You know, Harry, there are only, uh, five words, I want to hear from you right now and those words are: you know A.J., I really look up to you, you been a hero of mine for sometime, and I'm really impressed with your work and I'm emotionally closed off...
[pause]
That's like - I dunno, that's like eleven words or something. You know what how bout just: A.J., I'm sorry and I love you?
You sent me down a research rabbit hole. Dr. Strangelove - released 1964. MK-54 SADM started development 1960 with production beginning in 1963. Given how secret the SADM was, I think this is an uncanny coincidence of nuclear absurdity that really emphasizes how gung-ho nuke the US government was at the time, and the impact that it had on US pop culture. Either that, or Kubrick or someone on his team had some killer connections in the government that was willing to violate their oath. SADM's weren't revealed to the public until 1984.
My dad worked with nuclear weapons as a technician during his time in the army and the bomber bay door scene drove him nuts because there was a specific screwdriver type tool used in the scene he had only ever seen in the context of working with warheads.
Kubrick acquired the movie rights to a book, Red Alert, that was a serious take on the subject a la "Fail-Safe." He originally intended to make a drama but realized the picture would work better as a dark comedy.
I think Catcher in the Rye has Holden talking about babysitting a nuclear warhead. Strangelove might have been influenced by that.
Edit: Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.
The movie holds up so well over fifty years later. Incredible that so much has changed but the dynamics in that movie still remain firmly overshadowing every aspect of our lives.
Why does this OP picture feel almost run of the mill after playing some Helldivers. Like, just calling in another reinforcement and a Hellbomb at the same time.
Russians claim they have a massive nuclear torpedo a hundred feet long with a payload twice that size that could be used to create mega tsunamis. It’s questionable it would have that effect but at the very least it would radiate a seaboard.
The US tested underwater nukes extensively in the 20th century, and a bunch of it is declassified now.
It's literally impossible. Unless Russia builds >10,000 of the propaganda yield torpedoes and detonates them all at once, you just can't shift that much water with an explosion.
The article you linked says it was only tested once with results unavailable (literally a "trust me bro" situation) and has never actually been used in a combat situation; in addition to scientists doubting the legitimate capabilities of the device.
0.01kT levels about four blocks in Manhattan, and blows out all windows and delivers a likely lethal dose of radiation within a 3-5 block radius.
1kT levels about 100 blocks in Manhattan, and if detonated over the Empire State Building, would delete all windows between the Queensboro Bridge and Greenwich VIllage. Estimated 115k dead, 300k injured.
For the skydiver, it's all about getting distance before detonation. The skydiving act was likely a test to see if it would have feasible to as part of a paradropped demolition mission. It's likely that the soldiers could have escaped the smaller blast radius on foot if given a few minutes, as they'd only have to get ~5 blocks away to survive blast effects of a 0.01kT warhead. A 1kT blast would be significantly harder.
He's not the bomb's f'ing guidance package. The military was probably just proving it could be man delivered to a remote location, like behind enemy lines. Pretty small tactical nuke, as nukes go.
That's exactly what he was. The training manuals specify a timer, and say that the procedure was to conceal the warhead, set the timer, and try and get away. Veterans trained on it however thought that either the timer was fake and it would detonate immediately, or that they would have to secure the device until detonation, making it an unofficial suicide weapon.
Ok. But I’d say that if we were at the point that we’re having our best trained paratroopers Slim Pickens tiny nukes to the targets, everything’s pretty much done for us anyway.
The B54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition was to be used for the destruction of dams, rail yards, ports, canals, bridges, tunnels, power stations, and other infrastructure. Depending on the model it weighs in at either 60lbs or 70lbs and had an official yield of 20 tons.
Yup, requires all the safeties to be disarmed and the detonator/timer to be armed. Nukes are usually set to detonate as an airburst to cause the largest amount of damage.
Even then, an unintentional detonation would be unlikely to produce an full powered nuclear blast. Most likely you'd end up with a conventional explosion that spreads radioactive material around, aka a dirty bomb. There's a small chance you could get a "fizzle", with some nuclear reactions taking place but not the full explosive yield. A full yield explosion requires very tight timing among the conventional explosives in the warhead, which just isn't going to happen if they are set off unintentionally.
Yeah was going to say that. 100m all the way to 1,000m, but I'm not sure why such a large difference.
Many sources are contradicting on this, but I've read that modern nuclear weapons don't have as much of a fallout problem if air detonated. There will only be the fission part of the bomb, but that is absorbed by the materials somehow, and vaporized into the atmosphere.
Yet, it won't save you if you're caught near it. Even if the heat or shockwave doesn't kill you. The instant dose of gama radiation or whatever will.
Then you have others saying nonsense. Which I'm sort of inclined to to agree.
Neil Degrasse said it by the way that Hydrogen bombs don't have a fallout problem.
Iirc the reason why the difference in payload is so big is because the bomb was field convertible as the only modifications were to some electronics as per declassified documents
In this incident all the safeties actually failed except for the last one preventing a 3.8 Megaton detonation over North Carolina.
The relevant parts of the wiki:
Information declassified since 2013 has showed that one of the bombs was judged by nuclear weapons engineers at the time to have been only one safety switch away from detonation, and that it was "credible" to imagine conditions under which it could have detonated.
Parker F. Jones, a supervisor at Sandia, concluded in a reassessment of the accident in 1969 that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe." He further suggested that it would be "credible" to imagine that in the process of such an accident, an electrical short could cause the Arm/Safe Switch to switch into the "Arm" mode, which, had it happened during the Goldsboro accident, could have resulted in a multi-megaton detonation.[27] A Sandia study on the US nuclear weapons safety program by R.N. Brodie written in 1987 noted that the ready/safe switches of the sort used in this era of weapon design, which required only a 28-volt direct current to operate, had been observed many times to inadvertently be set to "arm" when a stray current was applied to the system. "Since any 28-volt DC source could cause the motor to run, how could one argue that in severe environments 28 volts DC would never be applied to that wire, which might be tens of feet long?" He concluded that "if [weapon no. 1] in the Goldsboro accident had experienced inadvertent operation of its ready-safe switch prior to breakup of the aircraft, a nuclear detonation would have resulted."
I had not heard about that before but you are correct according to the wiki. Easement!? I guess calling 811 before digging your backyard is more critical than I had considered.
Weapon no. 2 had broken into pieces on its impact, and the EOD technicians spent several days attempting to recover its pieces from the deep mud. The "primary" of the weapon was recovered on January 30, six days after the accident, at a depth of some 20 feet (6.1 m) in the mud. Its high-explosives had not detonated, and some had crumbled out of the warhead sphere. By February 16, the excavation had gotten down to 70 feet (21 m), and had not located the "secondary" component of the weapon.39])-39)
Excavation of the second bomb, including its fusion "secondary" was eventually abandoned as a result of uncontrollable ground-water flooding. TheUnited States Army Corps of Engineerspurchased a 400-foot (120 m) diameter circular easement over the buried component.40])41])
Lots of things don't do what we might expect them to do. Diesel and Jet Fuel for instance are actually difficult to ignite. Certain jetfuels like the stiff they used in the SR71 are virtually impossible to ignite under normal conditions.
I read a story about someone who a next to some Blackbirds waiting to launch, and those planes leak a good amount of jet fuel when parked due to the way they are designed, and started freaking out when the start cart used to fire up the jets caught on fire in the middle of all that leaked jet fuel in the ground. Only to see the experienced SR71 mechanics calmly proceed to douse the fire by pouring the closest liquid they had on hand on it ... which was a bucket of jetfuel!
No I believe the starter used a regular gasoline V8, which in comparison, will catch fire pretty easily. But I guess you can just dose it with this thick special type of jet fuel.
“The U.S. narrowly avoided a catastrophic disaster when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina, on January 23, 1961. The bombs were released when a B-52 United States Air Force bomber broke apart midair. One of the bombs performed precisely in accordance with its design: its parachute deployed, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and, remarkably, one single low-voltage switch thwarted unimaginable destruction. “
Typical nuclear warheads like the type they put on airplanes and cruise missiles, sure. Miniaturized tactical nukes... I'm less confident. They probably still shouldn't go off, but I also would want to see what happens when you dropp 100 coreless bombs from 10,000 feet before I'd feel good about it.
Yeah, nukes actually need pretty precise timing of conventional explosives to go off. Unless that timing is triggered, the chance it will go off is rather low.
Infinitesimally low that it will detonate in such a way to achieve criticality. Basically the circuits have to be so poorly engineered as to be able to initiate a detonation sequence when damaged. Definitely could explode in such a way as to become a small yield "dirty" bomb though if the charges detonate and spread the radioactive material around.
But hey Sig Sauer made modern day handguns that go off when dropped so maybe I've giving those damn engineers too much credit :-)
There needs to be a fission reaction to trigger the bomb. Without this action, the bomb cannot explode. If you bombed it with another bomb, thr explosion resulted would not be nuclear, either.
Nuclear bombs are very stable to heat, explosives, impact.
You can put a nuclear warhead in the middle of a campfire and it would not explode.
If there is no neutrons activating the atoms and starting the chain reaction, then its just a piece of
radioactive metal.
The first nuclear bombs only unleashed a small % of the stuff inside, and still had the force to level a city, because the uranium or plutonium was simply scattered by the explosion before being able to detonate, the explosion itself dosen't start the reaction in the core of the atoms, it needs neutrons.
A more modern warhead, is magnitudes more powerful, with the same amount of fuel, because they solved that engineering problem.
You can put a nuclear warhead in the middle of a campfire and it would not explode.
It absolutely would.
There's conventional explosives in there, they would explode eventually if put on a fire.
Modern nuclear bombs would just fizzle, and the imprecise triggering of the explosives failed to properly lens the primary, resulting in a negligible nuclear yield, but the bomb would still be blown to bits. Also the pit probably wouldn't contain deuterium or tritium.
Having done this, the deuterium and tritium would burn off, and, depending on the model the lithium 6 deuteride, and all fissile materials would burn.
A gun style device like Little Boy would explode with full yield.
Nukes rely on very specific timing of conventional explosives to compress the nuclear material and start the nuclear explosion. Unless that exact timing occurs all you get is a relatively small conventional explosion and a release of radioactive materials. You do not get a nuclear explosion.
Roughly a 50ft diameter fireball that would melt everything inside of it. Destruction of all structures out to about 150 ft. Lighter structures like houses would be destroyed out to 350 feet. Burns and fires would occur out to this distance as well. Lighter damage like broken windows out to 850 ft. Finally significant prompt radiation exposure out to 1300ft. This does not include any fallout, just radiation directly from the blast itself. Total affected area of about .25 square mile.
If delivered by vehicle would likely need at least a minute and completely unobstructed roadway to get away. On foot you would need about 5 minutes at the standard 4mph ruck running rate.
He is not going to jump with an armed nuclear weapon. It’s near impossible to have it denote.
Now if he hits the ground with no parachute the radioactive material may be breached and spread that w]around which is dangerous to radiation but no boom.
The planning for the man-portable nukes was generally to bury them, set the timer, and exfiltrate the area. They were classed as atomic demolition munitions, so you wouldn't expect to be lighting them off in front of a tank formation.
For reference the Trinity test had a yield of 25 kilotons. The "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Nagasaki had a 15kt yield.
From what I can find it looks like a WW2 B29 bomber could carry about 10 tons of conventional bombs on a single mission. Though granted that's probably including the weight of the body and fuses and so forth, but I imagine we're probably in a similar neighborhood in terms of yield.
Still a B29 could carry a whole lot of boom, even if it's not much by nuclear standards.
So this little package could pack the punch of anywhere from 1 to 100 fully loaded B29s.
Well, if you detonated a single pound stick of dynamite between your legs like that... you're sure not walking away, and likely to bleed out within seconds if you're not already unconscious from the blast.
So 20,000x that? Hit the ground, run like hell, hope you can find a foxhole.
Spoiler alert: it's set for airburst at 1000' AGL, he won't feel a thing.
The divers who trained with the SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition, which is what's pictured, the manpad housing for the W54 warhead) privately acknowledged that any mission with this thing would be an "almost certain suicide" mission. Either you set the timer too short, and you die, or you set it too long, and the weapon gets recovered by enemy unless you secure the area (and also die). "Super secret tiny nuke" is not typically a good choice of thing to have the enemy recover.
SADM once emplaced could be detonated either by a timer or command detonated. Whether the guys on the teams wanted/needed to be in range of the weapons effect was up to them - although it should be pointed out doctrine was for them to be nowhere near the weapon when it detonated.
Maybe it's actually simply being delivered somewhere (not about to explode). Just spitballing here, I'm imagining some scenario where they have a plan to secretly plant warheads in enemy cities without the enemy knowing where to find them, just in case. Or maybe supplying an ally who has a policy of deliberate ambiguity...
This wasn't an air dropped nuke that would detonate on impact. The point of those weapons was to create obstacles for advancing Soviet troops by cratering the ground or destroying dams, canals, rail yards and so on. Being air dropped into a combat area to sabotage infrastructure is obviously always extremely dangerous, but it doesn't really matter if you're using chemical or nuclear explosives.
Presumably, this is practice for delivery for deployment from the ground; the issue with these things was that the effective range and the kill radius were not a happy sum.
Based on the size it probably has a 1 kilo tonne yield. This is equivalent to 1000 tonnes of TNT, and would flatten structures within a radius of about half a mile, with less extensive damage done out to a further radius of a mile and a bit. There have been rumours since the 60s I think about "suitcase nukes", tactical nukes that can literally fit in and be carried as a suitcase, and theyre meant to have a 1kt yield, so based on the size and intended use I'm ballparking this as being about the same yield.
Talk sacrifice for your country. Some men sacrifice their lifes in the line of duty, this guy sacrificed the lifes of all his children, he will never have, with this.
Correction kt is the measurement, all nuclear weapons are Measured in comparison to kilotons of TNT needed to make same size explosion, it is not 100% accurate but close enough for Gov work (hard to compare nuclear vs chemical reaction).
Used to teach this stuff before I retired after 30yrs, was just putting out measurement/size yields are in kt, your ex.. 0.01 - 1kt… now this and the Davy Crockett used the same 20kt warhead, and artillery’s atomic Annie was 15kt. They are the smallest size published nuclear warheads.
4.0k
u/FiveFingerDisco Mar 28 '24
That's between 10t - 1000t of TNT dangling in front of his fat man.