Grapple Y
Grapple Y sought to develop a more efficient thermonuclear bomb based on the successful Grapple X design. Like Grapple X, only one detonation was conducted during Grapple Y. The bomb was detonated off Christmas Island on April 28, 1958. This bomb had an explosive yield of about 3.0 megatons, and it was the largest British nuclear weapons test ever executed anywhere.
The design of Grapple Y was notably successful because much of its yield came from its thermonuclear reaction instead of from the fast fission of a heavy uranium-238 tamper - hence making it a true H-bomb, and also because its yield had been closely predicted—indicating that its designers understood what they were doing.
Read more about this topic: Operation Grapple
Famous quotes containing the word grapple:
“Religion engaged her feelings in the hard grapple she knew as love.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new—whether it be the settlement of new lands or the initiation of new ways of life—is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)