Nuclear — fission · France · 1960
Gerboise Bleue
Gerboise Bleue test
The first French nuclear test. Its yield (≈ 70 kt) exceeded that of Little Boy and Fat Man combined.
See Gerboise Bleue in the 3D simulator- Yield
- 70 ktDocumented
- Energy
- 293 TJ
- Type
- First French test (plutonium)
- Period
- Cold War
- Status
- Single test
Gerboise Bleue releases about 4.7 times the energy of Little Boy (Hiroshima, 1945).
Key points
- At the command post, 16 km away, the shock wave arrived about 45 seconds after the flash: the time it took sound to travel that distance.
History
France became the fourth nuclear power. The atmospheric tests in the Sahara left radioactive contamination whose consequences are still being studied.
- 1958 Decision to carry out the first test.
- 13 February 1960 Gerboise Bleue test at Reggane.
- 1966 Testing continues in French Polynesia.
How does it work?
A fission weapon releases energy by splitting heavy nuclei (uranium-235 or plutonium-239). Each fission releases about 200 MeV and a few neutrons.
If these neutrons cause further fissions, a chain reaction runs away in less than a millionth of a second.
The energy heats matter to tens of millions of degrees: fireball, thermal radiation and shock wave.
General principle of implosion: conventional explosives strongly compress the fissile material, which becomes “supercritical” and sustains the chain reaction.
Deliberately general explanations: the application provides no design or manufacturing information.
Frequently asked questions
How powerful is Gerboise Bleue?
Gerboise Bleue has an estimated yield of 70 kt of TNT equivalent, about 293 TJ of energy.
What is the history of Gerboise Bleue?
Single test, on 13 February 1960, near Reggane (Algerian Sahara). France became the fourth nuclear power. The atmospheric tests in the Sahara left radioactive contamination whose consequences are still being studied.
What does the Gerboise Bleue explosion look like?
The Bomb Simulator shows the fireball, shock wave and cloud of Gerboise Bleue at real scale, over Paris, London or New York, with the sources and reliability of each value.
Sources
- Gerboise Bleue — Wikipedia (overview, to be cross-checked)
Other weapons
- Trinity — 25 kt
- Little Boy — 15 kt
- Fat Man — 21 kt
- RDS-1 — 22 kt
- Hurricane — 25 kt
- RDS-6s — 400 kt
- 596 — 22 kt
- Davy Crockett — 20 t
- Ivy Mike — 10.4 Mt
- Castle Bravo — 15 Mt
- RDS-37 — 1.6 Mt
- Mk 17 — 15 Mt
This application is an educational tool. The animations and effect zones are simplified representations meant to illustrate orders of magnitude. They are neither a prediction of the effects of a real weapon nor a military planning tool.