W52 (nuclear Warhead)
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W52 (nuclear Warhead)
The W52 was a thermonuclear warhead developed for the MGM-29 Sergeant short-range ballistic missile used by the United States Army from 1962 to 1977. The W52 was in diameter and long, and weighed . It had a yield of 200 kilotons. A total of 300 W52 warheads were produced. Researcher Chuck Hansen claims based on his research into the US nuclear program that the thermonuclear W52 and (fission-only) W30 warheads both use a common primary or fission first stage, and that this design was nicknamed the Boa primary. Reliability controversy Three models of the W52 were produced, the Mod 1, Mod 2, and Mod 3. A warhead test was performed in 1963, which failed, showing that the Mod 1 and Mod 2 versions of the W52 were essentially duds. The Mod 3 was subsequently redesigned to work properly. The design failures of the Mod 1 and 2 W52, along with early problems with the W45 and W47 warheads, are still an active part of the debate about the reliability of the US nuclear weapons force m ...
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Thermonuclear Weapon
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material. Its multi-stage design is distinct from the usage of fusion in simpler Boosted fission weapon, boosted fission weapons. The first full-scale thermonuclear test (Ivy Mike) was carried out by the United States in 1952, and the concept has since been employed by at least the five recognized List of states with nuclear weapons#Recognized nuclear-weapon states, nuclear-weapon states and United Nations Security Council, UNSC Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, permanent members: the Nuclear weapons ...
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MGM-29 Sergeant
The MGM-29 Sergeant was an American short-range, solid fuel, surface-to-surface missile developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The missiles were built by Sperry Utah Company. The Sergeant was the third and last in a series of JPL rockets for the US Army whose names correspond to the progression in Army enlisted ranks, starting with Private and Corporal. The Sergeant missile was first fired by an operational field artillery unit at White Sands New Mexico by the 3rd Battalion 38th Artillery station at Fort Sill Oklahoma in the summer of 1962. President John F. Kennedy attended the fire power demonstration at White Sands New Mexico. Development The Sergeant was originated during 1948 at JPL. Due to the large workload of the Corporal program rocket motor development for the Sergeant was transferred to the Redstone Division of the Thiokol Corporation. Due to the failure of the Sergeant program to develop rapidly the early Sergeant was terminated in April 1951.Cagle, Mary T., Hist ...
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Short-range Ballistic Missile
A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of to . In past and potential regional conflicts, these missiles have been and would be used because of the short distances between some countries and their relative low cost and ease of configuration. In modern terminology, SRBMs are part of the wider grouping of theatre ballistic missiles, which includes any ballistic missile with a range of less than 3,500 km. Models See also *Tactical ballistic missile *Medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) *Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) *Intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ... (ICBM) * Anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) * Hypersonic cruise missile References Missile types {{Missile-st ...
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United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United States Constitution (1789).See alsTitle 10, Subtitle B, Chapter 301, Section 3001 It operates under the authority, direction, and control of the United States Secretary of Defense, United States secretary of defense. It is one of the six armed forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. The Army is the most senior branch in order of precedence amongst the armed services. It has its roots in the Continental Army, formed on 14 June 1775 to fight against the British for independence during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army.Library of CongressJournals ...
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Kiloton
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. A ton of TNT equivalent is a unit of energy defined by convention to be (). It is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a tonne, metric ton (1,000 kilograms) of trinitrotoluene (TNT). In other words, for each gram of TNT exploded, (or 4184 joules) of energy are released. This convention intends to compare the destructiveness of an event with that of conventional explosive materials, of which TNT is a typical example, although other conventional explosives such as dynamite contain more energy. A related concept is the physical quantity TNT-equivalent mass (or mass of TNT equivalent), expressed in the ordinary unit of mass, units of mass and its multiples: kilogram (kg), megagram (Mg) or tonne (t), etc. Kiloton and megaton The "kiloton (of TNT equivalent)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 Metric prefix#List of SI prefixes, terajoules (). A kil ...
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Chuck Hansen
Chuck Hansen (May 13, 1947March 26, 2003) was the compiler, over a period of 30 years, of the world's largest private collection of unclassified documents on how America developed atomic and thermonuclear weapons. Research Hansen's documents were obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and since his death have been housed at the National Security Archive at George Washington University.Christopher Reed.Chuck Hansen: Obsessive collector whose files told America's A-bomb secrets''The Guardian'', 25 April 2003.William J. Broad''The New York Times'', December 12, 1989. In 1988, Hansen wrote the book ''U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History'',Jeffrey G. BarlowU. S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History (Review)''The Journal of Military History'', Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jan., 1989), pp. 105-106. which, along with great detail about the process of developing, testing and administering atomic weapons was critical of the U.S. Defense Department, the Atomic Energy Commission, and s ...
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W30 (nuclear Warhead)
The W30 was an American nuclear warhead used on the RIM-8 Talos surface-to-air missile and the Tactical Atomic Demolition Munition (TADM). The W30 was in diameter and long, weighing depending on the version. The Talos missile variants were produced from 1959 to 1965, and used until 1979. A total of 300 were produced as missile warheads. The W30 Mod 1, 2, and 3 for Talos all had yields of 5 (sometimes more precisely reported as 4.7) kilotons. The TADM warhead was produced from 1961 and saw service until 1966. There were two variants, the W30 Mod 4 Y1 with 0.3 kiloton yield (300 tons TNT) and the W30 Mod 4 Y2 with 0.5 kiloton (500 tons TNT) yield. 300 TADM W30s were produced, between the two versions. A yield of 19 kilotons is given in some references for an unspecified version, possibly a not-deployed high yield test only unit. The W30 is stated by nuclear researcher Chuck Hansen to have been one of two weapons using a common fission bomb core design, the Boa primary; ...
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Nuclear Weapon Design
Nuclear weapons design are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types: # Pure fission weapons are the simplest, least technically demanding, were the first nuclear weapons built, and so far the only type ever used in warfare, by the United States on Empire of Japan, Japan in World War II. # Boosted fission weapons are fission weapons that use nuclear fusion reactions to generate high-energy neutrons that accelerate the fission chain reaction and increase its efficiency. Boosting can more than double the weapon's fission energy yield. # Staged thermonuclear weapons are arrangements of two or more "stages", most usually two, where the weapon derives a significant fraction of its energy from nuclear fusion (as well as, usually, nuclear fission), . The first stage is typically a boosted fission weapon (except for the earliest thermonuclear weapons, which used a pure fission ...
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Boa Primary
Boa, BoA, or BOA may refer to: Snakes * Any member of the Boidae, a family of medium to large, non-venomous, constricting snakes ** Any member of the Boinae, a subfamily of boid snakes *** Any member of ''Boa'' (genus), a group of boid snakes * Any member of the Bolyeriidae, a.k.a. Round Island boas, a small family of non-venomous snakes from Mauritius and nearby islands * Any member of the Tropidophiidae, a.k.a. dwarf boas, a family of non-venomous snakes found in Central America, South * A common name for ''Boa constrictor'' Organisations * Bank of America, a large American banking and financial services company * Bank of Africa, a multinational bank * Boliviana de Aviación (BoA), a Bolivian state airline * Boun Oum Airways, a defunct Laotian Airline * British Octopush Association, which is the controlling body for underwater hockey in the United Kingdom * British Olympic Association, which oversees Britain's participation in the Olympic Games * British Optical Association ...
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W45 (nuclear Warhead)
The W45 was a multipurpose American nuclear warhead developed in the early 1960s, first built in 1962 and fielded in some applications until 1988. It had a diameter of , a length of and weighed . The yields of different W45 versions were 0.5, 1, 5, 8, 10, and 15 kilotons. The W45 was designed at the Livermore branch of the University of California Radiation Laboratory (UCRL), now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). It was developed in part during 1958-1961. W45 used a common nuclear fission core called the Robin primary, which was used as the fission primary in the thermonuclear W38 and W47 weapons. In January 1960, the MADM version of the W45 was assigned the name W45 Mod 1. This version of the warhead was only different from the W45 Mod 0 used in Little John and Terrier in that it had no environmental sensing device, the ADM role having precluded the possibility of such a device. Instead, the warhead received a three-digit combination padlock to restrict access to ...
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Congressional Research Service
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis. CRS is sometimes known as Congress' think tank due to its broad mandate of providing research and analysis on all matters relevant to national policymaking. CRS has roughly 600 employees, who have a wide variety of expertise and disciplines, including lawyers, economists, historians, political scientists, reference librarians, and scientists. In the 2023 fiscal year, it was appropriated a budget of roughly $133.6 million by Congress. Modeled after the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, CRS was founded during the height of the Progressive Era as part of a broader effort to professionalize the government by providing independent research and information to public officials. Its work was initially ma ...
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List Of Nuclear Weapons
This is a list of nuclear weapons listed according to country of origin, and then by type within the states. The United States, Russia, China and India are known to possess a nuclear triad, being capable to deliver nuclear weapons by land, sea and air. United States American nuclear weapons of all types – bombs, warheads, shells, and others – are numbered in the same sequence starting with the Mark 1 and () ending with the W91 (which was cancelled prior to introduction into service). All designs which were formally intended to be weapons at some point received a number designation. Pure test units which were experiments (and not intended to be weapons) are not numbered in this sequence. Early weapons were very large and could only be used as free fall bombs. These were known by "Mark" designators, like the Mark 4 which was a development of the Fat Man weapon. As weapons became more sophisticated they also became much smaller and lighter, allowing them to be used in many ...
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