Yellow Sun (nuclear weapon)

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Yellow Sun was the first British operational high-yield strategic nuclear weapon warhead. The name refers only to the outer casing; the warhead (or physics package) was known as "Green Grass" in Yellow Sun Mk.1 and "Red Snow" (a US design) in Yellow Sun Mk.2. Yellow Sun was designed to contain a variety of warheads. The initial plan was that it would carry a layer-cake type warhead known as "Green Bamboo", and then replace it with a true thermonuclear warhead known as "Green Granite". After signing a weapon technology agreement with the US, both concepts were dropped. Green Granite would be replaced by Red Snow at an earlier service date. This meant the interim Green Bamboo was less important and it was replaced by the less powerful and simpler "Green Grass". A unique feature of the Yellow Sun casing was its completely flat nose. This provided two benefits, one was that the drag allowed the bomb to fall behind the bomber a safe distance before detonation, and the other was that it did not...

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