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The M28 or M29 Davy Crockett Weapon System was a tactical nuclear recoilless smoothbore gun for firing the M388 nuclear projectile, armed with the W54 nuclear warhead, that was deployed by the United States during the Cold War.
Interest in a lightweight, low-yield weapon for the Falcon and Davy Crockett began in 1958. [2] The weapon was initially developed by the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Livermore under the XW-51 designation, [1] but in January 1959 the development of the weapon was transferred to Los Alamos National Laboratory and redesignated the XW-54.
If a relatively junior officer in control of a small tactical nuclear weapon (e.g., the M29 Davy Crockett) were in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by enemy forces, he could request permission to fire it and, due to decentralized control of warhead authorization, his request might quickly be granted during a crisis.
The chief milestone of Operation Sunbeam was that it was the last nuclear test series on the Nevada Test Site conducted in the atmosphere by the United States. Since Operation Sunbeam , specifically the Little Feller 1 test of the Davy Crockett, all US nuclear tests on the Test Site have been carried out underground in accordance with the ...
Little Feller I. The Davy Crockett weapons system is mounted on a vehicle and prepared for launch. Little Feller I explosion. Little Feller II and Little Feller I were code names for a set of nuclear tests undertaken by the United States at the Nevada Test Site on July 7 and 17, 1962 as part of Operation Sunbeam.
The lightest nuclear warhead ever acknowledged to have been manufactured by the U.S. is the W54, which was used in both the Davy Crockett 120 mm recoilless rifle-launched warhead and the backpack-carried version called the Mk-54 SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition). The bare warhead package was an 11 by 16 inches (280 by 410 mm) cylinder ...
The US and Soviet militaries developed an array of smaller nuclear weapons for tactical use, and both gave very real consideration to using them. Nukes aren't just for bombers and subs.
The development of the Davy Crockett nuclear device, an atomic weapon with a sub-kiloton energy yield that can be transported on the back of a jeep, served as a precursor to the eventual final product foreseen by the military, the Mk-54 SADM. The Davy Crocket's lightweight Mark-54 composition was encouraging to the further production and ...