Castle Romeo
Encyclopedia
Operation Castle
Operation Castle was a United States series of high-energy nuclear tests by Joint Task Force SEVEN at Bikini Atoll beginning in March 1954...
series of American nuclear tests
Nuclear testing
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...
. It was the first test of the TX-17 thermonuclear weapon (initially the "emergency capability" EC-17), the first deployed U.S. thermonuclear bomb.
The so-called "runt" device was a weaponized "dry" fusion
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
bomb, using lithium deuteride
Lithium hydride
Lithium hydride is the inorganic compound with the formula LiH. It is a colorless solid, although commercial samples are gray. Characteristic of a salt-like, or ionic, hydride, it has a high melting point and is not soluble in any solvent with which it does not react...
fuel for the fusion stage of a "staged" fusion bomb, unlike the cryogenic liquid deuterium
Deuterium
Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. It has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in of hydrogen . Deuterium accounts for approximately 0.0156% of all naturally occurring hydrogen in Earth's oceans, while the most common isotope ...
of the first-generation Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike was the codename given to the first United States test of a thermonuclear weapon, in which a major part of the explosive yield came from nuclear fusion. It was detonated on November 1, 1952 by the United States at on Enewetak, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, as part of Operation Ivy...
fusion device.
Similar to the "Shrimp" device tested shortly before, in the Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle. Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States ,...
test, it differed from that device in using lithium deuteride derived from natural lithium
Lithium
Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly...
(a mixture of Lithium-6 and Lithium-7 isotope
Isotope
Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation...
s, with 7.5% of the former) as the source of the tritium and deuterium fusion fuels, as opposed to the "enriched" lithium (approximately 40% Lithium-6) deuteride used in Bravo.
It was detonated on March 27, 1954, after several delays (which played havoc with the planned experimental measurements program) at Bikini atoll
Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....
of the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
, on a barge moored in the middle of the crater from the Castle Bravo test. It was the first such barge-based test, a necessity that had come about because the powerful thermonuclear devices completely obliterated the small islands on which they were set off.
Like the Bravo test, it "ran away" and 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
TNT equivalent
TNT equivalent is a method of quantifying the energy released in explosions. The ton of TNT is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 gigajoules, which is approximately the amount of energy released in the detonation of one ton of TNT...
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
Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike was the codename given to the first United States test of a thermonuclear weapon, in which a major part of the explosive yield came from nuclear fusion. It was detonated on November 1, 1952 by the United States at on Enewetak, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, as part of Operation Ivy...
and Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle. Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States ,...
tests,a large percentage of the yield was produced by fast fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...
of the natural uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
"tamper"; 7 megatons of the yield were from this source.
Deployment
This became the first air-droppable thermonuclear device, the EC-17, of which only 5 were made and the first deployable staged radiation implosion Teller-Ulam thermonuclear weapon. This evolved into the Mk 17Mark 17 nuclear bomb
The Mark 17 and Mark 24 were the first mass-produced hydrogen bombs deployed by the United States. The two differed in their "primary" stages. The MK 17/24 bombs were long, diameter. They weighed 21 tons. The Mark 17 had a yield in the range of 25 megatons TNT equivalent...
of which 200 were made. Both of these were huge devices, weighing 39,000 and 42,000 pounds respectively. As a result they were only capable of being carried by the B-36
Convair B-36
The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" was a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated solely by the United States Air Force from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 was the largest mass-produced piston engine aircraft ever made. It had the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever built , although there have...
. They were also some of the largest yield devices deployed by Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command
The Strategic Air Command was both a Major Command of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic...
—the EC-17 giving around 10 MT and the Mk17 between 11 and 15 MT. They were all out of service by August 1957.
Fireball in popular culture
One particular image of the Castle Romeo fireball (above, at right) has been one of the most highly reprinted images of a nuclear explosion, often serving as a stand-in for nuclear weapons in general for news stories, book covers, magazine articles, and even congressional reports (such as the Cox ReportCox Report
The Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, commonly known as the Cox Report after Representative Christopher Cox, is a classified U.S...
), likely because of its threatening appearance and extreme red, orange, and yellow hues. In many cases the fact that the explosion is of a US megaton-range weapon has not prevented it to be used to represent the arsenals of other states or weapons of far lower yields, which would have a very different appearance.
One prominent usage is as the backdrop for heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
band Megadeth
Megadeth
Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two...
's greatest hits compilation Greatest Hits: Back to the Start
Greatest Hits: Back to the Start
Greatest Hits: Back to the Start is the second greatest hits album by Megadeth. It was released in 2005 by Capitol Records. The tracklist for Back to the Start was largely the result of a poll on their official website, in which tens of thousands of fans voted for their favorite tracks from the...
. The image of Castle Romeo was also used on the cover of the New York hardcore music pioneers Cro-Mags
Cro-Mags
Cro-Mags are a hardcore punk turned crossover thrash band from New York City. The band, which had a strong cult following, released many records, their first two considered the most influential...
debut album The Age of Quarrel
The Age Of Quarrel
The Age of Quarrel is the first album from the New York hardcore band Cro-Mags. It was released on Profile Records in 1986 and subsequently re-released by Another Planet in 1994, along with their second album, 1989's Best Wishes, on the same disc...
. It is also featured on the title screen of Team17
Team17
Team17 Software Ltd. is a video game company best known for developing the Worms series of games , but it has made many other games, notably Superfrog and the Alien Breed series. Most of its early releases were on the Amiga home computer system and featured trademark smooth scrolling, and detailed...
's turn-based artillery game Worms Armageddon
Worms Armageddon
Worms Armageddon is an artillery game/turn-based strategy game developed by Team17 and part of the Worms series. The player controls a team of up to eight worms in combat against opposing teams.- Gameplay :...
.
The Castle Romeo photos are sometimes confused with that of Castle Bravo,the two nuclear blasts looked very similar, and they were both conducted in the same location.