South African Nukes (I know it's not flying...)

[Dunhovrin]

OK before you start groaning at me what follows is a miltary question even though it's not flying related....

In the late 80s there was a news story about a nuclear-style flash seen off the South African coast. The story was it might have been SA and Israel co-operating on a test. This came up in the pub the other night and I have since tried to find out anything about it - just so I can bore the boys with my knowledge (once a QHI....).

Anyone got any good sources of gen?

That is all - carry on moaning about flying suits.

[Jackonicko]

Not flying? It was air-dropped! Either from a Bucc or a Canberra depending on which rumour you believe. There was some correspondence about it in the magazine 'Jets' and Gainesy will be able to fill in those details since he seems to be the only journo who ever did anything for them!

[Smoketoomuch]

DunH: See
http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew/Safrica/index.html
specifically 'The Vela incident'. Comprehensive details to impress your mates with :)

HTH.

[teeteringhead]

SA certainly did have the capability, but have now (post-Mandela??) relinquished it. I was in SA about 5 years ago and the politico/military type people I was talking to then were proudly claiming to be the world's only POST-nuclear nation, having been in the club and decided unilaterally to leave.

Perhaps a lesson there for the sub-continent ..............

[BlueWolf]

My information on this matter comes from not one, but a number of "usually reliable" sources.
Yes, South Africa did develop nuclear weapons.
Yes, they did so with Israeli co-operation, and this co-operation was mutual; enabling Israel to develop it's own current deterrent weapon program.

It would surprise me greatly to learn that SA had the bomb operational by 1979. I would put that date anything up to 10 years ahead of itself.

They had six devices ready to deploy at the end of the program. When it became apparent that the writing was on the wall for the apartheid regime, the decision was made to deliberately destroy the devices and dismantle the program in such a way that it could not be reinstated. Quite simply, they didn't want the Blacks to get the Bomb. This dismantling was completed prior to the Mandela era.

They had some other fascinating things on the go as well, including some particularly interesting, non-ballistic, directed weapons. What became of those programs I have no idea.

If anyone let off a nuke over the Indian Ocean in 1979 it was probably India; though possibly France, and who knows, maybe anybody. But I don't think it was the Yarpies.

[The Claw]

It is generally accepted that it was a joint Israeli/South African test of a neutron bomb in the three kiloton range. It was tested near the Prince Edward Islands, therefore I doubt that the French would have carried out the test? Some sources claim that three tests were carried out under thick cloud cover. Not all sources suggest an air drop, some believe that the G-5 artillery piece was used.

[Dunhovrin]

Blimey chaps - thanks for the excellent gen. I thought this was one of those (D)urban legends :D . It seems not. So now the question is not Did? but How? and How Many?. I hope it was a banana jet that did drop it.

Cheers again.

Now does anyone know anything about this B52 found on the moon....

[Gainesy]

I had assumed that the SAAF Buccs dropped it and hinted at such in a Jets article last year. A few weeks later the editor got an Email from an anon ex-SAAF mate who asserted that it was dropped by a Canberra. Unfortunately I did not keep a copy of said email but I'll ask if the ed still has it and if so I'll post it here later this week.
Interesting pub banter DunH, all the talk in my local is about the church roof fund/summer fete/ who's tomatoes are most advanced:rolleyes:(

[Anton van Dellen]

Not a G5 as they were not operational then - arty at that time was G2 (old WW2 25 pdr).

Israeli ship in attendance did not have to be blue-water navy - could have been Israeli merchant navy with operatives on board. ;)

[The Claw]

G-5 entered service late 1978/1979, albeit as a proto-type.:cool:

[steamchicken]

The Federation of American Scientists' site is of the view that the "unexplained" explosion was South African in nature,

[Metro man]

Look in African Aviation - "Helderberg Mystery Solved " 31 August last year .Too long to reproduce here very comprehensive.

[Anton van Dellen]

Excerpt of interest:

the six devices built by ARMSCOR were relatively large. This seems to exclude the delivery of the bombs by way of South Africa’s excellent G-5 and G-6 artillery systems. This does not imply that research and development in this field of artillery launched nuclear weapons was not conducted.

The second and more conventional delivery platform would have been the air launched option. According to newspaper reports the bombs were designed for airborne delivery, were 1.5m long, 70cm wide and aerodynamically shaped. Each bomb weighed approximately a ton and had an explosive force of between 14 and 18 kilotons, roughly equal to the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By implication this meant that the bombs would have been dropped by conventional fixed wing aircraft. The SAAF possessed three types of aircraft at the end of the 1980’s that were capable of fulfilling this role. The French Mirage F1 AZ, fighter-bomber, the Buccaneer S MK.50 and the Canberra B(1) 12. The last two aircraft being "light" bombers of British design and manufacture. Whereas the Mirage F1 had a limited range, the other two aircraft had sufficient unrefueled range to strike at targets in Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. The Mirage and Buccaneer could be refueled in flight while the Canberra did not possess this capability. It is interesting to note that the SAAF acquired five Boeings 707 tanker, transport, and electronic warfare aircraft from Bedeck Industries of Israel in the middle 1980’s. These tanker aircraft were seen as force multipliers by the SAAF, enabling the Mirage F1 AZ’s and the Buccaneers to increase their operational ranges. This enabled them to attack countries as far afield as central and northern Africa.

Of the three aircraft mentioned the most likely candidate for the first nuclear attack would have been the Buccaneer. The Buccaneer had a two-man crew, two engines, could be refueled in the air and had excellent navigation equipment. An indication of its nuclear attack capability can be found in the fact that a Buccaneer dropped the first H2 "Smart"-Bomb to be used operationally by the SAAF during an attack on the Cuito bridge in Southern Angola on 12 December 1987. Unfortunately the H2, TV guided weapon failed to destroy its target but a second attack on 3 January 1988 proved more successful. Further evidence supporting the Buccaneer can be found with Buccaneer 422, is reported to have undergone a major overhaul costing many millions of Rand (said to be 13m) in about 1987-89. One may speculate whether this "major overhaul" was to prepare it for the delivery of the first nuclear bomb?

During 1987-1988 only five Buccaneers remained airworthy with the SAAF. The aircraft finally being withdrawn from service in 1990. According to a leading overseas aviation publication that the Buccaneers had the ability to carry the British WE 177 nuclear bomb in its rotating bomb bay.

Ballistic missiles

The third and most glamorous method of delivering an atomic bomb was by means of ballistic missiles.

South Africa’s missile development program apparently had its genesis in 1974 when South Africa and Israel, feeling desperately isolated and surrounded by implacable enemies, tentatively decided to cooperate in a number of scientific, economic, financial and political areas. During the visit of Prime Minister J.B. Vorster to Israel in 1976, he and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed an agreement for scientific (read military) financial and economic cooperation.

Israel had first provided South Africa with the wherewithal to produce missiles in the late 1970’s when it gave the apartheid regime its own version of the Gabriel anti-ship missile, renamed Scorpion by its new owners. Ballistic missiles were the next logical step.

Israel had long been working on its Jericho-1 SRBM, itself a development of French design. Facing the same type of military threat, surrounded by hostile enemies and despised by the world at large, Jericho-1 technology began moving south in the middle 1980’s. This was soon replaced by the Jericho-2 version. On 5 July 1989 South Africa launched its first Jericho-1 now named Arniston by the CIA, but locally known as the "RSA" from its Overberg test site at the southern tip of Africa. According to the CIA this was followed by a second on 19 November 1990 and possibly a third the following year. The Jericho-2/RSA SRBM can be fitted with a 750kg nuclear warhead, which would put them in the same weight class as the bombs South Africa built. The South Africa government’s official statement that the missiles were booster rockets for a peaceful space program is difficult to believe with the facts at hand. With a presumed range of 3500km for the later versions a large part of sub-Saharan Africa would be in reach of the missile.

Stumpf further states that the well-known and extensively documented "double flash" over the South Atlantic Ocean on 22 September 1979 was not the result of a South African nuclear test. He fails to disclose if the flashes might have been a joint Israeli-South African nuclear test, led by Israel. If Israel was involved it is understandable that this information would not be disclosed, even now, nearly twenty years after the incident,

Despite Israeli and South African denials, a detailed study made by U.S intelligence eventually determined that the blast was caused by the testing of a neutron bomb in the three kiloton range, This was the "enhanced radiation" weapon intended to stop Syrian troops from storming the Golan Heights. The September 22 event was the first in a series of such tests. One Israeli source claimed that three tests were actually conducted at the time, all supposedly under thick cloud cover. But " it was a ****-up," he said. "There was a storm and we figured it would block VELA, but there was a gap in the weather - a window –and VELA got blinded by the flash."

U.S, intelligence seems never to have doubted otherwise. "Israelis have not only participated in certain South African nuclear research activities over the last few years, but they have also offered and transferred various sorts of advanced non-nuclear weapons technology to South Africa. A year later, a detailed CIA study entitled "South Africa: Defence Strategy in an Increasingly Hostile World" stated implicitly that Pretoria had a clandestine nuclear weapons program, though the portions that almost undoubtedly related to Israeli cooperation were blacked out in a copy of the document released under the Freedom of Information Act. It is inconceivable that Israel did not know that the missile and nuclear programs it was transplanting to a neighboring continent were not only compatible but also designed to be fully integrated.

[spectre150]

Hmm there was a short piece on this is the Times yesterday (Sunday) which bore a spooky resemsblence to some of the comments earlier in the thread. It didnt speculate on the 'dismantle the capability before the (clears throat) "non-whites" come to power theory :-)

[steamchicken]

The same site the text above comes from also quotes several SA ministers as confirming that nukes did indeed exist in South Africa and that they were destroyed. (or maybe they're plotting to take over the world and force us all to drink Castle Lager....)

[Rattus]

May one assume that a handful of SAAF Bananas survive in private or official collections? And is No 422 among these?

Just curious...:D

[The Claw]

422 is with the SA War Museum in Johannesburg.
412 is a gate guard at Waterkloof
414 is with the SAAF Museum in Pretoria
416 belongs to the SAAF Museum in Cape Town
421 is with the SAAF Museum in Pretoria.

[Dunhovrin]

..and I thought I was in my own little boring world being interested in this...

Caught the bit in the Suday Times which implied some underground tests were carried out in the Kalahari Desert.

All in all very interesting. I'm curious why the particpants were never 'oute'"? Well I'm not curious - it's bl00dy obvious why not.

Any more gems?

[nosefirsteverytime]

mewonders if you put a Geiger counter up to 422, would there be anything unusual?

[DamienB]

Hardly likely to have carried anything dirty enough long enough to leave any trace.

Piccy of 422 here:

http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/buccaneer/survivorspics3.html#422

...no apparent glow of radioactivity though the radome is a shocking shade of yellow.

[Rattus]

Thank you Claw

Glad it's still around. After all, the RAF Museum still has XD818. I wonder if, in years to come 422 will sport a little plaque commemorating its claim to fame! ;)

Rattus

[Anton van Dellen]

Much arguing about when the G5 entered operational service - latest consensus seems to be:

>>> This is what I believe, the gun was delivered to the army in 1981, probably
went to Artillery School and BHQ (10 Art brigade HQ) there the instructors
had their time with it and test fired it on the range and developed the
drills accordingly. Probably a troop ( four guns from BHQ battery) were
sent for a 'test fire plan' on Ops Askari, but we have no evidence of this.

In 1986, 2 Medium battery from 14 Field took the guns on an up to 32 and
completed a small fire plan. In 1987 the Batteries based on the border
(Seirrra Battery) changed their equipment from the G2 140mm to the G5.

This is what I belive.

ex GNR
Seirra Battery
61 Mech Bn Gp:cool:

[The Claw]

Anton:
The G-5 may have been "fully" operational in 1981, but PW Botha boasted that it was in service barely three years after the lessons learnt in 1975. The Space Research Corporation of Canada, together with Cementation Engineering was given the task of developing this system in 1976 and it was completed in 1978. The point I'm making is during 1979/1980 many different projectiles were tested, before the final CIT Alcatel/Rheinmetall version was developed.;)

[C Montgomery Burns]

The G5 was developed by Dr Gerald Bull, who also developed the Iraqi 'Supergun'.