The Mark 10 nuclear bomb was a proposed American
nuclear bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...
based on the earlier
Mark 8 nuclear bomb design. The Mark 10, like the Mark 8, is a
gun-type nuclear weapon, which rapidly assembles several
critical mass
In nuclear engineering, critical mass is the minimum mass of the fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction in a particular setup. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specific ...
es of fissile nuclear material by firing a fissile projectile or "bullet" over a fissile "target", using a system which closely resembles a medium-sized cannon barrel and propellant.
The Mark 10 was intended to be a general purpose airburst nuclear weapon, unlike the Mark 8 which was intended to penetrate into the ground as a
Nuclear bunker buster
A nuclear bunker buster, also known as an earth-penetrating weapon (EPW), is the nuclear equivalent of the conventional bunker buster. The non-nuclear component of the weapon is designed to penetrate soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclea ...
. It was nicknamed the "Airburst Elsie"; the Mark 8 had been nicknamed the LC or Light Casing bomb, which was then expanded to "Elsie." The bomb was in diameter and weighed .
[Complete List of All U.S. Nuclear Weapons] It had a design yield of 12 to 15
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 det ...
s.
The Mark 10 design was cancelled in 1952, replaced by the implosion-type
Mark 12 which was lighter and used considerably less fissile material.
See also
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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 a ...
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Mark 1 Little Boy nuclear bomb
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Mark 8 nuclear bomb
Citations
Bibliography
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Complete list of all US nuclear weapons
{{United States nuclear devices
Cold War aerial bombs of the United States
Gun-type nuclear bombs
Nuclear bombs of the United States