Editing V bomber (section)

==Background==
The [[Royal Air Force]] (RAF) [[RAF Bomber Command|Bomber Command]] ended the Second World War with a policy of using heavy four-[[piston-engine]]d bombers for massed raids, and remained committed to this policy in the immediate post-war period. The RAF adopted the [[Avro Lincoln]], an updated version of the wartime [[Avro Lancaster]], as its standard bomber for this purpose. Production of the Lincoln continued after the war, and eventually 450 were built. Although touted as a mighty bomber in 1945, it lacked the range to reach targets in the [[Soviet Union]], and would be vulnerable to the new jet fighters that were then under development.{{sfn|Brookes|1982|p=14}}

Elements within the RAF and the government sought to adopt the new [[nuclear weaponry]] and advances in aviation technology to introduce more potent and effective means of conducting warfare. In November 1944, the UK Chiefs of Staff had requested a report from Sir [[Henry Tizard]] on potential future means of warfare. Reporting without knowledge of the progress of Allied efforts to produce an atomic bomb, in July 1945 the [[Tizard Committee]] urged the encouragement of large-scale atomic energy research. It foresaw the devastating effects of atomic weapons and envisaged high-flying jet bombers cruising at {{convert|500|mph|km/h|abbr=on}} at {{convert|40000|ft|m|abbr=on}}. It was thought that potential aggressors might be deterred by the knowledge that Britain would retaliate with atomic weapons if attacked.{{sfn|Wynn|1997|pp=1–2}}

Even at the time, there were those who could see that guided [[missile]]s would eventually make such aircraft vulnerable, but development of such missiles was proving difficult, and fast and high-flying jet bombers were likely to serve for years before there was a need for something better. Massed bombers were unnecessary if a single bomber could destroy an entire city or military installation with a nuclear weapon. It would have to be a large bomber, since the first generation of nuclear weapons were big and heavy. Such a large and advanced bomber would be expensive on a per-unit basis, as it would be produced in small quantities.{{sfn|Wynn|1997|pp=27–28}}

During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed [[Tube Alloys]],{{sfn|Gowing|1964|pp=108–111}} which the 1943 [[Quebec Agreement]] merged with the American [[Manhattan Project]]. The British government trusted that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as a joint discovery, after the war, but the [[United States Atomic Energy Act of 1946]] (McMahon Act) ended technical co-operation.{{sfn|Jones|2017|pp=1–2}} The British government saw this as a resurgence of [[United States isolationism]], as had occurred after the First World War, and dreaded the possibility that Britain might have to fight an aggressor alone.{{sfn|Gowing|1964|pp=94–95}} It also feared that Britain might lose its [[great power]] status and its influence in world affairs. It therefore restarted its own nuclear weapons development effort,{{sfn|Gowing|Arnold|1974|pp=181–184}} which was now codenamed [[High Explosive Research]].{{sfn|Cathcart|1995|pp=23–24, 48, 57}} The first British atomic bomb was tested in [[Operation Hurricane]] on 3 October 1952.{{sfn|Jones|2017|p=25}}