Castle Romeo
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Castle Romeo was the code name given to one of the tests in the
Operation Castle Operation Castle was a United States series of high-yield (high-energy) nuclear tests by Joint Task Force 7 (JTF-7) at Bikini Atoll beginning in March 1954. It followed ''Operation Upshot–Knothole'' and preceded '' Operation Teapot''. Con ...
series of U.S. nuclear tests. It was the first test of the TX-17
thermonuclear weapon A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
, the first deployed thermonuclear bomb. It was detonated on 26 March 1954, at
Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese language, Marshallese: , , ), known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. The atoll is at the no ...
of the
Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The territory consists of 29 c ...
, on a barge moored in the middle of the crater from the
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
test. It was the first such barge-based test, a necessity that had come about because the powerful thermonuclear devices obliterated the small islands following detonation.


Deployment

The tested design became the first air-droppable thermonuclear device, initially the "emergency capability" EC-17, of which only five were made. The first deployable staged radiation implosion
Teller-Ulam A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design Nuclear weapons design are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to det ...
thermonuclear weapon evolved into the Mark 17, of which 200 were made. Both of those were huge devices, weighing and respectively. As a result, only the B-36 was capable of carrying that first generation of thermonuclear bombs. They were also some of the largest yield devices deployed by
Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile compon ...
— the EC-17 producing around 10 megatonnes (Mt), and the Mk 17 between 11 and 15 Mt. They were all out of service by August 1957.


Design

The ''Runt'' TX-15 device was a weaponized dry fusion bomb, using
lithium deuteride Lithium hydride is an inorganic compound with the formula Lithium, LiHydride, H. This alkali metal hydride is a colorless solid, although commercial samples are grey. Characteristic of a Hydride#Ionic hydrides, salt-like (ionic) hydride, it has a ...
fuel for the fusion stage of a staged fusion bomb, unlike the
cryogenic In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th International Institute of Refrigeration's (IIR) International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington, DC in 1971) endorsed a univers ...
liquid
deuterium Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more c ...
of the first-generation
Ivy Mike Ivy Mike was the code name, codename given to the first full-scale test of a Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear device, in which a significant fraction of the explosive nuclear weapon yield, yield comes from nuclear fusion. Ivy Mike was detona ...
fusion device. Similar to the ''Shrimp'' TX-21 device tested before in the
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
test, it differed from that device in using lithium deuteride derived from natural
lithium Lithium (from , , ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the ...
(a mixture of 7.5%
lithium-6 Naturally occurring lithium (3Li) is composed of two stable isotope ratio, stable isotopes, lithium-6 (6Li) and lithium-7 (7Li), with the latter being far more abundant on Earth. Both of the natural isotopes have an unexpectedly low nuclear bin ...
and 92.5% lithium-7
isotope Isotopes are distinct nuclear species (or ''nuclides'') of the same chemical element. They have the same atomic number (number of protons in their Atomic nucleus, nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemica ...
s) as the source of the tritium and deuterium fusion fuels, as opposed to the relative high enrichment level of lithium (approximately 40% lithium-6) deuteride used in Bravo.


Yield

Like the Bravo test, it produced far more than its predicted yield, and for the same reason — an unexpected participation of the common lithium-7 isotope in fusion reactions. Although it had been predicted to produce a yield of 4  megatons with a range of 1.5 to 7 megatons (before the results of the Bravo test caused an upgrade in the estimates, it had originally been estimated to produce 3–5 megatons), it actually produced a yield of 11 megatons, the third-largest test ever conducted by the U.S. Like the Ivy Mike and Castle Bravo tests, a large percentage of the yield was produced by fast fission of the natural
uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...
"tamper"; 7 megatons of the yield were from this source.


Fireball in popular culture

One particular image of the Castle Romeo mushroom cloud has been one of the most highly reprinted images of a nuclear explosion. It often serves as a stand-in for nuclear weapons in general for news stories, book covers, magazine articles, etc., likely because of its threatening appearance and extreme red, orange, and yellow hues. The fact that the explosion is of a U.S. megaton-range weapon has not prevented it from being used to represent the arsenals of other states or weapons of far lower yields in many cases, which would have a very different appearance. One prominent usage is as the backdrop for American
thrash metal Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is an Extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and fast tempo.Kahn-Harris, Keith, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'', pp. 2–3, 9. Oxford: Berg, ...
band
Megadeth Megadeth is an American thrash metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1983 by vocalist and guitarist Dave Mustaine. Known for their technically complex guitar work and musicianship, Megadeth is one of the "big four" of American thrash metal—alo ...
's compilation album '' Greatest Hits: Back to the Start'', released in 2005. The image of Castle Romeo was also used on the cover of the New York hardcore music pioneers Cro-Mags debut studio album '' The Age of Quarrel'' in 1986. It is also featured on the title screen of
Team17 Team 17 Digital Limited (Team17) is a British video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish dev ...
's turn-based artillery game ''
Worms Armageddon ''Worms Armageddon'' is a 1999 turn-based strategy video game developed and published by Team17 as part of the ''Worms'' series. It was originally released for the Microsoft Windows operating system, and was later ported to the PlayStation, ...
''. The Castle Romeo photos are sometimes confused with that of
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
. The two nuclear blasts looked very similar, and they were both conducted in the same location, but much of Bravo's photographic record was destroyed because of its unexpectedly high yield.


References

* Chuck Hansen, ''U. S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History'' (Arlington: AeroFax, 1988)


External links


List of all tested U.S. weapons at The Nuclear Weapon Archive
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{{Nuclear weapons tests of the United States Explosions in 1954 Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll 1954 in military history 1954 in the environment 1950s in the Marshall Islands 1954 in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands March 1954 in Oceania