellow Sun bomb.
The Red Snow warhead was later reduced in size, weight and yield, and fitted with a smaller more modern primary, intended as a Red Beard replacement. Known as Una, this was later reduced in diameter and renamed Ulysses as the warhead intended for the UK warhead for the Skybolt project.
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or snow:
“With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)