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May 25, 2005

Chicken-powered nukes

More tales from weird military science along the lines of Project Pigeon.

From Defence Tech comes the answer to this obscure question: "Did the Brits ever make plans for a nuclear landmine, powered by chickens?"

"Conceived during the Cold War, the seven tonne device was the size of small truck and was designed to be buried or submerged by a British Army retreating from Soviet forces. The landmine had a plutonium core surrounded by high explosive and would have been detonated by remote control or timer, causing mass destruction and contamination over a wide area to prevent subsequent enemy occupation.

Scientists working on the project realised that the bomb could fail in winter if vital components become too cold, so they explored ways of keeping the inner workings warm.

One proposal put forward consisted of filling the casing of the nuke with live chickens, who would give off sufficient heat, prior to suffocating or starving to death, to keep the delicate explosive mechanism from freezing. Despite the potential importance of chickens to the project, the mine was codenamed 'Blue Peacock'.

The mines were to be left buried or submerged by the British Army of the Rhine. They would then have been detonated by wire from up to five kilometres away or by an eight-day clockwork time."

In the end, the risk from radioactive fallout would have been "unacceptable", and hiding nuclear weapons in an allied country was deemed "politically flawed". As a result, the Ministry of Defence cancelled Blue Peacock in February 1958.

What were they thinking?

Posted by sdehaast at May 25, 2005 8:35 AM Posted to wtf?