Further Developments-Project Red Admiral
In 1946 Air Staff Requirement OR/1006 was issued for an anti-personnel, biological bomb comparable in strategic effect to the atomic bomb (which neither we nor the Russians possessed). This became Project Red Admiral
The early target date of 1951 was for strategic use against civilian targets, botulism toxins and Bubonic Plague were favoured for development.
According to AIR 20/8727 the bombs would be capable of being aimed from heights up to 50,000 feet and at speeds of up to 500 knots and be of such a design as to permit stowage in the space required by one of the series of ballistically stable bombs now under design.
The bomb should be capable for carriage in the B3/45 (Canberra) and the long-range and medium range bombers now being schemed. Development should be completed in 5 years (1951)
It was later proposed that the optimum configuration would be in the form of a 1000 lb cluster bomb which would contain many 4 lb bomblets. The parent bomb would break up at a pre-determined height and eject the bomblets to maximum effect. The plan was to have a reserve of 10,000 bombs by 1955.
There followed over the years many labyrinthine developments, the possession of the atomic bomb, the definition of the role of Porton Down, would we research or manufacture any BW, the efficiencies and risks of such a weapon but finally the realisation that we could not come up with an effective biological agent killed the project
So there we were in 1955 with 10,000 one thousand pound bombs and no filling for them.
It is, perhaps, more than a coincidence that we collected all of that mustard gas and put it into 10,000 one thousand pound new style bombs in 1955.
We do not know if they are the same bomb casings or what became of the mustard gas bombs but it is credible that we would utilise the manufactured bomb casings from another project.