1.
Thor
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In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing and fertility. The cognate deity in wider Germanic mythology and paganism was known in Old English as Þunor and in Old High German as Donar, into the modern period, Thor continued to be acknowledged in rural folklore throughout Germanic regions. Thor is frequently referred to in place names, the day of the week Thursday bears his name, in Norse mythology, largely recorded in Iceland from traditional material stemming from Scandinavia, numerous tales and information about Thor are provided. With Sif, Thor fathered the goddess Þrúðr, with Járnsaxa, he fathered Magni, with a mother whose name is not recorded, he fathered Móði, and he is the stepfather of the god Ullr. The same sources list Thor as the son of the god Odin and the earth, Jörð. Thor has two servants, Þjálfi and Röskva, rides in a cart or chariot pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, and is ascribed three dwellings. Thor wields the mountain-crushing hammer, Mjölnir, wears the belt Megingjörð and the iron gloves Járngreipr, Thor has inspired numerous works of art and references to Thor appear in modern popular culture. Like other Germanic deities, veneration of Thor is revived in the period in Heathenry. The name of the god is the origin of the weekday name Thursday, by employing a practice known as interpretatio germanica during the Roman Empire period, the Germanic peoples adopted the Roman weekly calendar, and replaced the names of Roman gods with their own. Latin dies Iovis was converted into Proto-Germanic *Þonares dagaz, from which stems modern English Thursday, beginning in the Viking Age, personal names containing the theonym Thórr are recorded with great frequency. Prior to the Viking Age, no examples are recorded, thórr-based names may have flourished during the Viking Age as a defiant response to attempts at Christianization, similar to the wide scale Viking Age practice of wearing Thors hammer pendants. They regard it as a duty to offer to him, on fixed days. Hercules and Mars they appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind, in this instance, Tacitus refers to the god Odin as Mercury, Thor as Hercules, and the god Týr as Mars, and the identity of the Isis of the Suebi has been debated. In Thors case, the identification with the god Hercules is likely at least in part due to similarities between Thors hammer and Hercules club. In his Annals, Tacitus again refers to the veneration of Hercules by the Germanic peoples, Donar, the southern Germanic form of the gods name. According to an account, the Christian missionary Saint Boniface felled an oak tree dedicated to Jove in the 8th century. Around the second half of the 8th century, Old English mentions of a figure named Thunor are recorded, gabriel Turville-Petre saw this as an invented origin for the placename demonstrating loss of memory that Thunor had been a gods name. Adam details that Thor, they reckon, rules the sky, he governs thunder and lightning, winds and storms, fine weather and fertility and that Thor, with his mace, looks like Jupiter
2.
Tactical nuclear weapon
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Tactical nuclear weapons were a large part of the peak nuclear weapons stockpile levels during the Cold War. Tactical nuclear weapons include gravity bombs, short-range missiles, artillery shells, land mines, depth charges, also in this category are nuclear armed ground-based or shipborne surface-to-air missiles and air-to-air missiles. In wartime, such explosives could be used for demolishing choke-points to enemy offensives, such as at tunnels, narrow mountain passes, there is no precise definition of the tactical category, neither considering range nor yield of the nuclear weapon. Modern tactical nuclear warheads have yields up to the tens of kilotons, or potentially hundreds, several times that of the used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima. Use of tactical nuclear weapons against similarly-armed opponents carries a significant danger of escalating the conflict beyond anticipated boundaries. For example, firing a nuclear artillery shell similar to the W48 at the enemy invites retaliation. It may provoke the enemy into responding with several artillery shells similar to the W79. By using tactical nuclear weapons there is a risk of escalating the conflict until it reaches a tipping point which provokes the use of strategic nuclear weapons such as ICBMs. Additionally, the nuclear weapons most likely to be used first have usually been under less stringent political control at times of military combat crises than strategic weapons. Early Permissive Action Links could be as simple as a combination lock. For these reasons, stockpiles of nuclear warheads in most countries arsenals have been dramatically reduced c. 2010, and the smallest types have been completely eliminated, some variable yield nuclear warheads such as the B61 nuclear bomb have been produced in both tactical and strategic versions. This concept was formalized when Putin took power in Russia in the following year, ten NATO member countries have advanced a confidence-building plan for NATO and Russia that could lead to treaties to reduce the tactical nuclear weapons in Europe
3.
Nuclear weapon
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A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from small amounts of matter. The first test of a bomb released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10 million tons of TNT, a thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons of TNT. A nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate a city by blast, fire. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of destruction, and their use. Nuclear weapons have been used twice in nuclear warfare, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II, the bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel from acute injuries sustained from the explosions. The ethics of the bombings and their role in Japans surrender remain the subject of scholarly, since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for the purposes of testing and demonstration. Only a few nations possess such weapons or are suspected of seeking them, israel is also believed to possess nuclear weapons, though in a policy of deliberate ambiguity, it does not acknowledge having them. Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands are nuclear weapons sharing states, south Africa is the only country to have independently developed and then renounced and dismantled its nuclear weapons. Modernisation of weapons continues to occur, all existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as bombs or atom bombs. This has long noted as something of a misnomer, as their energy comes from the nucleus of the atom. The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former and only the approach can be used if the fissile material is plutonium. A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons of TNT, all fission reactions necessarily generate fission products, the radioactive remains of the atomic nuclei split by the fission reactions. Many fission products are highly radioactive or moderately radioactive. Fission products are the radioactive component of nuclear fallout
4.
Toss bombing
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The purpose of toss bombing is to compensate for the gravity drop of the bomb in flight, and allow an aircraft to bomb a target without flying directly over it. This is in order to avoid overflying a heavily defended target, in pop-up bombing, the pilot approaches from low altitude in level flight, and on cues from the computer pulls up at the last moment to release the bomb. Release usually occurs between 20° and 75° above the horizontal, causing the bomb to be tossed upward and forward, much like an underarm throw of a ball. Additional altitude at release gives the additional time of flight and range, at the cost of accuracy due to windage. This variant is known as dive tossing, the bomb continued upward for some time in a high arc before falling on a target which was a considerable distance from its point of release. In the meantime, the maneuver had allowed the bomber to change direction, timers begin their timing, circuits are alerted for the drop. I do not often fly at 500 knots on the deck, I see that their white paint is flaking. And the pyramid streaks beneath me and my airplane rolls hard to the right and tucks more tightly into her loop and strains ahead even though we are upside down. The Shape has released me more than I have released it, the little white barrels are now six thousand feet directly beneath my canopy. I have no way to tell if it was a drop or not. That was decided back with the charts and graphs and the dividers, I kept the needles centered, the computers did their task automatically, and the Device is on its way. Toss bombing is used by pilots whenever it is not desirable to overfly the target with the aircraft at an altitude sufficient for dive-bombing or level bombing. However, a pass at the target at low altitude will not only expose the aircraft to short-range defenses surrounding the target. By executing a pop-up loft, on the hand, the pilot releases the munition well outside the target area. After release, the pilot can either dive back to low altitude or maintain the climb, the blast produced by powerful munitions is thus avoided. The value of toss-bombing was increased with the introduction of precision-guided munitions such as the laser-guided bomb, previous dumb bombs required a very high degree of pilot and fire control computer precision to loft the bomb accurately to the target. Lofting the bomb allows the pilot to keep the target in front of the aircraft, dive-tossing is generally used at moderate altitude when the target, for whatever reason, cannot be designated precisely by radar. A target for instance may present too small a signature to be visible on radar or may be indistinguishable in a group of radar returns
5.
Fighter-bomber
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A fighter-bomber is a fighter aircraft that has been modified, or used primarily, as a light bomber or attack aircraft. Although still used, the term fighter-bomber has less significance since the introduction of rockets, modern aircraft with similar duties are now typically called multirole combat aircraft or strike fighters. Prior to World War II, general limitations in available engine, engine power grew dramatically during the early period of the war, roughly doubling between 1939 and 1943. It had two Bristol Mercury XV radial engines of 920 hp each, a crew of three, and its payload was just 1,200 lbs of bombs. The Blenheim suffered disastrous losses over France in 1939 when it encountered Messerschmitt Bf 109s, in contrast, the Vought F4U Corsair fighter — which entered service in December 1942 — had in common with its eventual U. S. With less airframe and crew to lift, the Corsairs ordnance load was either four High Velocity Aircraft Rockets or 2,000 lbs of bombs, increased engine power meant that many existing fighter designs could carry useful bomb loads, and adapt to the fighter-bomber role. Notable examples include the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Hawker Typhoon and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, larger twin-engined aircraft were also used in the fighter-bomber role, especially where longer ranges were needed for naval strikes. Examples include the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the Bristol Beaufighter, the Beaufighter MkV had a Boulton-Paul turret with four 0.303 in machine guns mounted aft of the cockpit but only two were built. Bristols Blenheim was even pushed into service as a fighter during the Battle of Britain, equipped with an early Airborne Interception radar set, however, it proved to be an effective night fighter. The first single seat fighters to drop bombs were on the Western Front, when fighter patrols were issued with bombs and ordered to drop them at random if they met no German fighters. The Sopwith Camel, the most successful Allied aircraft of the First World War with 1,294 enemy aircraft downed, was losing its edge by 1918, the Royal Aircraft Factory S. E.5. was used in the same role. The Royal Flying Corps received the first purpose-built fighter-bomber just as the war was ending and it was not called a fighter bomber at the time, but a Trench Fighter as that was what it was designed to attack. The Sopwith Salamander was based on the Sopwith Snipe fighter but had armour plating in the nose to protect the pilot, originally it was intended to have two machine guns jutting through the cockpit floor so as to spray trenches with bullets as it passed low overhead. But this did not work and it was fitted with four Cooper bombs and it was ordered in very large numbers, but most were cancelled after the Armistice. In February and April 1918 the Royal Flying Corps conducted bombing tests at Orfordness, both WW1 fighter bombers were used with novice and experienced pilots. Best results were achieved with a dive into the wind using the Aldis Sight to align the aircraft. But they were not considered enough to justify the expected casualty rate. When war broke out in Europe, Western Allied Air Forces employed light twin-engined bombers in the role for low level attack
6.
BOAR
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Intended to provide a standoff nuclear capability for carrier-based aircraft, the rocket entered operational service in 1956, remaining in service until 1963. Following a specification developed during 1951, the development of the BOAR rocket was started in 1952 at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, located at China Lake, California. The rocket that emerged from the development process used a single, solid-fueled rocket motor mated to the W7 nuclear weapon and this provided a stand-off range of 7. Entering flight trials in 1953, BOAR proved satisfactory, twenty test firings during the course of 1955 were conducted without a single failure, and in 1956 the rocket entered operational service. A variety of aircraft carried BOAR operationally but it was used by the AD Skyraider. BOAR was intended to be a weapon, a more advanced development, Hopi. Hopi, however, failed to enter production, and BOAR remained the only standoff nuclear air-to-surface missile fielded by the Navy,225 examples of the BOAR rocket were produced by NOTS. In service, the rocket proved unpopular with the pilots of the assigned to carry it. By 1963, maintenance issues with the rocket motor were proving acute. Notes Bibliography BOAR at China Lake Museum AIAA, China Lake Test Station
7.
Mark 90 nuclear bomb
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The Mark 90 nuclear bomb, given the nickname Betty, was a cold war nuclear depth charge, developed by the United States in 1952. It had a length of 10 ft 2 in, a diameter of 2 ft 7.5 in, and a weight of 1,243 lb and its purpose was to serve as an anti-submarine weapon for the United States Navy. A test of the Mark 90 was conducted in 1955, as Operation Wigwam, all units were withdrawn from service by 1960. A Mark 90 depth charge casing was lost and never recovered, the ten crew members were rescued by the US Coast Guard, after ten hours in a raft. The press was not notified at the time, official Defense Department film on 1955 underwater test of Mark 90 nuclear depth charge
8.
Depth charge
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A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful. Most depth charges use high explosive charges and a set to detonate the charge. Depth charges can be dropped by ships, patrol aircraft, Depth charges were developed during World War I, and were one of the first effective methods of attacking a submarine underwater. They were widely used in World War I and World War II and they remained part of the anti-submarine arsenals of many navies during the Cold War. Depth charges have now largely replaced by anti-submarine homing torpedoes. A depth charge fitted with a warhead is known as a nuclear depth bomb. These were designed to be dropped from a plane or deployed by an anti-submarine missile from a surface ship, or another submarine. All nuclear anti-submarine weapons were withdrawn from service by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and they were replaced by conventional weapons whose accuracy and range had improved greatly as ASW technology improved. The first attempt to fire charges against submerged targets was with aircraft bombs attached to lanyards which triggered them, a similar idea was a 16 lb guncotton charge in a lanyarded can. Two of these together became known as the depth charge Type A. Problems with the lanyards tangling and failing to function led to the development of a chemical pellet trigger as the Type B and these were effective at a distance of around 20 ft. A1913 Royal Navy Torpedo School report described a device intended for countermining, at Admiral John Jellicoes request, the standard Mark II mine was fitted with a hydrostatic pistol preset for 45 ft firing, to be launched from a stern platform. Weighing 1,150 lb, and effective at 100 ft, the design work was carried out by Herbert Taylor at the RN Torpedo and Mine School, HMS Vernon. The first effective depth charge, the Type D, became available in January 1916 and it was a barrel-like casing containing a high explosive. There were initially two sizes—Type D, with a 300 lb charge for fast ships, and Type D* with a 120 lb charge for ships too slow to leave the area before the more powerful charge detonated. A hydrostatic pistol actuated by water pressure at a pre-selected depth detonated the charge, initial depth settings were 40 or 80 ft. Because production could not keep up with demand, anti-submarine vessels initially carried two depth charges, to be released from a chute at the stern of the ship
9.
MGR-1 Honest John
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The MGR-1 Honest John rocket was the first nuclear-capable surface-to-surface missile in the United States arsenal. Designated Artillery Rocket XM31, the first such rocket was tested 29 June 1951, the designator was changed to M31 in September 1953. The first Army units received their rockets by years end and Honest John battalions were deployed in Europe in early 1954. Developed at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, Honest John was a large but simple fin-stabilized, unguided artillery rocket weighing 2,640 kilograms in its initial M-31 nuclear-armed version. Mounted on the back of a truck, HJ was aimed in much the way as a cannon and then fired up an elevated ramp. The M-31 had a range of 24.8 kilometres with a 20 kiloton nuclear warhead and was capable of carrying a 680 kilograms conventional warhead. Early tests exhibited more scatter on target than was acceptable when HJ was conventionally armed, development of an upgraded Honest John, M-50, was undertaken to improve accuracy and extend range. The size of the fins was reduced to eliminate “weathercocking”. Increased spin was applied to restore the positive stability margin that was lost when fin size was reduced, Honest John was manufactured by the Douglas Airplane Company of Santa Monica, California. The M31 consisted of a truck-mounted, unguided, solid-fueled rocket transported in three separate parts, before launch they were assembled in the field, mounted on an M289 launcher and aimed and fired in about 5 minutes. There was a W31 variant of 20 kt used in the Nike Hercules antiaircraft system exclusively, M-31 had a range between 5.5 and 24.8 km. In the 1960s Sarin nerve gas cluster munitions were also available for Honest John launch, initially the M79 GB cluster warhead, containing 356 M134 bomblets for the M31A1C Honest John. The production model was the M190 GB cluster warhead, containing 356 M139 bomblets when the M31A1C was phased out in favor of the XM50 Honest John, under nominal conditions it had an MAE of 0.9 square kilometers. The Hercules Powder Company X-202 rocket motor was 5.015 metres long, weighed 1,786 kilograms, and had 401.79 kN average thrust. MGR-1B was 7.5827 metres long, had an diameter of 58 centimetres, a warhead diameter of 76 centimetres, a span of 140 centimetres, weighed 1,965 kilograms. An improved propellant formulation gave the rocket motor 670 kN thrust, production of the MGR-1 variants finished in 1965 with a total production run of more than 7,000 rockets. Honest John’s bulbous nose and distinctive truck-mounted launch ramp made it a recognized symbol of the Cold War at Army bases world-wide. Even though HJ was unguided and the first U. S. nuclear ballistic missile, the system was replaced with the MGM-52 Lance missile in 1973, but was deployed with NATO units in Europe until 1985 and National Guard units in the United States as late as 1982
10.
MGM-5 Corporal
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The MGM-5 Corporal missile was a nuclear-armed tactical ground to ground missile. It was the first guided weapon authorized by the United States to carry a nuclear warhead, a guided tactical ballistic missile, the Corporal could deliver either a nuclear fission or high-explosive warhead up to a range of 75 nautical miles. The first U. S. Army Corporal battalion was deployed in Europe in 1955, six U. S. battalions were deployed and remained in the field until 1964, when the system was replaced by the solid-fueled MGM-29 Sergeant missile system. The Corporal was first developed at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico and it came out of the project ORDCIT series of rockets developed by the Army and the forerunner to Caltechs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After being sold to the United Kingdom in 1954, it became the first U. S. guided missile destined for service in a country to be used by a foreign power. For what was the front line of defense, the Corporal missile was notoriously unreliable. For guidance, it employed commands sent through a reworked World War II-era radar system, until 1955, its in-flight accuracy was less than 50%, with only modest improvements thereafter. The first year of British test firings in 1959 yielded a success rate of only 46%, guidance consisted of a complex system of internal and ground guidance. During the initial phase, inertial guidance kept the missile in a vertical position. The ground guidance system was a modified SCR584 pulse tracking radar which measured the missiles azimuth and elevation and this information was sent to an analog computer which calculated the trajectory and any necessary correction to hit the target. A Doppler radar was used to measure the velocity and this information was also used in the trajectory calculation. The Doppler radar was used to send the final range correction. Transponder beacons were used in the missile to provide a return signal, in Germany, frequent unannounced Alerts were performed—necessitating assembling all personnel and moving vehicles and missiles to a pre-assigned assembly point. From there the battalion would move to a launch site—usually somewhere in a remote forest—set up the missile on its launcher and this was not a trivial operation as these electronic systems were all vacuum tubes. A mock firing would be performed and the battalion would be gone as soon as possible in order to not be a target of counter-battery fire. The deployment in the field during an Alert was amazingly swift due to the trained crews. Live-fire training for Germany- based US Forces took place at Fort Bliss, missiles were fired toward designated target coordinates in the Atlantic Ocean. Radar on St Kilda, Scotland scored successful firings, frequently, Soviet fishing trawlers would intrude into the target area
11.
Ballistic missile
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A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a ballistic trajectory with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. A ballistic missile is only guided during relatively brief periods of flight and this contrasts to a cruise missile, which is aerodynamically guided in powered flight. Long range intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched on a flight trajectory. Shorter range ballistic missiles stay within the Earths atmosphere, the earliest use of rockets as a weapon date to the 13th Century. A pioneer ballistic missile was the A-4, commonly known as the V-2 rocket developed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s under the direction of Wernher von Braun. The first successful launch of a V-2 was on October 3,1942, by the end of World War II in May 1945, over 3,000 V-2s had been launched. The R-7 Semyorka was the first intercontinental ballistic missile, a total of 30 nations have deployed operational ballistic missiles. Development continues with around 100 ballistic missile tests in 2007, mostly by China, Iran. In 2010, the U. S. and Russian governments signed a treaty to reduce their inventory of intercontinental ballistic missiles over a period to 1550 units each. Ballistic missiles can be launched from fixed sites or mobile launchers, including vehicles, aircraft, ships, the powered flight portion can last from a few tenths of seconds to several minutes and can consist of multiple rocket stages. When in space and no more thrust is provided, the missile enters free-flight, the re-entry stage begins at an altitude where atmospheric drag plays a significant part in missile trajectory, and lasts until missile impact. The course taken by ballistic missiles has two significant desirable properties, first, ballistic missiles that fly above the atmosphere have a much longer range than would be possible for cruise missiles of the same size. Powered rocket flight through thousands of kilometers of air would require greater amounts of fuel, making the launch vehicles larger and easier to detect. Powered missiles that can cover similar ranges, such as missiles, do not use rocket motors for the majority of their flight. Despite this, cruise missiles have not made ballistic missiles obsolete, due to the major advantage. An ICBM can strike a target within a 10,000 km range in about 30 to 35 minutes, with terminal speeds of over 5,000 m/s, ballistic missiles are much harder to intercept than cruise missiles, due to the much shorter time available to intercept them. This is why ballistic missiles are some of the most feared weapons available, despite the fact that cruise missiles are cheaper, more mobile, Ballistic missiles can vary widely in range and use, and are often divided into categories based on range. A comparable missile would be the decommissioned Chinas JL-1 SLBM with a range of less than 2, tactical, short- and medium-range missiles are often collectively referred to as tactical and theatre ballistic missiles, respectively
12.
Royal Air Force
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The Royal Air Force is the United Kingdoms aerial warfare force. Formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. The RAF describe its mission statement as, an agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission. The mission statement is supported by the RAFs definition of air power, Air power is defined as the ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events. Today the Royal Air Force maintains a fleet of various types of aircraft. The majority of the RAFs rotary-wing aircraft form part of the tri-service Joint Helicopter Command in support of ground forces, most of the RAFs aircraft and personnel are based in the UK, with many others serving on operations or at long-established overseas bases. It was founded on 1 April 1918, with headquarters located in the former Hotel Cecil, during the First World War, by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps, at that time it was the largest air force in the world. The RAFs naval aviation branch, the Fleet Air Arm, was founded in 1924, the RAF developed the doctrine of strategic bombing which led to the construction of long-range bombers and became its main bombing strategy in the Second World War. The RAF underwent rapid expansion prior to and during the Second World War, under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth countries trained and formed Article XV squadrons for service with RAF formations. Many individual personnel from countries, and exiles from occupied Europe. By the end of the war the Royal Canadian Air Force had contributed more than 30 squadrons to serve in RAF formations, additionally, the Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine percent of all RAF personnel who served in the European and Mediterranean theatres. In the Battle of Britain in 1940, the RAF defended the skies over Britain against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe, the largest RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany by Bomber Command. Following victory in the Second World War, the RAF underwent significant re-organisation, during the early stages of the Cold War, one of the first major operations undertaken by the Royal Air Force was in 1948 and the Berlin Airlift, codenamed Operation Plainfire. Before Britain developed its own nuclear weapons the RAF was provided with American nuclear weapons under Project E and these were initially armed with nuclear gravity bombs, later being equipped with the Blue Steel missile. Following the development of the Royal Navys Polaris submarines, the nuclear deterrent passed to the navys submarines on 30 June 1969. With the introduction of Polaris, the RAFs strategic nuclear role was reduced to a tactical one and this tactical role was continued by the V bombers into the 1980s and until 1998 by Tornado GR1s. For much of the Cold War the primary role of the RAF was the defence of Western Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union, with many squadrons based in West Germany. With the decline of the British Empire, global operations were scaled back, despite this, the RAF fought in many battles in the Cold War period
13.
English Electric Canberra
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The English Electric Canberra is a British first-generation jet-powered medium bomber that was manufactured during the 1950s. It was developed by English Electric during the mid-to-late 1940s in response to a 1944 Air Ministry requirement for a successor to the wartime de Havilland Mosquito fast-bomber. Amongst the performance requirements for the type was the demand for a high altitude bombing capability in addition to flying at high speeds. These were partly accomplished by making use of newly developed jet propulsion technology, when the Canberra was introduced to service with the Royal Air Force, the types first operator, in May 1951, it became the services first jet-powered bomber aircraft. Throughout the majority of the 1950s, the Canberra could fly at a higher altitude than any other bomber or even any other aircraft in the world, in 1957, one Canberra established a world altitude record of 70,310 ft. In February 1951, another Canberra set another record when it became the first jet aircraft to make a non-stop transatlantic flight. The type was also produced in Australia and the United States of America. In addition to being a nuclear strike aircraft, the Canberra proved to be highly adaptable, serving in varied roles such as tactical bombing. Canberras served in the Suez Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the Indo-Pakistani wars, in several wars, each of the opposing sides had Canberras in their air forces. The Canberra had a service life, serving for more than 50 years with some operators. In June 2006, the RAF retired the last of its Canberras,57 years after its first flight, three of the Martin B-57 variant remain in service, performing meteorological work for NASA, as well as providing electronic communication testing for deployment to Afghanistan. During the Second World War, a demand for bomber aircraft led to many aircraft being produced by secondary manufacturers via licence manufacturing arrangements. Sir George Nelson, the chairman of English Electric, decided that the company would seek to remain in the business, in November 1943, the company was invited to participate in discussions over a prospective bomber which would take advantage of the newly developed jet propulsion technology. The design used a conventional aerodynamic design, Petter having determined that the necessary performance could be attained without adopting swept wings or a swept tail. The authorities doubted its suitability for operations from unprepared fields and at low altitude but could see its potential as a bomber design, numerous manufacturers refused to take on the design. Petter left Westland to join the English Electric company in December 1944, in 1945, English Electric formalised its own in-house aircraft design team to pursuit this design. The Canberra had its origins in a 1944 requirement issued by the Air Ministry for a successor to the de Havilland Mosquito. This requirement, the initial revision being E. 3/45, sought a high altitude, further specification refinements were issued, including B. 3/45 and B. 5/47, issued further details such as a three-man crew and other features such as a visual bombing capability
14.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
15.
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
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Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe is the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations Allied Command Operations. Since 1967 it has been located at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons, from 1951 to 2003, SHAPE was the headquarters of Allied Command Europe, ACE. Since 2003 it has been the headquarters of Allied Command Operations, SHAPE retained its traditional name with reference to Europe for legal reasons although the geographical scope of its activities was extended in 2003. At that time, NATOs command in Lisbon, historically part of the Atlantic command, was reassigned to ACO, an integrated military structure for NATO was first established after the Korean War raised questions over the strength of Europes defences against a Soviet attack. The first choice for commander in Europe was American General of the Army Dwight D, on December 19,1950, the North Atlantic Council announced the appointment of General Eisenhower as the first SACEUR. British Field Marshal Sir Bernard L, montgomery moved over from the predecessor Western Union Defence Organization to become the first Deputy SACEUR, who would serve until 1958. In establishing the command, the first NATO planners drew extensively on WUDO plans, General Eisenhower arrived in Paris on January 1,1951, and quickly set to work with a small group of planners to devise a structure for the new European command. The Planning Group worked in the Hotel Astoria in central Paris while construction of a permanent facility began at Rocquencourt, just west of the city, devising command arrangements in the Central Region, which contained the bulk of NATO’s forces, proved to be much more complicated. Drawing upon his World War II experience, General Eisenhower decided to retain overall control himself, instead there would be three separate C-in-Cs. In December 1950 it was announced that the forces initially to come under General Eisenhowers command were to be the U. S, on April 2,1951, General Eisenhower signed the activation order for Allied Command Europe and its headquarters at SHAPE. Headquarters, Allied Forces Central Europe was activated in Fontainebleau, France in 1953, on the same day, ACEs subordinate headquarters in Northern and Central Europe were activated, with the Southern Region following in June. By 1954 ACEs forces consisted of Allied Forces Northern Europe, at Oslo, Allied Forces Central Europe, Allied Forces Southern Europe, hodes, United States Army Allied Forces Southern Europe – Admiral R. P. M. Two 1952 central region exercises involved air-ground combined forces, equinox was a major air-ground exercise involving French-American tactical air units and a French airborne infantry unit under the command of Général dArmée Alphonse Juin, French Army. They maneuvered east of the Rhine River in the British Zone under the command of Lt. General Sir Richard Nelson Gale. Finally, Rosebud involved ground maneuvers by the U. S, seventh Army in the American Zone of Occupation of Allied-occupied Germany. The initial plans saw the defence of Western Europe from a Soviet invasion resting heavily on nuclear weapons, the conventional forces would attempt to hold this line while the allied strategic air forces defeated the Soviets and their allies by destroying their economy and infrastructure. What this strategy meant for the battle in the central region was described for publicity purposes in January 1954 by then-Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alfred Gruenther as. An air-ground shield which, although still not strong enough, would force an enemy to concentrate prior to attack, in doing so, the concentrating force would be extremely vulnerable to losses from atomic weapon attacks
16.
Uranium-235
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Uranium-235 is an isotope of uranium making up about 0. 72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i. e. it can sustain a chain reaction. It is the fissile isotope that is a primordial nuclide or found in significant quantity in nature. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years and it was discovered in 1935 by Arthur Jeffrey Dempster. Its nuclear cross section for thermal neutrons is about 584.994 barns. For fast neutrons it is on the order of 1 barn, most but not all neutron absorptions result in fission, a minority result in neutron capture forming uranium-236. This is around 2.5 million times more than the energy released from burning coal, uranium enrichment removes some of the uranium-238 and increases the proportion of uranium-235. Highly enriched uranium, which contains a greater proportion of U-235, is sometimes used in nuclear weapon design. If at least one neutron from U-235 fission strikes another nucleus and causes it to fission, if the reaction will sustain itself, it is said to be critical, and the mass of U-235 required to produce the critical condition is said to be a critical mass. A fission chain reaction produces intermediate mass fragments which are highly radioactive, some of them produce neutrons, called delayed neutrons, which contribute to the fission chain reaction. In nuclear reactors, the reaction is slowed down by the addition of control rods which are made of such as boron, cadmium. In nuclear bombs, the reaction is uncontrolled and the amount of energy released creates a nuclear explosion. The Little Boy gun type atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6,1945 was made of enriched uranium with a large tamper. The nominal spherical critical mass for an untampered 235U nuclear weapon is 56 kilograms, the material must be 85% or more of 235U and is known as weapons grade uranium, though for a crude, inefficient weapon 20% is sufficient. Even lower enrichment can be used, but then the critical mass rapidly increases. Most modern nuclear weapon designs use plutonium as the component of the primary stage. Uranium-235 has many such as fuel for nuclear power plants. DOE Fundamentals handbook, Nuclear Physics and Reactor theory Vol.1, Vol.2
17.
Operation Teapot
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Operation Teapot was a series of fourteen nuclear test explosions conducted at the Nevada Test Site in the first half of 1955. It was preceded by Operation Castle, and followed by Operation Wigwam, 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, the United States test series summary table is here, United States nuclear testing series. An augmented test unit from the United States Marine Corps participated in shot Bee during the March 1955 exercises and it produced a yield of 22kt, but significantly less than the expected amount. Since it was an 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 militarys tests. The Civil Defense Apple-2 shot on 5 May 1955 was intended to test various building types in a nuclear blast. An assortment of buildings, including houses and electrical substations, were constructed at the site nicknamed Survival Town. 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 houses are still standing at 37. 04476°N116. 07416°W /37.04476, -116.07416 and they are stops on the Nevada National Security Site tour. From Declassified documents, dated February to May 1956, The Apple-2 shot, as part of Operation Teapot Project 35
18.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
19.
National Museum of the United States Air Force
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The National Museum of the United States Air Force is the official museum of the United States Air Force located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,6 miles northeast of Dayton, Ohio. The NMUSAF has one of the worlds largest collections with more than 360 aircraft, the museum draws more than 1 million visitors each year, making it one of the most frequently visited tourist attractions in Ohio. The museum dates to 1923, when the Engineering Division at Daytons McCook Field first collected technical artifacts for preservation, in 1927, it moved to then-Wright Field in a laboratory building. In 1932, the collection was named the Army Aeronautical Museum, in 1948, the collection remained private as the Air Force Technical Museum. In 1954, the Air Force Museum became public and was housed in its first permanent facility, Building 89 of the former Patterson Field in Fairborn, many of its aircraft were parked outside and exposed to the weather. It remained there until 1971, when the current facility opened. Not including its annex on Wright Field proper, the museum has more than tripled in square footage since 1971, with the addition of a hangar in 1988, a third in 2003. The museum announced a new name for the facility in October 2004, the former name, United States Air Force Museum, changed to National Museum of the United States Air Force. The museum is a component of the National Aviation Heritage Area. The museums collection contains many rare aircraft of historical or technological importance, in 2010, the museum launched its 360-degree Virtual Tour, allowing most aircraft and exhibits to be viewed online. The museum has several Presidential aircraft, including those used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The centerpiece of the aircraft collection is SAM26000, a modified Boeing 707 known as a VC-137C, used regularly by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson. This aircraft took President and Mrs. Kennedy to Dallas on November 22, vice President Johnson was sworn in as president aboard it shortly after the assassination, and the aircraft then carried Kennedys body back to Washington. It became the presidential aircraft after Nixons first term. It was temporarily removed from display on December 5,2009, all presidential aircraft are now displayed in the Presidential Gallery, in the new fourth building. A large section of the museum is dedicated to pioneers of flight, especially the Wright Brothers, a replica of the Wrights 1909 Military Flyer is on display, as well as other Wright brothers artifacts. The building also hosts the National Aviation Hall of Fame, which includes educational exhibits. The museum has many pieces of U. S. Army Air Forces and U. S. Air Force clothing, at any time, more than 50 World War II-vintage A-2 leather flying jackets are on display, many of which belonged to famous figures in Air Force history
20.
Dayton, Ohio
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Dayton is the sixth-largest city in the U. S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Montgomery County. A small portion of the city extends into Greene County, the Dayton-Springfield-Greenville Combined Statistical Area had a population of 1,080,044 in 2010, making it the 43rd-largest in the United States. Dayton is within Ohios Miami Valley region, just north of the Cincinnati–Northern Kentucky metropolitan area, Dayton also hosts significant research and development in fields like industrial, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering that have led to many technological innovations. Much of this innovation is due in part to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, with the decline of heavy manufacturing, Daytons businesses have diversified into a service economy that includes insurance and legal sectors as well as healthcare and government sectors. Other than defense and aerospace, healthcare accounts for much of the Dayton areas economy, hospitals in the Greater Dayton area have an estimated combined employment of nearly 32,000 and a yearly economic impact of $6.8 billion. It is estimated that Premier Health Partners, a network, contributes more than $2 billion a year to the region through operating, employment. In 2011, Dayton was rated the No.3 city in the out of the top 50 cities in the United States by HealthGrades for excellence in health care. Many hospitals in the Dayton area are consistently ranked by Forbes, U. S. News & World Report, and HealthGrades for clinical excellence. Dayton is also noted for its association with aviation, the city is home to the National Museum of the United States Air Force and is the birthplace of Orville Wright, other well-known individuals born in the city include poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and entrepreneur John H. Patterson. Dayton is also known for its patents, inventions, and inventors that have come from the area. In 2008,2009, and 2010, Site Selection magazine ranked Dayton the No.1 mid-sized metropolitan area in the nation for economic development, also in 2010, Dayton was named one of the best places in the United States for college graduates to find a job. Dayton was founded on April 1,1796, by 12 settlers known as The Thompson Party and they traveled in March from Cincinnati up the Great Miami River by pirogue and landed at what is now St. Clair Street, where they found two small camps of Native Americans. Among them was Benjamin Van Cleve, whose memoirs provide insights into the Ohio Valleys history, two other groups traveling overland arrived several days later. In 1797, Daniel C. Cooper laid out Mad River Road, Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1803, and the city of Dayton was incorporated in 1805. The city was named after Jonathan Dayton, a captain in the American Revolutionary War who signed the U. S, constitution and owned a significant amount of land in the area. Historically, Dayton has been the home for many patents and inventions since the 1870s, according to the National Park Service, citing information from the U. S. Patent Office, Dayton had granted more patents per capita than any other U. S. city in 1890, the Wright brothers, inventors of the airplane, and Charles F. Kettering, world-renowned for his numerous inventions, hailed from Dayton. Paul Laurence Dunbar – a famous African-American poet and novelist – penned his most famous works in the late 19th century, innovation led to business growth in the region
21.
Fuze
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In military munitions, a fuze or fuse is the part of the device that initiates function. In some applications, such as torpedoes, a fuze may be identified by function as the exploder, the relative complexity of even the earliest fuze designs can be seen in cutaway diagrams. A fuze is a device that detonates an explosive material under specified conditions. In addition, a fuze will have safety and arming mechanisms that protect users from premature or accidental detonation, for example, an artillery fuzes battery is activated by the high acceleration of cannon launch, and the fuze must be spinning rapidly before it will function. Complete bore safety can be achieved with mechanical shutters that isolate the detonator from the charge until the shell is fired. A fuze may contain only the electronic or mechanical elements necessary to signal or actuate the detonator, Fuzes for large explosive charges may include an explosive booster. Professional publications about explosives and munitions distinguish the fuse and fuze spelling, the UK Ministry of Defence states, FUSE, Cord or tube for the transmission of flame or explosion usually consisting of cord or rope with gunpowder or high explosive spun into it. FUZE, A device with explosive components designed to initiate a main charge, oliver Hogg states the following about fuze, The word fuze is often spelt fuse by those unaquainted with artillery usage. Fuse, derived from fusus, the past participle of fundo, means to melt, fuze, on the other hand, is the shortened or modern method of spelling fuzee, meaning a tube filled with combustible material. It is a derivation of fusus, a spindle and from the French fusee and it is well to make this point at the outset. Historically, it was spelled with s or z. In the United States and some forces, fuze is used to denote a sophisticated ignition device incorporating mechanical and/or electronic components as opposed to a simple burning fuse. The situation of usage and the characteristics of the munition it is intended to affect the fuze design e. g. its safety. Artillery fuzes may be initiated by a mechanism, impact or detection of proximity to the target. Requirements for a hand grenade fuze are defined by the small size. This necessitates manual arming before throwing as the grenade has insufficient initial acceleration for arming to be driven by setback and these are also referred to as pistols. The main design consideration is that the projectile is large and accelerating vertically downwards, the main design consideration is that the bomb the fuze is intended to actuate is stationary, and the target itself is moving in making contact. Time fuzes detonate after a set period of time by using one or more combinations of mechanical, depending on the technology used, the device may self-destruct some seconds, minutes, hours, days, or even months after being deployed
22.
Air burst
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Air burst artillery has a long history. The shrapnel shell was invented by Henry Shrapnel of the British army in about 1780 to increase the effectiveness of canister shot and it was widely used by the time of the War of 1812 and stayed in use until it was superseded during the First World War. Modern shells, though sometimes called shrapnel shells, actually produce fragments and splinters, when infantry moved into deep trenches, shrapnel shells were rendered useless and high-explosive shells were used to attack field fortifications and troops in the open. The time fuses for the shells could be set to function on contact or in the air, during World War II a proximity fuze was developed, which was controlled by a doppler radar device within the shell that caused it to explode when near the target. During the Vietnam War, air bursting shells were used to effect to defend US Army bases. This tactic was known as Killer Junior when referring to 105 mm or 155 mm shells, another recent development is computer programmable rounds. Weapons using this new technology include the XM29, XM25, XM307, K11 and this mach stem only occurs near ground level, and is similar in shape to the letter Y when viewed from the side. Airbursting also minimizes fallout by keeping the fireball from touching the ground, limiting the amount of debris that is vaporized, in nuclear warfare, air bursts are used against soft targets such as cities in countervalue targeting, or airfields, radar systems and mobile ICBMs in counterforce targeting. List of meteor air bursts Laydown delivery Toss bombing Munition fuzes
23.
TNT equivalent
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TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The ton of TNT is a unit of energy defined by convention to be 4.184 gigajoules. The convention intends to compare the destructiveness of an event with that of conventional explosives, the kiloton is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 terajoules. The megaton is a unit of equal to 4.184 petajoules. The kiloton and megaton of TNT have traditionally used to describe the energy output. The TNT equivalent appears in various nuclear weapon control treaties, and has used to characterize the energy released in such other highly destructive events as an asteroid impact. A gram of TNT releases 2673–6702 J upon explosion, the energy liberated by one gram of TNT was arbitrarily defined as a matter of convention to be 4184 J, which is exactly one kilocalorie. The measured, pure heat output of a gram of TNT is only 2724 J, alternative TNT equivalency can be calculated as a function of when in the detonation the value is measured and which property is being compared. A kiloton of TNT can be visualized as a cube of TNT8.46 metres on a side, the RE factor is the relative mass of TNT to which an explosive is equivalent, the greater the RE, the more powerful the explosive. This enables engineers to determine the proper masses of different explosives when applying blasting formulas developed specifically for TNT. For example, if a timber-cutting formula calls for a charge of 1 kg of TNT, then based on octanitrocubanes RE factor of 2.38, using PETN, engineers would need 1. 0/1.66 kg to obtain the same effects as 1 kg of TNT. With ANFO or ammonium nitrate, they would require 1. 0/0.74 kg or 1. 0/0.42 kg, *, TBX or EBX, in a small, confined space, may have over twice the power of destruction. The total power of aluminized mixtures strictly depends on the condition of explosions, guide for the Use of the International System of Units. National Institute of Standards and Technology, nuclear Weapons FAQ Part 1.3 Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, cooper, Paul W. Explosives Engineering, New York, Wiley-VCH, ISBN 0-471-18636-8 HQ Department of the Army, Field Manual 5-25, Explosives and Demolitions, Washington, D. C. Pentagon Publishing, pp. 83–84, ISBN 0-9759009-5-1 Explosives - Compositions, Alexandria, VA, thermobaric Explosives, Advanced Energetic Materials,2004. THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS, nap. edu, retrieved September 2004
24.
Implosion nuclear weapon
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Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types, in many existing designs, the explosive energy of deployed devices is derived primarily from nuclear fission, not fusion. Pure fission weapons were the first nuclear weapons built and have so far been the type ever used in warfare. Implosion, a mass of either material is surrounded by high explosives that compress the mass. The implosion method can use either uranium or plutonium as fuel, the gun method only uses uranium. Boosted fission weapons improve on the implosion design, the high pressure and temperature environment at the center of an exploding fission weapon compresses and heats a mixture of tritium and deuterium gas. The hydrogen fuses to form helium and free neutrons, boosting can more than double the weapons fission energy release. Staged thermonuclear weapons are essentially a chain of fusion-boosted fission weapons, the secondary stage is imploded by x-ray energy from the first stage, called the primary. This radiation implosion is much more effective than the high-explosive implosion of the primary, consequently, the secondary can be many times more powerful than the primary, without being bigger. The secondary can be designed to maximize fusion energy release, but in most designs fusion is employed only to drive or enhance fission, as it is in the primary. More stages could be added and conceptual designs incorporating up to seven have been produced, pure fusion weapons have not been invented. Such weapons, though, would produce far less radioactive fallout than current designs, pure fission weapons historically have been the first type to be built by a nation state. Most known innovations in nuclear weapon design originated in the United States, although some were developed independently by other states. In early news accounts, pure fission weapons were called atomic bombs or A-bombs, Weapons involving fusion were called hydrogen bombs or H-bombs, also a misnomer since their energy comes mostly from fission. Practitioners favored the terms nuclear and thermonuclear, respectively, the term thermonuclear refers to the high temperatures required to initiate fusion. It omits the equally important factor of radiation pressure, which was considered secret at the time the term became widespread, many nuclear weapon terms similarly obfuscate because of their origin in a classified environment. Nuclear fission separates or splits heavier atoms to form lighter atoms, Nuclear fusion combines together lighter atoms to form heavier atoms. In some ways, fission and fusion are opposite and complementary reactions, to understand how nuclear weapons are designed, it is useful to know the important similarities and differences between fission and fusion
25.
USS Saratoga (CV-60)
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USS Saratoga, was the second of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. Saratoga was the sixth U. S. Navy ship, commissioned in 1956, she spent most of her career in the Mediterranean, but also participated during the Vietnam War, receiving one battle star for her service. One of her last operational duties was to participate in Operation Desert Storm, Saratoga was decommissioned in 1994, and had been stored at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. Multiple unsuccessful attempts were made to preserve her as a museum ship, the Navy is paying ESCO Marine of Brownsville, Texas, one cent to take the ship for dismantling and recycling. On 15 September 2014, ex-Saratoga arrived in Brownsville, Texas and she was ordered as a Large Aircraft Carrier, hull classification symbol CVB-60, and her contract was awarded to the New York Naval Shipyard of Brooklyn, New York on 23 July 1952. She is the second of the four Forrestal-class carriers and she was reclassified as an Attack Aircraft Carrier on 1 October 1952. Her keel was laid down on 16 December 1952 and she was launched on 8 October 1955 sponsored by Mrs. Charles S. Thomas, and commissioned on 14 April 1956 with CAPT Robert Joseph Stroh in command. She was the first carrier in the US Navy to use high-pressure 1,200 psi boilers, for the next several months, Saratoga conducted various engineering, flight, steering, structural, and gunnery tests. On 18 August, she sailed for Guantanamo Bay and her shakedown cruise, on 19 December, she reentered the New York Naval Shipyard and remained there until 28 February 1957. Upon completion of work, she got underway on a refresher training cruise to the Caribbean before entering her home port, Naval Station Mayport in Mayport. On 6 June 1957, President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, for two days, she and eighteen other ships demonstrated air operations, antisubmarine warfare, guided missile operations, and the Navys latest bombing and strafing techniques. Also in 1957, Saratoga conducted Regulus guided missile tests, the carrier departed Mayport on 3 September 1957 for her maiden transatlantic voyage. Saratoga sailed into the Norwegian Sea and participated in Operation Strikeback and she returned briefly to Mayport before entering the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for repairs. On 1 February 1958, Saratoga departed Mayport for the Mediterranean, from this date through 31 December 1967 she was to spend a part of each year in the Mediterranean on a total of eight cruises. The remainder of the time, she operated off the coast of Florida or was in port undergoing restricted availability. On the night of 24–25 May 1960, Saratoga collided with the German freighter Bernd Leonhardt off North Carolina, the freighters bridge and superstructure were damaged by the carriers flight-deck. The results of an investigation were never published, but repairs to the freighter, while deployed with the Sixth Fleet on 23 January 1961, a serious fire broke out in Saratogas number two machinery space which took seven lives. The fire, believed caused by a fuel oil line, was brought under control by the crew, and the ship proceeded to Athens, Greece
26.
Douglas F3D Skyknight
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The Douglas F3D Skyknight was a United States twin-engined, mid-wing jet fighter aircraft manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California. The F3D was designed as a carrier-based all-weather night fighter and saw service with the United States Navy, the mission of the F3D was to search out and destroy enemy aircraft at night. The F3D Skyknight was never produced in numbers but it did achieve many firsts in its role as a night fighter over Korea. The Skyknight played an important role in the development of the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow missile which led to further guided air-to-air missile developments and it also served as an electronic warfare platform in the Vietnam War as a precursor to the EA-6A Intruder and EA-6B Prowler. The aircraft is sometimes unofficially called Skynight, dropping the second k, the unusual, portly profile earned it the nickname Willie the Whale. Some Vietnam War U. S. Marine veterans have referred to the Skyknight as Drut and this may be in reference to its age, unflattering looks or its low-slung air intakes that made it vulnerable to foreign object damage. The F3D was not intended to be a typical sleek and nimble dogfighter, but as a night fighter, packing a powerful radar system. It originated in 1945 with a US Navy requirement for a jet-powered, radar-equipped, carrier-based night fighter, the Douglas team led by Ed Heinemann designed around the bulky air intercept radar systems of the time, with side-by-side seating for the pilot and radar operator. The result was an aircraft with a wide, deep, instead of ejection seats, an escape tunnel was used, similar to the type used in the A-3 Skywarrior. The XF3D-1 beat out Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporations G-75 two-seat, four-engined, Westinghouse J30-powered night fighter design, the US Navys Bureau of Aeronautics also issued a contract to Grumman for two G-75 XF9F-1 experimental aircraft on 11 April 1946 in case the Skyknight ran into problems. Grumman soon realized that the G-75 was a design but had been working on a completely different. The first flight of the XF3D-1 was on 23 March 1948 at Douglas El Segundo facility with test pilot Russell Thaw at the controls, further flight testing followed at El Segundo until October 1948. Three prototypes were taken to Muroc Air Force Base for service trials. These units were powered by two Westinghouse J34-WE-24 turbojets of 3,000 lbf thrust, mounted under the roots of then-standard straight wings of the jet era. A production contract for 28 F3D-1 J34-WE-32 powered production aircraft was issued in June 1948 with the first production aircraft flying on 13 February 1950, the F3D was, however, able to outturn a MiG-15. The fire control system in the F3D-1 was the Westinghouse AN/APQ-35, the complexity of this vacuum tube-based radar system, which was produced before the advent of semiconductor electronics, required intensive maintenance to keep it operating properly. The F3D-1 was followed by the F3D-2, which was first ordered in August 1949, higher-thrust J34-WE-38 engines which increased aircraft performance were installed later. The F3D-2 also incorporated an improved Westinghouse AN/APQ-36 fire control system, a total of 237 F3D-2s were built before production ended on 23 March 1952
27.
Douglas A-1 Skyraider
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The Douglas A-1 Skyraider is an American single-seat attack aircraft that saw service between the late 1940s and early 1980s. The Skyraider had a long and successful career, it became a piston-powered, propeller-driven anachronism in the jet age. In U. S. service, it was replaced by the LTV A-7 Corsair II swept wing subsonic jet in the early 1970s. Designed by Ed Heinemann of the Douglas Aircraft Company, prototypes were ordered on 6 July 1944 as the XBT2D-1, the XBT2D-1 made its first flight on 18 March 1945 and in April 1945, the USN began evaluation of the aircraft at the Naval Air Test Center. In December 1946, after a change to AD-1, delivery of the first production aircraft to a fleet squadron was made to VA-19A. The AD-1 was built at Douglas El Segundo plant in Southern California. S, the low-wing monoplane design started with a Wright R-3350 radial engine, later upgraded several times. Its distinctive feature was large straight wings with seven points apiece. S. Heinemann immediately had his design engineers begin a program for finding weight-saving on the XBT2D-1 design, in the end, Heinemann and his design engineers found over 1,800 lb of weight savings on the original XBT2D-1 design. The Navy AD series was painted in ANA623 Glossy Sea Blue, but during the 1950s following the Korean War. Initially using the gray and white Navy pattern, by 1967 the USAF began to paint its Skyraiders in a camouflaged pattern using two shades of green, and one of tan. Used by the USN over Korea and Vietnam, the A-1 was a close air support aircraft for the USAF and VNAF during the Vietnam War. The A-1 was famous for being able to take hits and keep flying, there was added armor plating around the cockpit area for added pilot protection. The Skyraider went through seven versions, starting with the AD-1, then AD-2 and AD-3 with various minor improvements, the AD-5 was significantly widened, allowing two crew to sit side-by-side, it also came in a four-seat night-attack version, the AD-5N. The AD-6 was an improved AD-4B with improved low-level bombing equipment, in addition to serving during Korea and Vietnam as an attack aircraft, the Skyraider was modified to serve as a carrier-based airborne early warning aircraft, replacing the Grumman TBM-3W Avenger. It fulfilled this function in the USN and Royal Navy, being replaced by the Grumman E-1 Tracer and Fairey Gannet, respectively, Skyraider production ended in 1957 with a total of 3,180 having been built. In 1962, the existing Skyraiders were redesignated A-1D through A-1J and its weapons load and 10-hour flying time far surpassed the jets that were available at the time. On 2 May 1951, Skyraiders made the aerial torpedo attack of the war, hitting the Hwacheon Dam. AD-3N and -4N aircraft carrying bombs and flares flew night-attack sorties, during the Korean War, AD Skyraiders were flown only by the U. S. Navy and U. S. Marine Corps, and were normally painted in dark navy blue
28.
Douglas A-3 Skywarrior
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The Douglas A-3 Skywarrior was designed as a strategic bomber for the United States Navy and was among the longest serving carrier-based aircraft in history. It entered service in the mid-1950s and was retired in 1991, throughout its service, it was the heaviest operational aircraft to operate from aircraft carriers, earning its nickname, The Whale. Its primary function for much of its service life was as an electronic warfare platform, tactical air reconnaissance platform. The Skywarrior is one of only two U. S. Navy attack aircraft intended as a bomber to enter full-scale service. S. Navys strategic nuclear deterrence mission to the Fleet Ballistic Missile submarine force, a modified derivative, the B-66 Destroyer, served in the U. S. Air Force until the early 1970s as a tactical bomber, electronic warfare aircraft, and reconnaissance platform. Early in World War II, the U. S. Navy began to explore the concept of an aircraft operating from aircraft carriers. In January 1948, the Chief of Naval Operations issued a requirement to develop a long-range, the aircraft was planned to operate from the proposed United States-class supercarriers, much larger than existing carriers, and the specification set a target loaded weight of 100,000 lb. The contract that the U. S. Navy awarded to the Douglas Aircraft Company on 29 September 1949 led to the development, the prototype XA3D-1 first flew on 28 October 1952. Considerable development problems, largely with the engines, delayed the introduction of the Skywarrior until spring 1956. Because of its size, and less-than-slender profile, it was nicknamed The Whale. The Skywarrior had a 36° degree swept wing and two Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet engines, early prototypes had used the intended Westinghouse J40, a powerplant that proved to be disastrous and subsequently canceled. The turbojets could be supplemented by a provision for twelve 4,500 lbf thrust JATO bottles, the aircraft had a largely conventional semi-monocoque fuselage, with the engines in underwing nacelles. Flight controls were hydraulic, and for storage below deck, the A-3s wings folded outboard of the engines, lying almost flat, capacious internal fuel tanks provided long range. The early A-3 variants had a crew of three, pilot, bombardier/navigator and crewman/navigator, an unusual cockpit configuration was incorporated with the three crew sitting under a framed canopy. In the raised compartment, the pilot and bombardier/navigator sat in an arrangement with the pilots station on the port side having full flight controls. The third crewman station had the sextant for navigation and the defensive electronic counter measures equipment. Efforts to reduce weight had led to the deletion of ejection seats during the process for the Skywarrior. A similar arrangement with a tunnel had been used on the F3D Skyknight
29.
Douglas A-4 Skyhawk
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The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a single seat subsonic carrier-capable attack aircraft developed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps in the early 1950s. The delta winged, single turbojet engined Skyhawk was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company and it was originally designated A4D under the U. S. Navys pre-1962 designation system. The Skyhawk is a lightweight aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of 24,500 pounds and has a top speed of more than 670 miles per hour. The aircrafts five hardpoints support a variety of missiles, bombs, the A-4 was originally powered by the Wright J65 turbojet engine, from the A-4E onwards, the Pratt & Whitney J52 was used. Skyhawks played key roles in the Vietnam War, the Yom Kippur War, the Skyhawk was designed by Douglas Aircrafts Ed Heinemann in response to a U. S. Navy call for a jet-powered attack aircraft to replace the older Douglas AD Skyraider. Heinemann opted for a design that would minimize its size, weight, the result was an aircraft that weighed only half of the Navys weight specification. It had a wing so compact that it did not need to be folded for carrier stowage, the diminutive Skyhawk soon received the nicknames Scooter, Kiddiecar, Bantam Bomber, Tinker Toy Bomber, and, on account of its nimble performance, Heinemanns Hot-Rod. The tail is of cruciform design, with the horizontal stabilizer mounted above the fuselage, the choice of a delta wing combined speed and maneuverability with a large fuel capacity and small overall size, thus not requiring folding wings, albeit at the expense of cruising efficiency. The leading edge slats were designed to drop automatically at the speed by gravity and air pressure, saving weight and space by omitting actuation motors. The wing structure itself could be lighter with the overall strength. The turbojet engine was accessed for service or replacement by removing the aft section of the fuselage and this obviated the need for access doors with their hinges and latches, further reducing aircraft weight and complexity. The A-4 pioneered the concept of buddy air-to-air refueling and this allows the aircraft to supply others of the same type, eliminating the need for dedicated tanker aircraft—a particular advantage for small air arms or when operating in remote locations. A designated supply A-4 would mount a center-mounted buddy store, an external fuel tank with a hose reel in the aft section. This aircraft was fueled up without armament and launched first, Attack aircraft would be armed to the maximum and given as much fuel as was allowable by maximum takeoff weight limits, far less than a full tank. Once airborne, they would proceed to top off their fuel tanks from the tanker using the A-4s fixed refueling probe on the starboard side of the aircraft nose. They could then sortie with both full armament and fuel loads, while the capability of the A-4 was rarely used in U. S. service after the KA-3 Skywarrior became available as a tanker from the larger deck carriers. The versatility of the capability and the retirement of the Skywarrior meant that the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet now includes this capability. The A-4 was also designed to be able to make a landing, in the event of a hydraulic failure
30.
Martin B-57 Canberra
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The Martin B-57 Canberra is an American-built, twinjet tactical bomber and reconnaissance aircraft that entered service with the United States Air Force in 1953. The B-57 is a version of the British English Electric Canberra manufactured by the Glenn L. Martin Company. The B-57 Canberra holds the distinction of being the first jet bomber in U. S. service to drop bombs during combat. The B-57 Canberra was also sold to customers abroad, further combat use was seen by the Pakistani Air Force during the Second Kashmir War. At the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the USAF found itself in dire need of an all-weather interdiction aircraft, in response to these needs, the USAF requested the British government to provide a private demonstration of the English Electric Canberra, a newly developed jet-powered bomber. On 16 September 1950, the USAF formally issued a request for a bomber, the sought aircraft had to possess a top speed of 630 mph, ceiling of 40,000 feet. Full all-weather capability and a reconnaissance role also had to be included in the design. The American contenders included the Martin XB-51, the North American B-45 Tornado, to expedite the process, only projects based on existing aircraft were considered and, unusually, the service considered foreign aircraft. These included the Canadian Avro Canada CF-100 and the British English Electric Canberra, as part of the USAF evaluations process, all five aircraft were submitted to a series of fly-offs to determine their performance. On 21 February 1951, a British Canberra B, according to Gunston and Gilchrist, the Canberra proved to be significantly superior to any of the competing aircraft, and that its selection was beyond doubt by the end of the competition. Martin Company, under which it was proposed that Martin would receive a license to build the Canberra in the United States. According to Gunston and Gilchrist, the Americanization of the Canberra program proved effective at dismissing many of the opponents that had opposed the project. On 23 March 1951, the USAF issued a contract to Martin, requesting the manufacturing of a quantity of 250 Canberras. On 3 April 1951, English Electric and Martin both signed a licensing agreement to cover the Canberras production. The crash did lead to design changes in the face of political pressure. As such, more than 30 changes that had been requested by the Wright Air Development Center were rejected on program schedule or cost grounds, in early July 1953, the first US-built production aircraft rolled out, it conducted its maiden flight on 20 July 1953. One month later, this initial production aircraft was accepted by the USAF, in place of the curtailed B-57A, a more refined bomber variant, the B-57B, was developed. The B-57B introduced several major changes.50 cal Browning machine guns installed within the wings
31.
McDonnell F2H Banshee
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The McDonnell F2H Banshee was a single-seat carrier-based jet fighter aircraft deployed by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps from 1948 to 1961. It was one of the primary American fighters used during the Korean War and was the only jet-powered fighter ever deployed by the Royal Canadian Navy, the aircrafts name is derived from the banshee of Irish mythology. The Banshee was a development of the FH Phantom, although it was being planned before the Phantom went into production, the more powerful engines also used more fuel, so the fuselage was enlarged and strengthened to increase fuel capacity. Navy leaders decided to move away from the World War II standard, the Banshee was designed to accommodate an ejection seat, a capability the Phantom lacked, and it incorporated a large number of improvements to other aircraft systems. The cockpit was pressurized and air-conditioned, and the flaps, landing gear, folding wings, canopy. The front of the canopy was made of glass that was electrically heated to prevent frost. The aircraft incorporated a novel feature, a “kneeling” nose landing gear consisting of a pair of very small wheels forward of the regular nosewheel. The nosewheel could be retracted so the aircraft rested on the smaller wheels, the feature was found to be of little use operationally, however, and was omitted from later Banshee variants. A mockup of the new fighter, originally designated XF2D-1, was completed in April 1945, the project survived the end of the war, but development work was slowed and the first of three prototypes was not built until late 1946. The aircraft made its flight on the 11 January 1947 from Lambert Field, St. Louis. During the first test flight, the aircraft demonstrated a rate of 9,000 ft/min, twice the climb rate of the F8F Bearcat. The Navy redesignated the aircraft as the XF2H-1 in 1947 after it ordered a different jet fighter from Douglas, an order for 56 aircraft was placed in May 1947. Similarities to the FH-1 meant that McDonnell was able to complete the first F2H-1 in August 1948, relative to the XF2D-1, the fuselage was extended about 12 inches forward of the wing and fuel capacity was increased by 29 gallons to 877 gallons. The empennage was redesigned, reducing the size of the vertical tailplane fairing and eliminating dihedral from the horizontal stabilizers. The wing- and tail-thickness ratio was reduced to increase the critical Mach number. The F2H-1 was retrofitted with 3,150 lbf thrust engines as they became available, although the Navy accepted the F2H-1, it was the more capable F2H-2 that was most widely used. With newer Westinghouse J34-WE-343,250 lbf thrust engines, it had improved performance. The wing was modified and strengthened to add provisions for 200 gal wingtip fuel tanks, unlike the contemporary USN F9F Panther, the “kneeling” nose gear was omitted from the F2H-2 and most other subsequent Banshee variants
32.
McDonnell F3H Demon
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The McDonnell F3H Demon was a subsonic swept-wing United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter aircraft. The successor to the F2H Banshee, the Demon was redesigned with the J71 engine after severe problems with the Westinghouse J40 engine that was part of the original design but ultimately abandoned. It was withdrawn before it could serve in Vietnam when both it and the Crusader were replaced on Forrestal-class and similar supercarriers by the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. McDonnells Phantom, which was capable against ground, fighter and bomber targets, bears a strong family resemblance. The supersonic United States Air Force F-101 Voodoo was similar in layout, but was derived from the earlier XF-88 Voodoo, development work began in 1949, using a swept wing from the start rather than adapting a straight-winged design as was done with the Grumman F9F Panther. A competing contract was awarded for the delta wing Douglas F4D Skyray. The Skyray, with a top speed of 722 mph, would become the Navys first fighter to fly supersonic in level flight, while the Demon would never reach that level of performance. Departing from its tradition of using two engines, the Demon would be McDonnells only single-engined carrier-based fighter, adopting under some Navy pressure, the Westinghouse J40 engine. That engine was being promoted by the Navy for its generation of aircraft. It was the first swept-wing design produced by McDonnell and among the first U. S. aircraft to have missile armament, the Navy desperately needed a high performance fighter to meet the challenge of the swept-wing MiG-15 encountered over Korea. Production of the F3H-1N was hastily ordered even before the first flight of the XF3H-1 prototype on 7 August 1951 by test pilot Robert Edholm, the first test flights of the operational design did not occur until January 1953, when the Korean War was winding down. The F3H Demon was originally designed around Navys ambitious new Westinghouse J40 which was to offer enough power to use just one engine in a number of new aircraft designs, but the engine would ultimately fail to produce the promised thrust or run reliably. The engine was a disappointment, producing only half of the expected power. Worse, it was temperamental and unreliable, of 35 F3H-1N aircraft flown with the J40 engine, eight were involved in major accidents. The first production Demons were grounded after the loss of six aircraft, time magazine called the Navys grounding of all Westinghouse-powered F3H-1 Demons a fiasco, with 21 unflyable planes that could be used only for Navy ground training at a loss of $200 million. One high point of the J40 was the 1955 setting of an unofficial record, in a Demon. The proposed F3H-1P reconnaissance version was never built, the J40 program was terminated sometime in 1955. All the aircraft it was to power were either canceled or redesigned to use other engines, notably the J57, the F4D Skyray had been designed to accept larger engines in case the J40 did not work out, and was eventually powered by the Pratt & Whitney J57
33.
McDonnell F-101 Voodoo
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The McDonnell F-101 Voodoo was a supersonic jet fighter which served the United States Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force. An F-101A set a number of speed records for jet powered aircraft, including fastest airspeed. They operated in the role until 1979. Delays in the 1954 interceptor project led to demands for an interceptor aircraft design. The F-101B entered service with Air Defense Command in 1959 and the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1961, US examples were handed off to the Air National Guard where they served until 1982. Canadian examples remained in service until 1984, the Voodoos career as a fighter-bomber was relatively brief, but the reconnaissance versions served for some time. Interceptor versions served with the Air National Guard until 1982, initial design on what would eventually become the Voodoo began just after World War II in response to a USAAF Penetration Fighter Competition in 1946. Several companies responded with designs, and the Air Force provided funds for several of them to produce prototypes, after being awarded a contract on 14 February 1947, McDonnell built two prototypes, designated the XF-88 Voodoo. The first prototype, powered by two 3,000 lbf Westinghouse XJ34-WE-13 turbojets, flew from Muroc on 20 October 1948, preliminary testing revealed that while handling and range was adequate, the top speed was a disappointing 641 mph at sea level. Fuel consumption was increased by use of the afterburners, however. Analysis of Korean war missions, however, revealed that contemporary USAF strategic bombers were vulnerable to fighter interception, in 1951, the USAF issued a new requirement for a bomber escort with all major US manufacturers submitting designs. The McDonnell design was a larger and higher powered version of the XF-88, the F-88 was redesignated the F-101 Voodoo in November 1951. The new design was larger, carrying three times the initial fuel load and designed around larger, more powerful Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojets. The greater dimensions of the J57 engines required modifications to the engine bays, the new intake also was designed to be more efficient at higher Mach numbers. In late 1952, the mission of the F-101 was changed from fighter to strategic fighter. The new Voodoo mock-up with the inlets, tail surfaces, landing gear. F-101A serial number 53-2418 was the first production aircraft, its flight was on 29 September 1954 at Edwards AFB where it reached Mach 0. It was previously on display at the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum, the end of the war in Korea and the development of the jet-powered Boeing B-52 Stratofortress negated the need for fighter escort and Strategic Air Command withdrew from the program
34.
North American B-45 Tornado
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The North American B-45 Tornado was the United States Air Forces first operational jet bomber, and the first multijet engined bomber in the world to be refueled in midair. The B-45 was an important part of the United Statess nuclear deterrent for several years in the early 1950s, B-45s and RB-45s served in the United States Air Forces Strategic Air Command from 1950 until 1959. The B-45 began development in 1944, when the U. S, War Department, alarmed by German jet bombers like the Arado Ar 234, called for a new family of jet bombers grossing between 80,000 lb and 200,000 lb. The proposal from North American Aviation won, and on September 8,1944, the end of World War II resulted in the cancellation of many projects and delayed many others. In 1946, rising tensions with the Soviet Union caused the U. S. Army Air Forces to assign priorities to jet bomber development. By mid-1946, the XB-45 and Convair XB-46 neared completion, but the Boeing XB-47, the USAAF chose to evaluate the first two designs to determine which would be superior operationally. The B-45 proved a superior design, and on January 2,1947, Air Staff began to question its value. Soon afterwards, President Trumans budget restraints reduced Air Force expenditure, further budget cuts in 1950 forced the Aircraft and Weapons Board to cancel 51 of the 190 aircraft on order. The cancellation of the 51 was announced 7 January 1949, the B-45 was later replaced by the supersonic Convair B-58 Hustler. The B-45, like most post-World War II American bombers, could carry both nuclear and conventional bombs, suddenly, the small fleet of B-45s had great value again as a nuclear deterrent. Operation Fandango, sometimes called Operation Backbreaker, entailed modifications to the aircraft for nuclear missions, in addition, the 40 B-45s allocated to the program were equipped with a new defensive system and additional fuel tankage. The RB-45s provided valuable intelligence throughout the remainder of the Korean War, RB-45Cs flew many daylight missions until early 1952, when they were switched to night operations after an RB-45 was almost lost to a MiG-15. All 33 RB-45Cs built were assigned to the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wings 322nd, 323rd, the RB-45C also flew several long-range reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union during the mid-1950s. On July 29,1952, an RB-45C made the first non-stop trans-Pacific flight, maj. Lou Carrington and his crew of the 91st Reconnaissance Wing flew from Alaska to Japan in 9 hrs 50 mins, winning the MacKay Trophy for their achievement. Within the 91st SRW, by 1954 the RB-45C had been replaced by the RB-47E, the phased-out RB-45Cs then went to the 19th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, which operated them until they were withdrawn from operational use in the spring of 1958. By the end of the 1950s, all B-45s had been removed from active service, however, a few continued to act as test aircraft into the early 1970s. The only other nation to use the RB-45C was the United Kingdom, whilst the USAF was prohibited by the President of the United States from overflying the Soviet Union unless under a state of war, US allies closer to the European theatre of war could. Stripped of all USAF markings and then applied with RAF markings, the aircraft were tasked with flying deep-level reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union to gather electronic and photographic intelligence
35.
North American F-100 Super Sabre
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The North American F-100 Super Sabre was an American supersonic jet fighter aircraft that served with the United States Air Force from 1954 to 1971 and with the Air National Guard until 1979. The first of the Century Series of USAF jet fighters, it was the first USAF fighter capable of speed in level flight. The F-100 was designed by North American Aviation as a higher performance follow-on to the F-86 Sabre air superiority fighter, adapted as a fighter bomber, the F-100 was supplanted by the Mach two class F-105 Thunderchief for strike missions over North Vietnam. The F-100 flew extensively over South Vietnam as the air forces primary close air support jet until being replaced by the more efficient subsonic LTV A-7 Corsair II, the F-100 also served in other NATO air forces and with other U. S. allies. In its later life, it was referred to as the Hun. In January 1951, North American Aviation delivered an unsolicited proposal for a day fighter to the United States Air Force. Named Sabre 45 because of its 45° wing sweep, it represented an evolution of the F-86 Sabre, the mockup was inspected on 7 July 1951, and after over a hundred modifications, the new aircraft was accepted as the F-100 on 30 November 1951. Extensive use of titanium throughout the aircraft was notable, on 3 January 1952, the USAF ordered two prototypes followed by 23 F-100As in February and an additional 250 F-100As in August. The YF-100A first flew on 25 May 1953, seven ahead of schedule. It reached Mach 1.04 in spite of being fitted with a de-rated XJ57-P-7 engine, the second prototype flew on 14 October 1953, followed by the first production F-100A on 9 October 1953. These findings were confirmed during Project Hot Rod operational suitability tests. Particularly troubling was the yaw instability in certain regimes of flight which produced inertia coupling, the aircraft could develop a sudden yaw and roll which would happen too fast for the pilot to correct and would quickly over-stress the aircraft structure to disintegration. It was under conditions that North Americans chief test pilot. Another control problem stemmed from handling characteristics of the wing at high angles of attack. As the aircraft approached stall speeds, loss of lift on the tips of the caused an violent pitch-up. This particular phenomenon became known as the Sabre dance, nevertheless, delays in the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak program pushed the Tactical Air Command to order the raw F-100A into service. Tactical Air Command also requested that future F-100s be fighter-bombers, with the capability of delivering nuclear bombs, the North American F-107 was a follow-on Mach 2 development of the F-100 with the air intake moved above and behind the cockpit. It was not produced in quantity in favor of the Republic F-105 Thunderchief, the F-100A officially entered USAF service on 27 September 1954, with the 479th Fighter Wing at George AFB, California
36.
Republic F-84 Thunderjet
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The Republic F-84 Thunderjet was an American turbojet fighter-bomber aircraft. Originating as a 1944 United States Army Air Forces proposal for a day fighter, the aircraft was not considered fully operational until the 1949 F-84D model and the design matured only with the definitive F-84G introduced in 1951. In 1954, the straight-wing Thunderjet was joined by the swept-wing F-84F Thunderstreak fighter, the Thunderjet became the USAFs primary strike aircraft during the Korean War, flying 86,408 sorties and destroying 60% of all ground targets in the war as well as eight Soviet-built MiG fighters. Over half of the 7,524 F-84s produced served with NATO nations, the USAF Strategic Air Command had F-84 Thunderjets in service from 1948 through 1957. The F-84 was the first production aircraft to utilize inflight refueling and the first fighter capable of carrying a nuclear weapon. The F-84 nomenclature can be somewhat confusing, the straight-wing F-84A to F-84E and F-84G models were called the Thunderjet. The F-84F Thunderstreak and RF-84F Thunderflash were different airplanes with swept wings, the XF-84H Thunderscreech was an experimental turboprop version of the F-84F. The F-84F swept wing version was intended to be a variation of the normal Thunderjet with only a few different parts. Production delays on the F-84F resulted in order of the straight-wing version. In 1944, Republic Aviations chief designer, Alexander Kartveli, began working on a replacement for the P-47 Thunderbolt piston-engined fighter. The initial attempts to redesign the P-47 to accommodate a jet engine proved futile due to the large cross-section of the centrifugal compressor turbojets. Instead, Kartveli and his team designed a new aircraft with a streamlined fuselage largely occupied by an axial compressor turbojet engine, in addition, the new aircraft had to use the General Electric TG-180 axial turbojet which entered production as the Allison J35. On 11 November 1944, Republic received an order for three prototypes of the new XP-84—Model AP-23, the name Thunderjet was chosen to continue the Republic Aviation tradition started with the P-47 Thunderbolt while emphasizing the new method of propulsion. On 4 January 1945, even before the aircraft took to the air, meanwhile, wind tunnel testing by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics revealed longitudinal instability and stabilizer skin buckling at high speeds. The weight of the aircraft, a concern given the low thrust of early turbojets, was growing so quickly that the USAAF had to set a gross weight limit of 13,400 lb. The results of preliminary testing were incorporated into the third prototype, designated XP-84A. The first prototype XP-84 was transferred to Muroc Army Air Field where it flew for the first time on 28 February 1946 with Major Wallace A and it was joined by the second prototype in August, both aircraft flying with J35-GE-7 engines producing 3,745 lbf. In particular, the impact of wingtip tanks on aircraft handling was not thoroughly studied, after the creation of the United States Air Force by the National Security Act of 1947, the Pursuit designation was replaced with Fighter, and the P-84 became the F-84
37.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
38.
Nuclear weapon design
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Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types, in many existing designs, the explosive energy of deployed devices is derived primarily from nuclear fission, not fusion. Pure fission weapons were the first nuclear weapons built and have so far been the type ever used in warfare. Implosion, a mass of either material is surrounded by high explosives that compress the mass. The implosion method can use either uranium or plutonium as fuel, the gun method only uses uranium. Boosted fission weapons improve on the implosion design, the high pressure and temperature environment at the center of an exploding fission weapon compresses and heats a mixture of tritium and deuterium gas. The hydrogen fuses to form helium and free neutrons, boosting can more than double the weapons fission energy release. Staged thermonuclear weapons are essentially a chain of fusion-boosted fission weapons, the secondary stage is imploded by x-ray energy from the first stage, called the primary. This radiation implosion is much more effective than the high-explosive implosion of the primary, consequently, the secondary can be many times more powerful than the primary, without being bigger. The secondary can be designed to maximize fusion energy release, but in most designs fusion is employed only to drive or enhance fission, as it is in the primary. More stages could be added and conceptual designs incorporating up to seven have been produced, pure fusion weapons have not been invented. Such weapons, though, would produce far less radioactive fallout than current designs, pure fission weapons historically have been the first type to be built by a nation state. Most known innovations in nuclear weapon design originated in the United States, although some were developed independently by other states. In early news accounts, pure fission weapons were called atomic bombs or A-bombs, Weapons involving fusion were called hydrogen bombs or H-bombs, also a misnomer since their energy comes mostly from fission. Practitioners favored the terms nuclear and thermonuclear, respectively, the term thermonuclear refers to the high temperatures required to initiate fusion. It omits the equally important factor of radiation pressure, which was considered secret at the time the term became widespread, many nuclear weapon terms similarly obfuscate because of their origin in a classified environment. Nuclear fission separates or splits heavier atoms to form lighter atoms, Nuclear fusion combines together lighter atoms to form heavier atoms. In some ways, fission and fusion are opposite and complementary reactions, to understand how nuclear weapons are designed, it is useful to know the important similarities and differences between fission and fusion
39.
Permissive Action Link
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A Permissive Action Link is a security device for nuclear weapons. Its purpose is to prevent unauthorized arming or detonation of the nuclear weapon and it may include equipment and cabling external to the weapon or weapon system to activate components within the weapon or weapon system. Permissive Action Links were developed in the United States over a gradual process from the first use of weapons to the early 1960s. Certain national laboratories, under the auspices of the AEC, would develop and produce weapons, while the responsibility for the use. The laboratories were also free to conduct their own research in the field of arms control, the thinking behind this was that if the government would ever be interested in such a security device, the research and development of prototypes would already be well advanced. At the beginning of the 1960s, the desire for the usage of such a system grew for both political and technological reasons, newer nuclear weapons were simpler in their operation and were produced en masse and were less cumbersome to arm and use than previous designs. Accordingly, new controls were necessary to prevent their unauthorized use, without Permissive Action Links, nuclear weapons were effectively under the independent command of a number of generals. I used to worry about General Power, I used to worry that General Power was not stable. I used to worry about the fact that he had control over so many weapons and weapon systems and could, under certain conditions, launch the force. Back in the days before we had real control, SAC had the power to do a lot of things, and it was in his hands. In order to protect its NATO allies, the United States had stationed various nuclear weapons overseas and this was especially concerning to Congress, as this lack of control was in violation of federal law. Added to this was the fact some of the allies were considered potentially unstable—particularly West Germany. There was considerable concern that in one of countries the instructions of the civilian leadership of the host country could overrule the military. In addition, the U. S. realized that in the event of war, parts of West Germany would be overwhelmed early on, for a long time the U. S. military resisted the use of PALs. It feared the loss of independence and feared malfunction, which could put out of action in a time of crisis. S. The precursors of Permissive Action Links were simple mechanical combination locks that were set into the systems of nuclear weapons. For testing, some of mechanisms were installed during 1959 in weapons stationed in Europe. The work on PAL prototypes remained at low levels until 1960, Sandia National Laboratories successfully created a number of new combination locks that were adaptable to different types of weapons
40.
Little Boy
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It was the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare. The Hiroshima bombing was the second artificial nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity test, and it exploded with an energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT. The bomb caused significant destruction to the city of Hiroshima, Little Boy was developed by Lieutenant Commander Francis Birchs group of Captain William S. Parsonss Ordnance Division at the Manhattan Projects Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. Parsons flew on the Hiroshima mission as weaponeer, the Little Boy was a development of the unsuccessful Thin Man nuclear bomb. Like Thin Man, it was a fission weapon. This was accomplished by shooting a hollow cylinder of enriched uranium onto a cylinder of the same material by means of a charge of nitrocellulose propellant powder. It contained 64 kg of enriched uranium, of less than a kilogram underwent nuclear fission. Its components were fabricated at three different plants so that no one would have a copy of the complete design, the Navy Bureau of Ordnance built another 25 Little Boy assemblies in 1947 for use by the Lockheed P2V Neptune nuclear strike aircraft. All the Little Boy units were withdrawn from service by the end of January 1951, according to Serber, he chose them based on their design shapes. The Thin Man was a device, and its name came from the Dashiell Hammett detective novel. The Fat Man was round and fat, and was named after Sydney Greenstreets Kasper Gutman character in The Maltese Falcon, Little Boy came last, and was named after Elisha Cook, Jr. s character in the same film, as referred to by Humphrey Bogart. Because uranium-235 was known to be fissionable, it was the first approach to bomb development pursued, as the first design developed, it is sometimes known as the Mark I. The vast majority of the came in the form of the isotope enrichment of the uranium necessary for the weapon. Enrichment was performed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the separation plant, known as Y-12. The first shipments of enriched uranium were sent to the Los Alamos Laboratory in June 1944. At least part of the 1,200 long tons of uranium ore, Little Boy was a simplification of Thin Man, the previous gun-type fission weapon design. Thin Man,17 feet long, was designed to use plutonium, in July 1944, almost all research at Los Alamos was redirected to the implosion-type plutonium weapon. Overall responsibility for the uranium gun-type weapon was assigned to Captain William S. Parsonss Ordnance Division, all the design, development, and technical work at Los Alamos was consolidated under Lieutenant Commander Francis Birchs group
41.
Thin Man (nuclear bomb)
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Thin Man was the codename for a proposed plutonium gun-type nuclear bomb using plutonium-239 which the United States was developing during the Manhattan Project. A gun-type design was chosen, in which two sub-critical masses would be together by firing a bullet into a target. The idea of a nuclear weapon was suggested by Richard Tolman. It was decided that the gun would receive the bulk of the research effort. It was assumed that the uranium gun-type bomb could be easily adapted from it. The gun-type and implosion-type designs were codenamed Thin Man and Fat Man projects respectively and these code names were created by Robert Serber, a former student of Oppenheimers who worked on the Manhattan Project. He chose them based on their shapes, the Thin Man would be a very long device. The Fat Man bomb would be round and fat and was named after Sydney Greenstreets character in The Maltese Falcon, little Boy would come last and be named only to contrast to the Thin Man bomb. Critchfield had been working with sabots, which Oppenheimer believed would be required by the Thin Man to achieve the high velocities that critical assembly would require. Hirschfelder had been working on internal ballistics and these four created and tested all the elements of the Thin Man design between April 1943 and August 1944. Parsons, who had developed the proximity fuze for the Navy, ran the division, and handled liaison with other agencies. As the head of the E-6 Projectile, Target, and Source Group, Critchfield calculated critical masses, while full-scale Thin Man tubes took months to produce, these were readily and easily obtained. It was not possible to conduct tests with plutonium, as it was not yet available, indeed, the actual physical characteristics of the metal were little more than educated guesses at this time. Hirschfelder headed the E-8 Interior Ballistics Group and his group performed mathematical calculations, but he also had to identify a suitable powder, igniter, and primer. His group conducted full-scale tests with their selections, fixing the physical size of the bomb proved important when it came to selecting a suitable aircraft to carry it. Although the weapons designers thought that bringing a critical mass together would be sufficient. Oppenheimer requested that it also be manufactured in the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee or, when they became available, the Thin Man design was an early nuclear weapon design proposed before plutonium had been successfully bred in a nuclear reactor from the irradiation of uranium-238. It was assumed that plutonium, like uranium-235, could be assembled into a mass by a gun-type method
42.
Fat Man
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Fat Man was the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the first being Little Boy, and its detonation marked the third-ever man-made nuclear explosion in history. It was built by scientists and engineers at Los Alamos Laboratory using plutonium from the Hanford Site, for the Fat Man mission, Bockscar was piloted by Major Charles W. Sweeney. The name Fat Man refers generically to the design of the bomb, because it had a wide. It was also known as the Mark III, Fat Man was an implosion-type nuclear weapon with a solid plutonium core. The first of type to be detonated was the Gadget, in the Trinity nuclear test, less than a month earlier on 16 July at the Alamogordo Bombing. Two more Fat Man bombs were detonated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, some 120 Fat Man units were produced between 1947 and 1949, when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb. The Fat Man was retired in 1950, a gun-type design was chosen, in which two sub-critical masses would be brought together by firing a bullet into a target. Tolman suggested an implosion-type nuclear weapon, but the idea attracted scant consideration, the feasibility of a plutonium bomb was questioned in 1942. Conant consulted Ernest Lawrence and Arthur Compton, who acknowledged that their scientists at Berkeley and Chicago respectively knew about the problem, the committee concluded that any problems could be overcome simply by requiring higher purity. Nonetheless, it was decided that the gun would receive the bulk of the research effort. It was assumed that the uranium gun-type bomb could be adapted from it. The gun-type and implosion-type designs were codenamed Thin Man and Fat Man respectively and these code names were created by Robert Serber, a former student of Oppenheimers who worked on the Manhattan Project. Little Boy would come last, as a variation of Thin Man and he was assisted in this work by Hugh Bradner, Charles Critchfield, and John Streib. L. T. E. Thompson was brought in as a consultant, Thompson was skeptical that an implosion could be made sufficiently symmetric. But Neddermeyers efforts in July and August at imploding tubes to produce cylinders tended to produce objects that resembled rocks, Neddermeyer was the only person who believed that implosion was practical, and only his enthusiasm kept the project alive. Oppenheimer brought John von Neumann to Los Alamos in September 1943 to take a look at implosion. The prospect of more-efficient nuclear weapons impressed Oppenheimer, Teller, and Hans Bethe, kistiakowskys name was immediately suggested, and Kistiakowsky was brought into the project as a consultant in October 1943
43.
Mark 4 nuclear bomb
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The Mark 4 nuclear bomb was an American nuclear bomb design produced starting in 1949 and in use until 1953. The Mark 4 was based on the earlier Mark 3 Fat Man design, used in the Trinity test, the basic idea was to GI-proof otherwise sensitive nuclear weapons. The Mark 4 was 60 inches in diameter and 128 inches long and it weighed slightly more at 10,800 to 10,900 pounds, depending on the specific Mark 4 version. In addition to being easier to manufacture, the Mark 4 introduced the concept of in flight insertion, an IFI bomb has either manual or mechanical assembly, which keeps the nuclear core stored outside the bomb until close to the point that it may be dropped. To arm the bomb, the nuclear materials are inserted into the bomb core through a removable segment of the explosive lens assembly, which is then replaced. Mark 4 models used composite uranium and plutonium fissile pits, the exact pit assemblies were common with several other U. S. nuclear weapons, the Type C and Type D pit assemblies. Along with being composite cores, the device was the first weapon to rely upon levitated-pit implosion and these early weapons with a levitated pit had a removable pit, called an open pit. It was stored separately, in a capsule called a birdcage. Various versions of the Mark 4 had explosive yields of 1,3.5,8,14,21,22, a total of 550 Mark 4 nuclear weapons were produced. The Mark 4 was succeeded by the Mk6, which was generally similar, a variant called the W4, intended for use on the SM-62 Snark cruise missile, was designed but never built. The W4 design was cancelled in 1951,1950 British Columbia B-36 crash 1950 Fairfield-Suisun Boeing B-29 crash List of nuclear weapons Mark 6 nuclear bomb Allbombs. html list of all U. S. nuclear warheads at nuclearweaponarchive. org
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Mark 5 nuclear bomb
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The Mark 5 nuclear bomb and W5 nuclear warhead were a common core nuclear weapon design, designed in the early 1950s and which saw service from 1952 to 1963. The Mark 5 design used a 92-point implosion system and a composite Uranium/Plutonium fissile material core or pit, the Mark 5 core and W5 warhead were 39 inches in diameter and 76 inches long, the total Mark 5 bomb was 44 inches diameter and 129 to 132 inches long. The different versions of Mark 5 weighed 3,025 to 3,175 pounds, the Mark 5 and W5 were pure fission weapons. There were at least four models of core design used, and sub-variants with yields of 6,16,55,60,100. As with many early US nuclear weapon designs, the material or pit could be kept separately from the bomb. This technology is known as In Flight Insertion or IFI, the Mark 5 had an automatic IFI mechanism which could insert the pit into the center of the explosive assembly from a storage position in the bomb nose. The image here shows the doors to that nose compartment open, the Mark 5 was in service from 1952 to 1963. The W5 saw service from 1954 to 1963, approximately 72 Mark 5 weapons were carried by RAF bombers but under US control, under the auspices of Project E. A boosted Mark 5 was used as the primary fission trigger used in Ivy Mike, list of nuclear weapons Nuclear weapon design Allbombs. html list of all US nuclear warheads at nuclearweaponarchive. org
45.
Mark 6 nuclear bomb
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The Mark 6 nuclear bomb was an American nuclear bomb based on the earlier Mark 4 nuclear bomb and its predecessor, the Mark 3 Fat Man nuclear bomb design. The Mark 6 was in production from 1951 to 1955 and saw service until 1962, seven variants and versions were produced, with a total production run of all models of 1100 bombs. The basic Mark 6 design was 61 inches in diameter and 128 inches long, various models of the Mark 6 were roughly 25% lighter than either the Mark 4 or Fat Man, and weighed 7,600 to 8,500 pounds. Early models of the Mark 6 utilized the same 32-point implosion system design concept as the earlier Mark 4 and Mark 3, various models and pit options gave nuclear yields of 8,26,80,154, and 160 kilotons for Mark 6 models. A Mark 6 casing is on display in the Cold War Gallery of the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, another is on display at the Museum of Aviation. The Mark 13 was cancelled in August 1954 and the W13 cancelled September 1954, Mark 18 bombs were eventually recycled into Mark 6 Mod 6 bombs after thermonuclear weapons were deployed in quantity. The Mark 18 was tested once in Operation Ivy King, list of nuclear weapons Allbombs. html list of all US nuclear warheads at nuclearweaponarchive. org
