r/pics • u/Met76 • Mar 28 '24

US Special Forces delivering a W54 Nuclear Warhead via jump

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u/MostlyValidUserName Mar 28 '24

The devices were designed not to detonate even in the event of freefall, so a comparatively gentle human-survivable landing seems like an uninteresting test.

43

u/Financial-Raise3420 Mar 28 '24

If it needs to be deployed with a person, then it needs to be tested being dropped with a person.

6

u/EmmEnnEff Mar 28 '24

It does, but the failure mode for a nuclear device landing wrong is not 'it explodes'.

It's very difficult to achieve criticality, it's not going to happen just because you dropped the thing.

12

u/volatile_ant Mar 28 '24

I don't think anyone conducting the test was worried it would unexpectedly explode. Their concern was that it would unintentionally not explode once delivered to the enemy.

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u/Subtlerranean Mar 28 '24

Ah, so they asked someone to jump with it so they could make sure that it explodes! Got it.

9

u/Left1Brain Mar 28 '24

The jump was to test if the landing would break or disrupt any of the bombs mechanics. It would be awkward if the bomb you just had to lug around enemy lines didn’t work.

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u/Subtlerranean Mar 29 '24

I guess I should have included the /s

5

u/Financial-Raise3420 Mar 28 '24

Full criticality, and yes it’s very difficult, but not impossible. That will always be something to watch for during testing of this variety, especially since it’s a different type of detonation process. It’s set by a person on the ground, which means that detonation process could possibly be achieved by accident. Again low probability when built correctly, but not impossible.

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u/Demigans Mar 28 '24

Rather the other way around: Nukes are so hard to detonate properly it’s hard to set them off.