Blue Steel (missile)

Blue Steel
Blue Steel missile
Type	Nuclear stand-off missile
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1963-1970
Used by	UK Royal Air Force
Wars	(deterrent in the Cold War)
Production history
Manufacturer	Avro
Number built	53 operational live rounds
Variants	One/mod for low-level delivery
Specifications
Weight	17,000 lb (7,700 kg)
Length	10.7 m (35 ft 1 in)
Diameter	1.22 m (48 in) minimum
Warhead	Red Snow (W28) thermonuclear weapon (1.1 megaton)
Engine	Armstrong Siddeley Stentor Liquid-propellant rocket
Wingspan	4 m (13 ft 1 in)
Operational range	926 km (575 mi)
Flight ceiling	21,500 m (70,500 ft)
Speed	Mach 3+
Guidance system	Inertial navigation system
Steering system	Movable flight control surfaces
Launch platform	Aircraft

The Avro Blue Steel was a British air-launched, rocket-propelled nuclear armed standoff missile, built to arm the V bomber force. It allowed the bomber to launch the missile against its target while still outside the range of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The missile proceeded to the target at high speeds up to Mach 3, and would trigger within 100 m of the pre-defined target point.

Blue Steel entered service in 1963, by which point improved SAMs with longer range had greatly eroded the advantages of the design. A longer-range version, Blue Steel II, was considered, but cancelled in favour of the much longer-range GAM-87 Skybolt system from the US. When development of that system was cancelled in 1962 the V-bomber fleet was considered highly vulnerable. Blue Steel remained the primary British nuclear deterrent weapon until the Royal Navy started operating Polaris ballistic missiles from Resolution-class submarines.

Blue Steel was the result of a Ministry of Supply memorandum from 5 November 1954 that predicted that by 1960 Soviet air defences would make it prohibitively dangerous for V bombers to attack with nuclear gravity bombs. The answer was for a rocket-powered, supersonic missile capable of carrying a large nuclear (or projected thermonuclear) warhead with a range of at least 50 mi (80 km). This would keep the bombers out of range of Soviet ground-based defences installed around the target area, allowing the warhead to "dash" in at high speed.

There would have to be a balance between the size of the warhead, the need for it to be carried by any of the three V-bomber types in use, and that it should be able to reach Mach 3. At the time the only strategic warheads available in the UK were the Orange Herald and Green Bamboo, both of which were very large weapons demanding a large missile fuselage. The Air Staff issued this requirement for a stand-off bomb as OR.1132 in September 1954.