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Production of British nuclear weapons was slow and Britain had only ten atomic bombs on hand in 1955 and just fourteen in 1956. [173] At the three-power Bermuda Conference with Eisenhower in December 1953, Churchill suggested that the United States allow Britain to have access to American nuclear weapons to make up the shortfall. [174]
British nuclear weapons are designed and developed by the UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment. The United Kingdom has four Vanguard-class submarines armed with nuclear armed Trident missiles. The principle of operation is based on maintaining deterrent effect by always having at least one submarine at sea, and was designed during the Cold War ...
Trident (UK nuclear programme) Trident, also known as the Trident nuclear programme or Trident nuclear deterrent, covers the development, procurement and operation of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom and their means of delivery. Its purpose as stated by the Ministry of Defence is to "deter the most extreme threats to our national security ...
January: British-German physicist Klaus Fuchs is arrested and confesses to being a Soviet spy. [56] June: United States Air Force in the United Kingdom receives its own nuclear weapons. [57] October: First British nuclear weapon is tested in the Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia in Operation Hurricane.
The letters of last resort are four identically worded handwritten letters from the prime minister of the United Kingdom to the commanding officers of the four British ballistic missile submarines. [A] They contain orders on what action to take if an enemy nuclear strike has both destroyed the British government and has also killed or otherwise ...
The United Kingdom's Polaris programme, officially named the British Naval Ballistic Missile System, provided its first submarine -based nuclear weapons system. Polaris was in service from 1968 to 1996. Polaris itself was an operational system of four Resolution -class ballistic missile submarines, each armed with 16 Polaris A-3 ballistic missiles.
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 ...
During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys. [1] At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, signed the Quebec Agreement, which merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined British, American and Canadian ...