Recent research has shown that British nukes were armed with a single barrel style bicycle lock. Senior military figures argued that Permissive Action Links (combination locks/two key systems) were not required because senior officers could be trusted to obey orders.
I wonder if a pen barrel could arm the bomb… :smack:
Si
That kind of story makes my stomach lurch.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about, obviously only Officers could access a Nuke, and we all know that Officers are Gentlemen, So thats all right then. 
This is new research? I’d heard about it awhile back—even saw the web page (Search for “Permissive Action Link”)
That ain’t the scary part, though…some of the early higher-yield British bombs had core that had “were greater than one uncompressed critical mass.” Meaning, that unlike a lot of other nuclear weapon designs, a fire or a crushing accident to the weapon might cause a nuclear chain reaction (or explosion).
To safeguard against this, the hollow core of the weapon was filled several thousand steel ball bearings when in storage, which would have to be collected and poured back in later (a similar U.S. design used a superior system—an aluminum-boron chain that was packed into the weapon core, thank you very much).
At least Her Majesty and Gordon Brown have good heads on their shoulders. Some other nuclear-armed countries should be so lucky.
Two previous threads that may be of interest:
And everyone wondered why spectre high jacked a vulcan to get the bombs .
Declan