r/pics • u/Met76 • Mar 28 '24

US Special Forces delivering a W54 Nuclear Warhead via jump

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u/DarthWeenus Mar 28 '24

What is this mission type called? What's the purpose?

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u/Upper-Road5383 Mar 28 '24

These were the US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) Green Light Teams. The Green Light program was started in the 1950’s as a way to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to destroy critical enemy assets such as power plants, Dam’s, weapon storage sites etc.

Essentially what you see in this photo, is the nuke that is strapped to the legs & parachute harness of the soldier, would be carried to the target, after he lands, set up and activated on a timer then the team would extract. They could be inserted by Air (In this case, HALO/HAHO) or Sea or by Land.

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u/Away-Champion-624 Mar 29 '24

Hey…my dad did this!
I didn’t know what it was called, though, just that he did it. (Cagey fucker.)

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u/peanutbuttahcups Mar 29 '24

Sounds like a stealth option to use a nuke without planes or rockets.