Operation Teapot was a series of 14

nuclear test Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Bec ...

explosions conducted at the

Nevada Test Site The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...

in the first half of 1955. It was preceded by ''

Operation Castle Operation Castle was a United States series of high-yield (high-energy) nuclear tests by Joint Task Force 7 (JTF-7) at Bikini Atoll beginning in March 1954. It followed ''Operation Upshot–Knothole'' and preceded '' Operation Teapot''. Con ...

'', and followed by ''

Operation Wigwam Operation Wigwam involved a single test of the Mark 90 "Betty" nuclear bomb. It was conducted between ''Operation Teapot'' and '' Project 56'' on May 14, 1955, about 500 miles (800 km) southwest of San Diego, California. 6,800 personnel ...

''. ''Wigwam'' was, administratively, a part of ''Teapot'', but it is usually treated as a class of its own. The aims of the operation were to establish military tactics for ground forces on a nuclear battlefield and to improve the nuclear weapons used for strategic delivery.

Individual blasts

Wasp

During shot ''Wasp'', ground forces took part in

Exercise Desert Rock VI Desert Rock was the code name of a series of exercises conducted by the US military in conjunction with atmospheric nuclear tests. They were carried out at the Nevada Proving Grounds between 1951 and 1957. Their purpose was to train troops and g ...

which included an armored task force ''Razor'' moving to within of ground zero, under the still-forming

mushroom cloud A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently e ...

Bee

An augmented test unit from the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionar ...

participated in shot ''Bee'' during the March 1955 exercises.

MET

The ''MET'' was the first bomb core to include

uranium-233 Uranium-233 ( or U-233) is a fissile isotope of uranium that is bred from thorium-232 as part of the thorium fuel cycle. Uranium-233 was investigated for use in nuclear weapons and as a Nuclear fuel, reactor fuel. It has been used successfully ...

(a rarely used

fissile isotope In nuclear engineering, fissile material is material that can undergo nuclear fission when struck by a neutron of low energy. A self-sustaining thermal chain reaction can only be achieved with fissile material. The predominant neutron energy in a ...

that is the product of

thorium-232 Thorium-232 () is the main naturally occurring isotope of thorium, with a relative abundance of 99.98%. It has a half life of 14.05 billion years, which makes it the longest-lived isotope of thorium. It decays by alpha decay to radium-228; its de ...

neutron absorption), along with plutonium; this was based on the plutonium/U-235 pit from the TX-7E, a prototype

Mark 7 nuclear bomb Mark 7 "Thor" (or Mk-7) was the first tactical fission bomb adopted by US armed forces. It was also the first weapon to be delivered via toss bombing with the help of the low-altitude bombing system (LABS). The weapon was tested in Operation Bust ...

design used in the 1951 ''

Operation Buster-Jangle Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

Easy'' test. It produced a yield of 22kt (comparable to the ''

Fat Man "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) was the design of the nuclear weapon the United States used for seven of the first eight nuclear weapons ever detonated in history. It is also the most powerful design to ever be used in warfare. A Fat Man ...

'' plutonium-only weapon that exploded over Nagasaki), but significantly less than the expected amount. Since it was a military effects test, the DoD specified that the device should have a calibrated yield within 10% of ratings. However, weapon designers at Los Alamos substituted the experimental core without notifying the DoD. The unexpected lower yield, 33% less than the DoD expected, ruined many of the military's tests.

Apple-2

The Civil Defense ''Apple-2'' shot on May 5, 1955 was intended to test various building construction types in a nuclear blast. An assortment of buildings, including residential houses and

electrical substation A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station an ...

s, were constructed at the site nicknamed "Survival Town" by some and "Doom Town" by others. The buildings were populated with mannequins, and stocked with different types of canned and packaged foods. Not all of the buildings were destroyed in the blast, and some of them still stand at Area 1, Nevada Test Site. A short film about the blast, referred to as "Operation Cue", was distributed by the

Federal Civil Defense Administration The Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) was organized by President Harry S. Truman on December 1, 1950, through Executive Order 10186, and became an official government agency via the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950 on 12 January 1 ...

. The houses are still standing at , at the east and west ends of the road loop. They are stops on the

Nevada National Security Site The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...

(NNSS) tour. From declassified documents dated February to May 1956, the Apple-2 shot, as part of Operation Teapot Project 35.5 "Effects of Nuclear Explosion on Records and Records Storage Equipment" was staged on the Nevada Test Site to determine the effects of nuclear explosions on various types of records and record storage equipment.

Teapot series tests

Table notes:

Gallery

TeapotHornet.gif, Teapot-''Hornet'', 4-kilotons File:TeapotBee.gif, Teapot-''Bee'', 8-kilotons File:TeapotTurk.gif, Teapot-''Turk'', 43-kilotons File:TeapotTurkClose.gif, Teapot-''Turk'', close-up of fireball within first few milliseconds of detonations File:Teapot Moth 001.jpg, Teapot-''Moth'', 2-kilotons File:TeapotESS.gif, "Effects Sub-surface". Test for ADM (Atomic Demolition Munition) File:Operation Teapot - Ess.jpg, Teapot-''ESS'', 1-kiloton File:NNSA-NSO-371.jpg, One of the shot-towers of the Teapot test, unknown device File:Operation Teapot Colorised - MET (Military Effects Test).jpg, Teapot-''MET'' (Military Effects Test), 22-kilotons

References

Operation Teapot Project 5.4 Evaluation of fireball lethality using basic missile structures(C)

External links

* * * * * NPR web page: effect on commercial beverage
YouTube – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL): "Operation Teapot − Turk 28112" videoYouTube – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Channel: LLNL Atmospheric Nuclear Tests website
– ''all uploaded LLNL videos of tests between 1945 and 1962, including 28 of Operation Teapot''. {{Nuclear weapons tests of the United States Nevada Test Site nuclear explosive tests, Teapot 1955 in military history 1955 in Nevada 1955 in the environment 1955 disasters in the United States Explosions in 1955 Articles containing video clips