Kinglet (nuclear Primary)
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Kinglet was a boosted fission primary used in several American
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 lowe ...
s. The W55 warhead for the UUM-44 SUBROC anti-submarine missile and the W58 warhead for Polaris A-3 were designed to use Kinglet, while the W47 warhead for Polaris A-1/A-2 were retrofitted with Kinglet to overcome the technical issues with the Robin primary the W47 was initially deployed with. Allegedly, only the W47Y2 was converted to the Mod 3 design using Kinglet.


Design

The Kinglet device was approximately in diameter, in length and weighed approximately . The device was of the two-point design. Two-point devices only require two detonators to fire the whole device, compared to earlier nuclear weapons that required tens of detonators. Characteristics of the warheads that used Kinglet are:


See also

* List of nuclear weapons *
Teller-Ulam design 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 lowe ...
* Tsetse primary * Python primary


Notes


References


Bibliography


Beware the old story
by Chuck Hansen, ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'', March/April 2001 pp. 52-55 (vol. 57, no. 02) *http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons?Allbombs.html *The History of the UK. Strategic Deterrent: The Chevaline Programme. Published:2004 by the Royal Aeronautical Society, London. {{United States nuclear devices Nuclear bombs of the United States