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The air force identified the test technician that disclosed the miss as Airman First Class Jackson H. Kilgore, for which he was reprimanded. Effects test, but also an international political statement about readiness to drop thermonuclear weapons. Zuni: May 27, 1956 17:56:00.3 MHT (11 hrs)
In general, surrounding a bomb with denser media, such as water, absorbs more energy and creates more powerful shock waves while at the same time limiting the area of its effect. When a nuclear weapon is surrounded only by air, lethal blast and thermal effects proportionally scale much more rapidly than lethal radiation effects as explosive ...
The knowledge gained provided data to prevent nuclear yields in case of accidental detonations—for example, in a plane crash. The John shot on July 19, 1957, was the only test of the Air Force's AIR-2A Genie rocket with a nuclear warhead. [3] It was fired from an F-89J Scorpion fighter over Yucca Flats at the Nevada National Security Site.
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 lower mass, or a combination of these benefits.
In January 2014, former Air Force Chief of Staff Norton A. Schwartz stated that the Mod 12 nuclear bomb upgrade would have enhanced accuracy and a lower yield with less fallout compared to previous versions of the weapon. Accuracy has not been a guarantee for air-dropped nuclear weapons, so consequently large warheads were needed to effectively ...
Further developments included the miniaturization of thermonuclear weapons. [7] In October 1963, the director for defense research requested that the air force and navy cooperate on the Mark 12 program so that the warhead could be used interchangeably on both the Minuteman and Polaris missiles. The immediate effect was for the air force and ...
A problem faced by Sprint and similar ABMs was that the blast effects of their warheads change greatly as they climb and the atmosphere thins out. At higher altitudes, starting around 60,000 feet (18,000 m) and above, the blast effects begin to drop off rapidly as the air density becomes very low.
The Mk/B53 was a high-yield bunker buster thermonuclear weapon developed by the United States during the Cold War.Deployed on Strategic Air Command bombers, the B53, with a yield of 9 megatons, was the most powerful weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal after the last B41 nuclear bombs were retired in 1976.