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AN-11 Bomb
The AN-11 was France's first nuclear weapon, developed to arm the Force de frappe. The AN-11's development began in the late 1950s. An early version was used in France's first nuclear test, Gerboise Bleue, on 13 February 1960. The first AN-11 prototype was tested 1 May 1962, and it entered service in 1964. The AN-11 was a pure fission weapon, a plutonium implosion type. It weighed approximately 1,500 kg (3,306 lb). It was a free-fall bomb intended to be dropped from high-altitude bombers. The explosive nuclear weapon yield was about 60 kt. About 40 AN-11s were produced between 1963 and 1968. The carrier was the Dassault Mirage IV, although some reports said the Sud Aviation Vautour The Sud-Ouest Aviation (SNCASO) S.O. 4050 Vautour II (French for ''vulture'') was a French jet-powered bomber, interceptor, and attack aircraft developed and manufactured by aircraft company Sud Aviation. The Vautour was operated by France's '' ... could also carry this bomb. Beginn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its Metropolitan France, metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra, and Spain in continental Europe, as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Netherlands, Suriname, and Brazil in the Americas via its overseas territories in French Guiana and Saint Martin (island), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Force De Frappe
The ''Force de frappe'' ( French: "strike force"), or ''Force de dissuasion'' ("deterrent force") after 1961,Gunston, Bill. Bombers of the West. New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons; 1973. p104 is the designation of what used to be a triad of air-, sea- and land-based nuclear weapons intended for ''dissuasion'', the French term for deterrence. The French Nuclear Force, part of the French military, is the fourth largest nuclear-weapons force in the world, after the nuclear triad of the United States, the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. France has deactivated all land-based nuclear missiles. On 27 January 1996, France conducted its last nuclear test in the South Pacific and then signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in September 1996. In March 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed reports giving the actual size of France's nuclear arsenal and he announced that France would reduce its French Air Force-carried nuclear arsenal by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Test
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by different conditions, and how personnel, structures, and equipment are affected when subjected to nuclear explosions. However, nuclear testing has often been used as an indicator of scientific and military strength. Many tests have been overtly political in their intention; most nuclear weapons states publicly declared their nuclear status through a nuclear test. The first nuclear device was detonated as a test by the United States at the Trinity site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, with a yield approximately equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. The first thermonuclear weapon technology test of an engineered device, codenamed "Ivy Mike", was tested at the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952 (local date), also by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerboise Bleue
''Gerboise Bleue'' (; ) was the codename of the first French nuclear test. It was conducted by the Nuclear Experiments Operational Group (GOEN), a unit of the Joint Special Weapons Command on 13 February 1960, at the Saharan Military Experiments Centre near Reggane, French Algeria in the Sahara desert region of Tanezrouft, during the Algerian War. General Pierre Marie Gallois was instrumental in the endeavour, and earned the nickname of ''père de la bombe A'' ("father of the A-bomb"). Name ''Gerboise'' is the French word for jerboa, a desert rodent found in the Sahara. The color blue (''Bleue'') adjuncted is said to come from the first colour of the French Flag. Test Explosion On April 11, 1958, French Prime Minister Félix Gaillard ordered a nuclear test in the first quarter of 1960. President Charles de Gaulle reaffirmed the decision after the French Fourth Republic collapsed in the May 1958 crisis. On 13 February 1960 at 7:04:00 UTC, the plutonium filled bomb was de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Fission
Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactive decay. Nuclear fission of heavy elements was discovered on Monday 19 December 1938, by German chemist Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann in cooperation with Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner. Hahn understood that a "burst" of the atomic nuclei had occurred. Meitner explained it theoretically in January 1939 along with her nephew Otto Robert Frisch. Frisch named the process by analogy with biological fission of living cells. For heavy nuclides, it is an exothermic reaction which can release large amounts of energy both as electromagnetic radiation and as kinetic energy of the fragments (heating the bulk material where fission takes place). Like nuclear fusion, for fission to produce energy, the total binding energy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that is pyrophoric. It is radioactive and can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous. Plutonium was first synthetically produced and isolated in late 1940 and early 1941, by a deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. First, neptunium-238 ( half-life 2.1 days) was synthesized, which subsequently beta-decayed to form the new element with atomic number 94 and atomic weight 238 (half-life 88 years). Since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapon Design
Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types: * pure fission weapons, the simplest and least technically demanding, were the first nuclear weapons built and have so far been the only type ever used in warfare (by the United States on Empire of Japan, Japan during World War II, WWII). * boosted fission weapons increase yield beyond that of the implosion design by using small quantities of fusion fuel to enhance the fission chain reaction. Boosting can more than double the weapon's fission energy yield. * thermonuclear weapon, staged thermonuclear weapons are essentially arrangements of two or more "stages", most usually two. The first stage is normally a boosted fission weapon as above (except for the earliest thermonuclear weapons, which used a pure fission weapon instead). Its detonation causes it to shine intensely with x-radiation, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bomber
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircraft occurred in the Italo-Turkish War, with the first major deployments coming in the World War I, First World War and World War II, Second World War by all major airforces causing devastating damage to cities, towns, and rural areas. The first purpose built bombers were the Italy, Italian Caproni Ca 30 and United Kingdom, British Bristol T.B.8, both of 1913. Some bombers were decorated with nose art or victory markings. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strategic bombing is done by heavy bombers primarily designed for long-range bombing missions against strategic targets to diminish the enemy's ability to wage war by limiting access to resources through crippling infrastructure or reduci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapon Yield
The explosive yield of a nuclear weapon is the amount of energy released when that particular nuclear weapon is detonated, usually expressed as a TNT equivalent (the standardized equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene which, if detonated, would produce the same energy discharge), either in kilotonnes (kt—thousands of tonnes of TNT), in megatonnes (Mt—millions of tonnes of TNT), or sometimes in terajoules (TJ). An explosive yield of one terajoule is equal to . Because the accuracy of any measurement of the energy released by TNT has always been problematic, the conventional definition is that one kilotonne of TNT is held simply to be equivalent to 1012 calories. The yield-to-weight ratio is the amount of weapon yield compared to the mass of the weapon. The practical maximum yield-to-weight ratio for fusion weapons (thermonuclear weapons) has been estimated to six megatonnes of TNT per tonne of bomb mass (25 TJ/kg). Yields of 5.2 megatonnes/tonne and higher have been reported ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiloton
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a tonne, metric ton (1,000 kilograms) of Trinitrotoluene, TNT. In other words, for each gram of TNT exploded, (or 4184 joules) of energy is released. This convention intends to compare the destructiveness of an event with that of conventional explosive materials, of which TNT is a typical example, although other conventional explosives such as dynamite contain more energy. Kiloton and megaton The "kiloton (of TNT)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 tera-, terajoules (). The "megaton (of TNT)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 peta-, petajoules (). The kiloton and megaton of TNT have traditionally been used to describe the energy output, and hence the destructive power, of a nuclear weapon. The TNT equivalent appears in various CTBT, n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dassault Mirage IV
The Dassault Mirage IV was a French supersonic strategic bomber and deep-reconnaissance aircraft. Developed by Dassault Aviation, the aircraft entered service with the French Air Force in October 1964. For many years it was a vital part of the nuclear triad of the ''Force de Frappe'', France's nuclear deterrent striking force. The Mirage IV was retired from the nuclear strike role in 1996, and the type was entirely retired from operational service in 2005. During the 1960s, there were plans to export the Mirage IV. In one proposal, Dassault would have entered a partnership with the British Aircraft Corporation to jointly produce a Mirage IV variant for the Royal Air Force and potentially for other export customers, but this project did not come to fruition. The Mirage IV was ultimately not adopted by any other operators. Development Origins During the 1950s, France embarked on an extensive military program to produce nuclear weapons; however, it was acknowledged that existin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sud Aviation Vautour
The Sud-Ouest Aviation (SNCASO) S.O. 4050 Vautour II (French for ''vulture'') was a French jet-powered bomber, interceptor, and attack aircraft developed and manufactured by aircraft company Sud Aviation. The Vautour was operated by France's ''Armée de l'Air'', having been originally developed by Sud Aviation in response to a French requirement for a jet aircraft for bombing, low-level attack and all-weather interception operations. The Vautour was used in the Force de frappe under the Commandement des Forces Aériennes Stratégiques; each aircraft was suitable for the carriage of a nuclear weapon. The shortcomings of the type as a bomber, such as its lack of radar or other advanced navigation/attack systems, led to the type being replaced by the more capable Dassault Mirage IV. The Vautour never saw combat use with the French Air Force. The only other customer for the Vautour was Israel. During its service with the Israeli Air Force (IAF), the type undertook various missi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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