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Fascinating; per Wikipedia, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W79 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W79 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W48 https://en.wikipedia.
by hga 11y ago
Fascinating; per Wikipedia, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W79 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W79 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W48 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W48 they used a "linear implosion" technique, but it sounds like it had about the same inefficiency as the Little Boy gun assembly design. Which for safety reasons alone are iffy to field, and even more I'd imagine in a quickly accelerated artillery shell....
- rdl 11y agoFrom reading Command and Control, a lot of the US arsenal was manifestly unsafe for a long time. Based on the number of accidents, and lack of criticality, I suspect there was some super secret design choice or design flaw which meant many classes of weapon would never go critical at all. Someone probably made the decision that only a deterrent was important, so a bunch of unsafe weapons should instead be rendered largely inert while making other gestures of readiness. I don't have any data to support that other than just the lack of unintentional nuclear detonations. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-re...