Gerboise Bleue

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Gerboise Bleue ("blue jerboa") was the first French nuclear weapon. It was an atomic bomb detonated in the middle of the Sahara desert^[1], in the French Algeria on February 13, 1960. The General Pierre-Marie Gallois was named le père de la bombe A ("A-bomb's father").

Gerboise stands for the desert rodent jerboa, while the blue is the first color of the tricolore flag, hence the second and third bombs were named respectively "white" (Gerboise Blanche) and "red" (Gerboise Rouge).

1 The most powerful first test A-bomb
2 Critics and international reactions
3 Facilities
4 Programme
5 Specifics
6 See also
7 Notes
8 Media links
9 External links

[edit] The most powerful first test A-bomb

With Gerboise Blue, France became the fourth nuclear power after the United States, with "Trinity" (19kt), the Soviet Union, "RDS-1" (22kt) and the United Kingdom, "Hurricane" (22kt). The yield was 70 kilotons of TNT, i.e. much more powerful than the three previous test bombs get together.

In comparison, Fat Man, aka the Nagasaki bomb, was "only" 22 kilotons and three times less powerful.

Actually Gerboise Bleue holds the spooky record of the most powerful atomic test bomb ever. The second most powerful comparable device detonated in 1998, at 40 kilotons, as "Chagai-I", the Pakistanese programme.

Only two other A-bombsn tested in the Sahara facilities, were more powerful, "Rubis" (<100kt) that exploded in October 20, 1963, and "Saphir" (<150kt) in February 25, 1965, both exploded in the Tan Afella (Sahara) underground facility.

The 1966-1996 remaining test programmes, including Canopus, were done in French Polynesia, with the last bomb, Xouthos (<120Kt), exploding on January 27, 1996.

As an atomic yield cannot be precisely estimated, the French army planned an explosion between 60 and 70kt. Gerboise Blue was a total success exploding at full power range.^[2]

[edit] Critics and international reactions

Due to increazing critics, France stopped its atmospheric tests in the desert to experiment further explosions in nearby underground facilities until the Algerian independence in 1962.

From February 1960 to April 1961, France tested a limited number of atmospheric bombs, the four Gerboise, with three of them being only engins de secours ("emergency devices") voluntary reduced to <5 kitotons. Underground tests have changed the sequence designation to jewel names, starting in November 1961 with agate, "Agathe" (<20Kt).

Five months after the last Gerboise A-bomb, the Soviet Union answered to the French atomic bomb by breaking its atmospheric tests moratorium, settled de facto since late 1958 with the United States and the United Kingdom, and conducted several improvement tests. Starting in September 1961 with a series of 136 large H-bombs, including the most powerful bomb ever tested, "Tsar Bomba" peaking at 50 megatons (50,000Kt), that exploded in the Novaya Zemlya atmosphere, Arctic Ocean. Altough, Soviet Union had already mastered H-bomb completion back in 1955, which could indicate this "record" was meant as an answer to France emerging as a third Western force with nuclear power in the Cold War context.

Following the Soviet Union, the United States reactivated its own atmospheric programme with a series of 40 explosions, from April 1962 to November 1962, including two powerful H-bombs topping 7,45Mt and 8,3Mt (8,300Kt).^[3]

At last, China launched its own nuclear programme resulting on the A-bomb "596" (22Kt) tested on October 16, 1964, followed in June 17, 1967 by the H-bomb Test No. 6 (3,3Mt).

The following year, France detonated its H-bomb in Canopus operation (2,6Mt) in the new facility located in a French Polynesia desert atoll named Fangataufa.