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The weapon is notable for being the smallest nuclear weapon in both weight and yield to have entered US service. It was a compact implosion device containing plutonium-239 as its fissile material, [ 1 ] and in its various versions and mods it had a yield of 10 to 1,000 tons of TNT (42 to 4,184 gigajoules ).
Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union have ever made public the existence or development of weapons small enough to fit into a normal-sized suitcase or briefcase. [3] The W48 however, does fit the criteria of small, easily disguised, and portable. Its explosive yield was extremely small for a nuclear weapon. [4] [5]
U.S. officials view a W54 nuclear warhead (with a 10- or 20-ton explosive yield) as used on the Davy Crockett recoilless gun, one of the smallest nuclear weapons ever made. A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) [1] is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly ...
W48 AFAP on display (middle) The W48 was an American nuclear artillery shell, capable of being fired from any standard 155-millimetre (6.1 in) howitzer.A tactical nuclear weapon, it was manufactured starting in 1963, and all units were retired in 1992.
Advances in nuclear weapons technology, spurred on by the first detonation of the Soviet nuclear bomb in 1949, led to great reductions in the size of nuclear weapons. By 1957, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) declared that it had created a small fission warhead that could be deployed for frontline use by infantrymen.
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The lack of compression makes such designs inefficient, but the simplicity and small diameter make it suitable for use in artillery shells and atomic demolition munitions – ADMs – also known as backpack or suitcase nukes; an example is the W48 artillery shell, the smallest nuclear weapon ever built or deployed. All such low-yield ...
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