WHERE ARE the NUKES? DUNCAN CAMPBELL: EXCLUSIVE ANDREW LUMSDEN: Safe Sex Nuclear Weapons - Perhaps Even Less

New 29 November 1985 80p IR £1.28 US$1.50 By Air BRITAIN'S WHERE ARE THE NUKES? DUNCAN CAMPBELL: EXCLUSIVE ANDREW LUMSDEN: Safe Sex nuclear weapons - perhaps even less. THE POLITICIANS WHO CRIED WOLF In an unpublicised and unilateral act of nuclear disarmament, Britain has also dismantled all the Hvbombs (thermonuclear weapons) which equipped the RAF V-bomber force during the 1960s and 1970s. By the early TOO. FEW' BOMBS . 1980s, according to official sources, the RAF had stocks of only one kind of 'tactical' nuclear weapon, the WE 177. Although some of the TO.GOROUND RAF's former H-bombs may have been fitted for a time to some Polaris missiles, these too will have been removed by now to make way for Behind the official bluff, there are fewer nukes than everyone (and provide the nuclear material for) the smaller, multiple warhead Chevaline system. thinks. Using secret official documents, DUNCAN CAMPBELL Despite widespread suspicions about the reports on how many Bombs there really are. Research by amount of military plutonium the government Patrick Forbes. has manufactured, aired by CND and other groups at the Sizewell Inquiry, it now appears that such suspicions (which the NS has also HELENSBURGH, STRATHCLYDE, 20 THE CONVOY THAT CRASHED in publicised) may have been thought officially June 1985, 1415 hours. For the first time a Helensburgh was part of the routine business of useful in that they diverted attention away from secret military convoy carrying nuclear weapons maintaining Britain's nuclear weapons the (comparatively) small size of Britain's nuclear stockpile, thus helping to conceal the was involved in a public accident (see opposite). stockpile. But the real size of the British nuclear severe physical constraints on British nuclear As the convoy drove through the streets of the stockpile is, in fact, far less than the normal weapons production. The government is Scottish town, two heavily armoured nuclear public estimates of about 500 to 1,000 weapons. known to have systematically encouraged such weapons carriers collided. Smoke poured from It has usually been assumed that the advent of exaggerated publicity about nuclear weapons the rear of one of the damaged load carriers. A Trident missiles to replace the present Polaris stocks throughout the 1950s and 1960s. military fire tender, tailing the convoy, pulled will mean an enormous increase in the size of The constraints on British nuclear weapons alongside, and fire hoses were unwound". the British stockpile. Each of the four planned - in particular, the extremely limited amount The previous night, the twelve vehicles in the Trident submarines will carry sixteen missiles, of weapons grade plutonium available - mean RAF's Special Convoy had been stationed in the the same as Polaris. But each Trident missile that even with British Nuclear Fuel's 'military' Coulport Royal Naval Armament Depot. There can carry fourteen warheads instead of, at nuclear reactors now working at maximum they had been loaded with nuclear warheads present, the Polaris maximum of three. capacity, sufficient warheads for the new from Polaris missiles, ready for the return leg of To equip Trident fully would require, in Trident submarines can only be produced by their monthly trip to Scotland. theory; 704 new warheads. Trident's capacity removing the plutonium from an equivalent The Helensburgh incident did not cause has been taken to imply that, during the 1990s, number of existing nuclear weapons. anything worse than a traffic jam, this time ". Britain will acquire a total of between 1,000 and According to a defence specialist who has An official Ministry of Defence enquiry has been 1,500 nuclear warheads. worked inside the nuclear programme during held into the accident. Its findings are not public, In fact, the present British stockpile is the 1980s, the British stockpile now consists of and are not intended to become so. insufficient to fill even one Trident D5 approximately: submarine's complement of 224 warheads. There are in total only about 200 British 80 RAF tactical 'lay-down' bombs, type SECRET WEI77, believed to have a variable nuclear yield between about 5 kilotons and about 200 kilotons (about 15 times RAF NUCLEAR WEAPON CONVOY COMPOSITION the power ofthe Hiroshima bomb); 25 RN nuclear depth bombs, a low yield ..a:t Front Stand-Off Escort (4 Royal Marines) variation of the RAF tactical bomb, for use against submarines; ~ Mile ~ •. RAF P ,- M u - - ---. 0 Ice otor-cyc rst 40 Polarfs-Chevaline missile warhe-ads, type A3TK, believed now to carry three ~ Front Escort (Escort Commander + 2) seperately targetted nuclear weapons. This makes a stockpile to\al of, at most, about Q;StiliC.7 2-5 load Carriers - The last bein(J a spare i 225 nuclear weapons; or, if Chevaline missiles only contain two warheads, about 185. ., t:J (Each with Driver and RAF Policeman) Even excluding the warheads on US Navy 400 Yards Poseidon submarines, based in the Holy Loch in Scotland, this means that the United States Fire Truck (Convoy Safety Officer + 3) . has more nuclear weapons in Britain than ~- Britain does. Additionally" the US provides ~"'~'1 Rear Escort (Con~oy Commander + 2) nuclear weapons for use by the British Army and RAF in Germany, and nuclear depth ~ I 2 RAF Police Motor-cyclists charges for RAF Nimrod anti-submarine aircraft stationed in Britain. ~ / Mrs Thatcher and senior members of the - ~ Convoy Support Vehicle Coach (3) cabinet therefore know that much of Trident's ~M'I ~ potential nuclear capacity is pointless for lack of --------.le. ~ Rear Stand-Off Escort (4 Royal Marines) warheads. According to a senior defence source: It was quite clear when the decision to order Ops(NucHRAF) Slide 43 SECRET Trident was taken, there would not be enough Feb81 nuclear material to fill up all the operational spaces on the missiles - there never would be.'. Slide from official RAF briefmg on nuclear weapons convoys in Britain (redrawn and reset from poor quality original copy), Film of convoy on the move will be shown by Yorkshire TV The warhead shortage is also exacerbated by next Tuesday, the increasing age of the British tactical bomb, [> THE PHOTOGRAPHS show the are accompanied by' a 'convoy followed by a number. OLDHAM sequence of events after a Polaris support vehicle' which carries arms ONE means that the convoy is halted initial control of entry to and exit submarine arrives at the Royal Naval and ammunition, rations, after an accident, but radioactive from the Hazardous Zone, including Armament Depot, at Coulport, west communications sets, radiation material has not been spilled. protection and monitoring of of Glasgow. The Polaris missiles are measuring and decontamination OLDHAM TWO is worse; safety personnel', and 'prepare the Medical unloaded (above left); a Polaris ,.!!quipment, and spare motorcycles for may be at risk. OLDHAM THREE is Centre for receipt of casualties'. missile may be seen on the extremej I !hl!accompanying police escorts. The the signal to police thJIt bomqs have If a severe accident damages a left of the picture). The missiles are .official RAF slide (facing page) shows been damaged ,n'8f' worse ~'and .nuclear weapon, the greatest hazard then transported to the missile ,uta the composition of the convoy. radioactive material spilled. " would result from an explosion warhead storage depot (above centre). Although the convoy is under RAF If the convoy comes under artrreti" accompanied or followed by a fire. Warheads for refurbishment or control, armed security guards are attack, then the message to be relayed Both Britain and the United States replacement are removed, and load!!d provided by the Royal Marines to the police,is 'BILBO';, ; 1 have extensively studied the possible into the carriers o~the RAF Special Commachio Company, a special results of such accidentsro nuclear Convoy (above right the convoy is This is ODDLY - under attack by weapons during storage or transport. seFurity force formed in 1980. arm~4 pa~\y at grid reference ...• seen mustering). After the Comrnachio company manne guards BILBtJ, BILBO, BILBO! ... These studies have not been Helensburgh accident (main photo), are stationed at the Clyde submarine published; however, a 1979 study by the damage (and by then unloaded) bases, Faslane and Coulport, and at The New Statesman first published a the US Congress General nuclear weapons carrier was spotted a: ,qeRots holding nuclear naval photograph-vofv the' RAF Special Accounting Office has been few days later under tow near OJif,o.rd, weapons - believed to be Dean Hill, Convoy in 1982, followed by an published, which predicted that, limping back to base (below left). near Salisbury, and Ernesettle, near artist's impression of the overall under typical atmospheric Official instructions on the , Plymouth. Just two naval ports -..,. convoy a year later (NS IQJ1.!PI! W83. conditions, a severe nuclear weapons 'Security of RAF Special Convoys' Portsmouth and Devonport - are Since then; Criiisewatch and accident might generate a radioactive are contained in orders issued to chief 'certified' safe for nuclear weapons. Polariswatch groups and others have plume extending for 28 miles and constables. The copy we have The convoy is fitted with advanced logged over 80 sightings. spreading across 2.5 miles. obtained was issued to Avon and communications equipment, with The convoys are controlled by the The published US assessment Somerset Constabulary, as 'Force which it can contact any force in RAF Special Safety Organisation, corresponds closely with similar Permanent Operational Order whose area it is travelling. The based at RAF Locking near Weston calculations made by British \ Number 3.' The Force will not convoy. commanders and support Super Mare. Wherever the convoy scientists from A1dermaston, wfio comment on the contents of the vehicles are fitted with long range goes, the Special Safety Organisation carried out a series of tests called Order, but say that changes have been high frequency radios with which provides a radiological safety team on Vixen B on the Maralinga range in made recently.

Load more