Blue Peacock, renamed from Blue Bunny and originally Brown Bunny, was a British tactical nuclear weapon project in the 1950s.
The project's goal was to store a number of ten-kiloton nuclear land mines in Germany. These mines were intended to be placed on the North German Plain and detonated by wire or an eight-day timer in the event of Soviet invasion from the east.
Design
Blue Peacock was designed after the free-falling Blue Danube and weighed 7.2 long tons (7,300 kg). A total of two firing units were built: the casing and the warhead. Due to its large steel casing, it had to be tested outdoors in a flooded gravel pit near Sevenoaks in Kent.
Since the bomb would be unattended, anti-tampering devices were also used. The casing was pressurized, and pressure and tilt switches were added. Various methods were studied to solve this problem, such as wrapping the bombs in insulating blankets.
One proposal suggested that live chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water. They would remain alive for approximately a week. Their body heat would apparently have been sufficient to keep the mine's components at a working temperature.