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Bomb Power Indicator
Bomb Power Indicator known by the acronym BPI was a detection instrument, located at the twenty five British Royal Observer Corps controls and nearly 1,500 ROC underground monitoring posts, across the United Kingdom, during the Cold War that would have detected any nuclear explosions and measured the peak-overpressure of the blast waves. Overview The instruments, operated by volunteers, measured the level of peak-overpressure at the instrument's location. Once readings had been combined with information provided by the Ground Zero Indicators it would be possible to estimate the size of the nuclear explosion in megatons. Detailed BPI information was backed up by the automatic AWDREY readings. The BPI was designed and built by the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. The design was tested for performance and accuracy using real nuclear explosions at the 1957 Kiritimati (or Christmas Island) nuclear weapons tests, after being mounted on board a ship. A number of BPIs were al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Observer Corps
The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) was a civil defence organisation intended for the visual detection, identification, tracking and reporting of aircraft over Great Britain. It operated in the United Kingdom between 29 October 1925 and 31 December 1995, when the Corps' civilian volunteers were stood down (ROC headquarters staff at RAF Bentley Priory stood down on 31 March 1996). Composed mainly of civilian spare-time volunteers, ROC personnel wore a Royal Air Force (RAF) style uniform and latterly came under the administrative control of RAF Strike Command and the operational control of the Home Office. Civilian volunteers were trained and administered by a small cadre of professional full-time officers under the command of the Commandant Royal Observer Corps; latterly a serving RAF Air Commodore. Overview In 1925, following a Defence Committee initiative undertaken the previous year, the formation of an RAF command concerning the Air Defence of Great Britain led to the provis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ground Zero Indicator
Ground may refer to: Geology * Land, the surface of the Earth not covered by water * Soil, a mixture of clay, sand and organic matter present on the surface of the Earth Electricity * Ground (electricity), the reference point in an electrical circuit from which voltages are measured * Earthing system, part of an electrical installation that connects with the Earth's conductive surface * Ground and neutral, closely related terms Law * Ground (often grounds), in law, a rational motive or basis for a belief, conviction, or action taken, such as a legal action or argument: * Grounds for divorce, regulations specifying the circumstances under which a person will be granted a divorce Music * Ground (album), ''Ground'' (album), the second album by the Nels Cline Trio * Ground (song), "Ground" (song), one of the songs in the debut album of the Filipino rock band Rivermaya * Ground bass, in music, a bass part that continually repeats, while the melody and harmony over it change * ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AWDREY
Atomic Weapons Detection Recognition and Estimation of Yield known by the acronym AWDREY was a desk-mounted automatic detection instrument, located at 12 of the 25 Royal Observer Corps (ROC) controls, across the United Kingdom, during the Cold War. The instruments would have detected any nuclear explosions and indicated the estimated size in megatons. With the display unit mounted in a steel cabinet, the system used two sets of five photo-sensitive cells within the detection head to record the intense flash of light produced by the detonation of the weapon followed, within a second, by a second intense flash. This double flash is characteristic of a nuclear explosion and measurement of the short gap between the two flashes enabled the weapon's power to be estimated, and the bearing to be indicated. It had a range of 150 miles (240 km) in good visibility. From 1974 AWDREY units were used together with a device known as DIADEM (Direction Indicator of Atomic Detonation by Elec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Weapons Establishment
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) with its main site on the former RAF Aldermaston and has major facilities at Burghfield, Blacknest and RNAD Coulport. AWE plc, responsible for the day-to-day operations of AWE, is owned by the Ministry of Defence and operated as a non-departmental public body. Until June 2021, AWE plc was owned by a consortium of Jacobs Engineering Group, Lockheed Martin UK and Serco through AWE Management Ltd, which held a 25‑year contract (until March 2025) to operate AWE, although all the sites remained owned by the Government of the United Kingdom which had a golden share in AWE plc. In November 2020, it was announced that the Ministry of Defence had triggered a contractual break point and would take ownership of AWE Plc in Ju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aldermaston
Aldermaston is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 1015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately from Newbury, Basingstoke, and Reading and is from London. Aldermaston may have been inhabited as early as 1690 BCE; a number of postholes and remains of cereal grains have been found in the area. Written history of the village is traced back at least as far as the 9th century, when the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicles'' showed that the Ealdorman of Berkshire had his country estate in the village. The manor of Aldermaston was established by the early 11th century, when the village was given to the Achard family by Henry I; the manor is documented in the Domesday Book of 1086. St Mary the Virgin Church was established in the 13th century, and some of the original Norman architecture remains in the building's structure. The last resident Lord of the Manor, Charles Keyse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiritimati
Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name is derived from the English word "Christmas" written in Gilbertese according to its phonology, in which the combination ''ti'' is pronounced ''s'', giving kiˈrɪsmæs. Kiritimati has the greatest land area of any atoll in the world, about ; its lagoon is roughly the same size. The atoll is about in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over . Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati, a country encompassing 33 Pacific atolls and islands. It lies north of the equator, south of Honolulu, and from San Francisco. Kiritimati is in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14, and is therefore one of the first inhabited places on Earth to experience New Year's Day. (see also Caroline Atoll, Kiribati). Although it lies east of the 180th meridian, the Republic of Kiribati realigned the Internati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Nuclear Tests At Maralinga
Between 1956 and 1963, the United Kingdom conducted seven nuclear tests at the Maralinga site in South Australia, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area about north west of Adelaide. Two major test series were conducted: Operation Buffalo in 1956 and Operation Antler the following year. Approximate weapon yields ranged from . The Maralinga site was also used for minor trials, tests of nuclear weapons components not involving nuclear explosions. Kittens were trials of neutron initiators; Rats and Tims measured how the fissile core of a nuclear weapon was compressed by the high explosive shock wave; and Vixens investigated the effects of fire or non-nuclear explosions on atomic weapons. The minor trials, numbering around 550, ultimately generated far more contamination than the major tests. Operation Buffalo consisted of four tests; One Tree () and Breakaway () were detonated on towers, Marcoo () at ground level, and the Kite () was released by a Royal Air Force (RAF) Vickers Valia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ground Zero
In relation to nuclear explosions and other large bombs, ground zero (also called surface zero) is the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation. In the case of an explosion above the ground, ''ground zero'' is the point on the ground directly below the nuclear detonation and is sometimes called the hypocenter (). Generally, the terms ''ground zero'' and ''surface zero'' are also used in relation to earthquakes, epidemics, and other disasters to mark the point of the most severe damage or destruction. The term is distinguished from the term zero point in that the latter can also be located in the air, underground, or underwater. Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki The origins of the term "ground zero" began with the Trinity (nuclear test), Trinity test in Jornada del Muerto, Jornada del Muerto desert near Socorro, New Mexico, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey of the atomic attacks, released in June 194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transition To War
Transition to war (TTW) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military term referring to a period of international tension during which government and society move to an open (but not necessarily declared) war footing. The period after this is considered to be war, conventional or otherwise, but the term TTW found its origins in the peak of the Cold War as a key NATO concept within the tripwire escalation of the DEFCON status. This could include the suspension of peacetime services, closing motorways to all but military traffic and the internment of subversives without charge or trial. Legal framework Emergency legislation The legislation that facilitates the transition to war is pre-drafted and has been in existence since the 1930s, when World War II required certain legislation to be passed to prosecute the war effectively. This mostly included the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 and the controversial Defence Regulation 18B, which allowed the detention of subvers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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