Home / General / Bad Cold War Ideas, vol. MMCXXIV

Bad Cold War Ideas, vol. MMCXXIV

/
/
/
559 Views

Nuclear landmines.

The seven-ton Blue Peacock consisted of a huge steel casing containing a plutonium core surrounded by high explosives. Its yield was about ten kilotons, and the plan was to bury and submerge ten such landmines around key targets in Germany in the event of an invasion. The mines would be set to detonate after eight days using a mechanical timer, or alternatively they could be exploded remotely from up to five kilometers away. Once armed, there was also an anti-tampering system which would detonate the bombs within ten seconds if they were damaged or disturbed. The mines were intended to cause massive destruction, and leave radioactive contamination over a large area to prevent subsequent occupation by Soviet forces.

One bizarre proposed design called for a casing capable of housing chickens, with the intent to use their body heat to prevent the electronics from being disabled due to winter’s cold. For this reason, the Blue Peacock is sometimes referred to as the “Chicken powered nuclear bomb.” Another design called for more traditional fiberglass insulation.

Two prototypes of the Blue Peacock were constructed and tested, though never detonated. In July 1957, British army leaders ordered ten Blue Peacock mines, which they planned to station in Germany under the cover story that they were atomic power units. But the project was cancelled before the order could be filled; hiding nuclear weapons in an allied country was deemed “politically flawed” by military leaders, and the risk from radioactive fallout would have been “unacceptable.”

One aspect of the Cold War that never ceases to amaze me is the way in which the nuclear age generated such fantastic combinations of the apocalyptic and the mundane — nuclear land mines warmed by chickens, or (as a friend of mine once discovered in the Smithsonian archives) serious conversations in the US about how mail might be delivered by cruise missile. In an 1954 civil defense film that I usually show in my survey course, Americans are urged to keep their yards neat and their houses freshly painted because such homes are more likely to survive nuclear firestorms and tornados. It’s an unbelievably daft little film, but it only underscores just how disempowered ordinary civilians were in the wake of the second world war, which had perversely enough been sold as a war in defense of democratic institutions.

I’m pretty well convinced we’re all going up in flames eventually, but when I read about nuclear landmines it seems quite remarkable that we’ve survived this long. If historians are ever granted access to the documents of the current administration, one wonders how much farther around the bend we’ll find we’ve traveled.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
This div height required for enabling the sticky sidebar
Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views :