The Avro Blue Steel was a British air-launched, rocket-propelled nuclear stand-off missile, built to arm the V bomber force.

Avro Blue Steel nuclear missile ( front ) at the Midland Air Museum

Avro Blue Steel missile ( side view ) at the Midland Air Museum behind the wing of an Avro Vulcan bomber

Rear view of Blue Steel missile at RAF Cosford aerospace museum, showing the twin-chamber " Stentor " rocket motor

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.

Avro began work proper in 1955, with the assigned Rainbow Code name of " Blue Steel " which it would keep in service.

The large girth of Blue Steel was determined by the implosion sphere diameter of Green Bamboo.

Avro proposed that Blue Steel would evolve over time, subsequent versions increasing speed ( to Mach 4. 5 ) and range.

The ultimate Blue Steel would be a range weapon that could be launched by the supersonic Avro 730 under development.

Blue Steel emerged as a pilotless, winged aircraft roughly the size of the experimental Saunders-Roe SR. 53 interceptor, with clipped delta wings and small canard foreplanes.

A replacement for Blue Steel, the Mark 2, was planned with increased range and a ramjet engine, but was cancelled in 1960 to minimise delays to the Mk. 1.

Blue Steel required up to seven hours of launch preparation, and was highly unreliable ; the Royal Air Force estimated in 1963 that half the missiles would fail to fire and would have to be dropped over their targets, contradicting their purpose of serving as standoff weapons.

With no effective long-range weapon the original Blue Steel served on after a crash programme of minor modifications to permit a low-level launch at, even though its usefulness in a hot war was likely limited.

This WE. 177 laydown weapon supplemented the remaining modified Blue Steel missiles using a low-level penetration followed by a pop-up manoeuvre to release the weapon at Forty-eight live operational rounds were deployed on 48 Vulcan and Victor bombers plus a further five live rounds as operational spares.

Blue Steel was officially retired on 31 December 1970, with the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear capacity passing to the submarine fleet.

* Video of Blue Steel in operation

* The Vulcan Gets New Striking Power an AVRO advertisement for the Vulcan from Flight in February 1959, showing the ( still unnamed ) Blue Steel.

*" Blue Steel And Its Engine " a 1960 Flight article on the Blue Steel

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