Blue Peacock—dubbed the "chicken-powered nuclear bomb"—was the codename of a British project in the 1950s with the goal to store a number of ten-kiloton nuclear mines in the Rhine area in Germany, to be placed at nearby target locations in the case of war. The mines would have been detonated by wire or an eight-day timer. If they were disturbed they were set to explode within ten seconds. The project was developed at the Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) at Fort Halstead in Kent in 1954. A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. ... The 1950s were a decade that spanned the years 1950 through 1959. ... A megaton or megatonne is a unit of mass equal to 1,000,000 metric tons, i. ... Various anti-tank and anti-personnel land mines A landmine is a type of self-contained explosive device which is placed onto or into the ground, exploding when triggered by a vehicle or person. ... Loreley At 1,320 kilometres (820 miles) and an average discharge of more than 2,000 cubic meters per second, the Rhine (German Rhein, French Rhin, Dutch Rijn, Romansch: Rein, Italian: Reno) is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe. ... Sevenoaks is a town in the Sevenoaks district of Kent in South East England and forms part of the London commuter belt. ... Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The Blue Peacock consisted of a huge steel sphere casing containing a plutonium core surrounded by high explosives. The design was based on the free falling Blue Danube, but the Blue Peacock weighed 7.2 tons. The steel casing was so large that it had to be tested outdoors in a flooded gravel pit near Sevenoaks in Kent. The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ... General Name, Symbol, Number plutonium, Pu, 94 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery white Atomic mass (244) g/mol Electron configuration [Rn] 5f6 7s2 Electrons per shell 2, 8, 18, 32, 24, 8, 2 Physical properties Phase solid Density (near r. ... CORE may refer to: The Congress of Racial Equality in the USA. The Coordinated Online Register of Electors in the United Kingdom. ... Blue Danube was the first operational British nuclear weapon. ... Sevenoaks is a town in Kent, in south-east England. ... Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ...

In July 1957 the British Army ordered ten Blue Peacocks for use in Germany, under the cover story that they were atomic power units for troops in the field. In the end, though, the Ministry of Defence cancelled the project in February 1958. It was judged that the risks posed by the nuclear fallout and the political aspects of preparing for destruction and contamination of allied territory were simply too high to justify. 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... The Ministry of Defence (MOD, pronounced em-oh-dee) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and the headquarters of the British Armed Forces. ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Map of hypothetical fallout dispersal after a large-scale nuclear attack against the United States. ...

One technical problem was that buried objects—especially during winter—can get very cold, and it was possible the mine would not have worked after some days underground, due to the electronics being too cold to operate properly. Various methods to get around this were studied, such as wrapping the bombs in insulating blankets. However, one proposal was sufficiently outlandish that it was taken as an April Fool's Day joke when the Blue Peacock file was declassified on April 1, 2004—that live chickens should be included in the mechanism. The chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water; they would remain alive for a week or so, which was the expected maximum lifetime of the bomb in any case. The body heat given off by the chickens would, it seems, have been sufficient to keep all the relevant components at a working temperature. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... April 1 is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 274 days remaining. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Trinomial name Gallus gallus domesticus A chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a type of domesticated bird which is often raised as a type of poultry. ...

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See also

• Rainbow Codes

The Rainbow Codes were a series of code names used to disguise the nature of various British military research projects from after the Second World War until 1958 when they were replaced by an alphanumeric code system. ...