Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment
| RARDE link | |
|---|---|
| Successor | Defence Evaluation and Research Agency |
| Formation | 1922 |
| Extinction | 1995 |
| British military research organisation. Subsumed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency in 1995. | |
The Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) was a British government organisation established at Fort Halstead in Kent during World War II. RARDE was subsumed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in 1995.
History
RARDE was formed following the merger of two departments, the "Research Department" and the "Design Department", that had been established in 1922 at Woolwich Arsenal.
Britain's development of the atomic bomb, hidden under the name 'High Explosive Research' (HER) was initially based at Fort Halstead, where the first atomic bomb was developed under the directorship of William George Penney, who had been appointed Chief Superintendent Armament Research ("CSAR", called "Caesar") by C. P. Snow. Operation Hurricane saw the bomb conveyed by frigate to Australia and successfully exploded in the Montebello Islands. In 1950, 'HER' research was believed to have been moved to a new site at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston in Berkshire.
In the 1980s, RARDE was amalgamated with the Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment (MVEE) with sites at Chertsey and Christchurch, and the Propellants, Explosives and Rocket Motor Establishment based at Waltham Abbey and Westcott.
Activities
Following the December 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Alan Feraday and Thomas Hayes, forensic experts from RARDE's explosives laboratory, examined material recovered from the crash scene, and subsequently testified as expert witnesses at the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.[1]
In 1995 the Forensic Explosives Laboratory (FEL) at Fort Halstead came under media and scientific scrutiny. In 1996, amid allegations that contaminated equipment had been used in the testing of forensic evidence, an inquiry was set up under Professor Brian Caddy of Strathclyde University to investigate the laboratory's alleged shortcomings.[2]
In 1996, the bus from the Aldwych bus bombing was taken to Fort Halstead for analysis, where previously a number of Irish Republican Army (IRA) explosive devices had been examined.
RARDE was home to a number of military simulation and war game projects, mainly aimed as assessing the effectiveness of future defence equipment procurement. After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and throughout the latter half of 1990, a series of computerised war games were conducted at RARDE in preparation for Operation Granby, Britain's contribution to the Gulf War.
In 2017, scientists from the FEL at Fort Halstead examined the wreckage of the aircraft from the crash of a Polish Air Force Tu-154 in 2010, for traces of explosives, after being engaged by the Polish government.[3]