Nuclear Close Calls
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Nuclear Close Calls
A nuclear close call is an incident that might have led to at least one nuclear explosion, but did not. They can be split into intentional use and unintentional use close calls. Intentional use close calls may occur during increased military tensions involving one or more nuclear states. They may be a threat made by the state, or an attack upon the state. They may also come from nuclear terrorism. Unintentional use close calls may occur due to equipment failure. Common examples are strategic bombers accidentally dropping or crashing with nuclear bombs, or early warning systems mistaking phenomena such as weather events or non-nuclear rocket launches for an ICBM first strike and therefore recommending a second strike. Though exact details on many nuclear close calls are hard to come by, the analysis of particular cases has highlighted the importance of a variety of factors in preventing accidents. At an international level, this includes the importance of context and outsid ...
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Nuclear Explosion
A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion-based weapons have used a fission device to initiate fusion, and a pure fusion weapon remains a hypothetical device. Nuclear explosions are used in nuclear weapons and nuclear testing. Nuclear explosions are extremely destructive compared to conventional (chemical) explosives, because of the vastly greater energy density of nuclear fuel compared to chemical explosives. They are often associated with mushroom clouds, since any large atmospheric explosion can create such a cloud. Nuclear explosions produce high levels of ionizing radiation and Nuclear fallout, radioactive debris that is harmful to humans and can cause moderate to severe skin burns, eye damage, radiation sickness, radiation-induced cancer and possible ...
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Arms Control Association
The Arms Control Association is a United States–based nonpartisan membership organization founded in 1971, with the self-stated mission of "promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies." The group publishes the monthly magazine ''Arms Control Today''. It contains topical news updates as well as extended, footnoted articles. Projects Through its online content, print materials, and events, the Arms Control Association provides policymakers, media, and the interested public with information, analysis and commentary on arms control proposals, negotiations and agreements, and related national security issues. Staff and funding The Arms Control Association is supported by grants from the Ploughshares Fund, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Colombe Foundation, the New Land Foundation, the Prospect Hill Foundation, the Stewart R. Mott Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundatio ...
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Tactical Nuclear Weapon
A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed mostly to be targeted at the enemy interior far away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war. No tactical nuclear weapons have ever been used in combat. Details Tactical nuclear weapons include gravity bombs, short-range missiles, artillery shells, land mines, depth charges, and torpedoes which are equipped with nuclear warheads. Also in this category are nuclear armed ground-based or shipborne surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and air-to-air missiles. Small, two-man portable or truck-portable tactic ...
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Battle Of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the forces of the French Union and Viet Minh. The French began an operation to insert, and support, their soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the autonomous Tai Federation in northwest Tonkin. The operation's purpose was to cut off enemy supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos (a French ally) and draw the Viet Minh into a major confrontation in order to cripple them. The French based their forces in an isolated but well-fortified camp that would be resupplied by air, a strategy adopted based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability. The communist Viet Minh, however, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French. They brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery (including anti-aircraft guns) and managed to move these bulky weapons through difficult terrain ...
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Vladivostok International Airport
Vladivostok International Airport ( ''Mezhdunarodnyi aeroport Vladivostok'') is an international airport located near Artyom, Primorsky Krai, Russia, roughly an hour's drive () north of the center of the city of Vladivostok. It was formerly known as Knevichi Airport, named after the village of Knevichi. History The Vladivostok Airport was constructed in 1931 near the town of Artyom. Commercial flights began in the summer of 1932. In the decade after World War II, Po-2 and W-2 planes were widely used in air-chemical works and coastal exploration for fish in the service of geologists and forest patrols. Passenger flights on the Moscow - Vladivostok route began in 1948 using Ilyushin Il-12s. From 1959 to 1964, a complex of ground facilities was built to allow regular flights with larger planes after the closure of the Vtoraya Rechka Airport, encroached by the growing city. Expansion and modernization Domestic Terminal B of the Vladivostok airport underwent complete renovation dur ...
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Russian Far East
The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Eastern Federal District, which encompasses the area between Lake Baikal and the Pacific Ocean. The area's largest city is Khabarovsk, followed by Vladivostok. The region shares land borders with the countries of Mongolia, China, and North Korea to its south, as well as maritime boundary, maritime boundaries with Japan to its southeast, and with the United States along the Bering Strait to its northeast. Although the Russian Far East is often considered as a part of Siberia abroad, it has been historically categorized separately from Siberia in Russian regional schemes (and previously during the history of the Soviet Union, Soviet era when it was called the Soviet Far East). Terminology In Russia, the region is usually referred to as simply th ...
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Soviet Air Forces
The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces were formed from components of the Imperial Russian Air Service in 1917, and faced their greatest test during World War II. The groups were also involved in the Korean War, and dissolved along with the Soviet Union itself in 1991–92. Former Soviet Air Forces' assets were subsequently divided into several air forces of former Republics of the Soviet Union, Soviet republics, including the new Russian Air Force. The "Air March, March of the Pilots" was its marching song. Origins The first military aviation branch of Russia or any of the Soviet Union's constituent states was the short-lived Imperial Russian Air Service, founded in 1912 and disbanded in 1917 with the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution and ...
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Kadena Air Base
(International Air Transport Association airport code, IATA: DNA, International Civil Aviation Organization airport code, ICAO: RODN) is a United States Air Force base in the towns of Kadena, Okinawa, Kadena and Chatan, Okinawa, Chatan and the city of Okinawa, Okinawa, Okinawa, in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. It is often referred to as the "Keystone of the Pacific" because of its highly strategic location. It is located off the coast of China and at a distance of from Shanghai, a major Chinese economic hub. It is home to the USAF's 18th Wing, the 353rd Special Operations Wing, reconnaissance units, 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment (United States), 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment, and a variety of associated units. Over 20,000 American servicemembers, family members, and Japanese employees live or work at Kadena Air Base. It is the largest and most active U.S. Air Force base in East Asia. History Kadena Air Base's history dates back to just bef ...
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Boeing B-29 Superfortress
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Superfortress was designed for high-altitude strategic bombing, but also excelled in low-altitude night incendiary bombing, and in dropping naval mines to blockade Japan. B-29s dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only aircraft ever to drop nuclear weapons in combat. One of the largest aircraft of World War II, the B-29 was designed with state-of-the-art technology, which included a pressurized cabin, dual-wheeled tricycle landing gear, and an analog computer-controlled fire-control system that allowed one gunner and a fire-control officer to direct four remote machine gun turrets. The $3 and a half dollar cost of design and production (equivalent to $6769 billion in 400), fa ...
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Pit (nuclear Weapon)
In nuclear weapon design, the pit is the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it. Early pits were spherical, while most modern pits are prolate spheroidal. Some weapons tested during the 1950s used pits made with uranium-235 alone, or as a composite with plutonium. All-plutonium pits are the smallest in diameter and have been the standard since the early 1960s. The pit is named after the hard core found in stonefruit such as peaches and apricots. Designs The pits of the first nuclear weapons were solid, with an ''urchin'' neutron initiator in their center. The Gadget and Fat Man used pits made of 6.2 kg of solid hot pressed plutonium-gallium alloy (at 400 °C and 200 MPa in steel dies – and ) half-spheres of diameter, with a internal cavity for the initiator. The Gadget's pit was electroplated with 0.13 mm of silver because of plutonium's susceptibility to cor ...
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Mark 4 Nuclear Bomb
The Mark 4 nuclear bomb was an American implosion-type nuclear bomb based on the earlier Mark 3 Fat Man design, used in the Trinity test and the bombing of Nagasaki. With the Mark 3 needing each individual component to be hand-assembled by only highly trained technicians under closely controlled conditions, the purpose of the Mark 4 was to produce an atomic weapon as a practical piece of ordnance. The Mark 4 Mod 0 entered the stockpile starting March 19, 1949 and was in use until 1953. With over 500 units procured, the Mark 4 was the first mass-produced nuclear weapon. Design The Mark 4 utilized a near-identical nuclear explosive package to the 1561 assembly of the Fat Man, but the newly-formed Z Division of Los Alamos focused on re-engineering the electronics and conventional explosives packages to be more modular for easier assembly in the field. The priority objectives of the Mark 4 bomb program were to have the ability to monitor the weapon battery and electrical system ...
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People's Volunteer Army
The People's Volunteer Army (PVA), officially the Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV), was the armed expeditionary forces China in the Korean War, deployed by the History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976), People's Republic of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the PVA were actually transferred from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) under the orders of Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong, the PVA was separately constituted in order to prevent an official war with the United States. The PVA entered Korea on 19 October 1950 and completely withdrew by October 1958. The nominal commander and political commissar of the PVA was Peng Dehuai before the Korean Armistice Agreement, ceasefire agreement in 1953, although both Chen Geng and Deng Hua served as the acting commander and commissar after April 1952 following Peng's illness. The initial (25 October – 5 November 1950) units in the PVA included 38th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 50th, 66 ...
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