http://www.vce.com/AtomicGallery/movies/cannon.html
http://www.vce.com/grable.html Cool....I want one. Can you buy them at Cabela's yet? Deer & Turkey season is just around the corner.
play some of the soundtrack music while you look at the pics and what not on that site, its kind of creepy in a cool way.. http://www.vce.com/music.html
its real. the warhead can be set to go off whenever. they could of made it explode right after it left the barrel if they wanted.
that it is. the documentary is really worth the money if you have any type of interest in things that go boom.
Original AEC Press Release - UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE OPERATION - GRABLE EVENT ...Frenchman Flat, Nevada, May 25, 1953. Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson and designated Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Arthur W. Radford observing history's first atomic artillery shell explosion here today. The shell, fired from the Army's new 280 mm artillery gun, burst with precision accuracy over the designated target area where railroad cars, trees, bridges and other equipment had been located.
I don't know about you, but that was a bit too close for my taste. I think you would get an atomic tan along with the guys you just nailed. Sorry but thumbs down on this one.
Thats Atomic Annie, and it most certainly is real. I think its quite possibly the worst idea mankind has ever come up . Shes parked right across the street from my office. I'll snap some pics this week If i can remember.
I'm willing to bet that office is in New Mexico I actually have one of the crates (along with the lead lined inner cannister) for the rounds that puppy fires. One of the benefits of scrounging around the artillery range at New Mexico Tech years ago
Yeah, except even at 3000ft/sec, in a vacumm, it'd be only a tad over 1 mile away at the 2 sec mark. No question the gun is real, but I don't think that above-ground test was.
I have a 5min vid with probably that same cannon test (among others) and the time in this vid between firing and explosion is 10 seconds or so. Sounds more like it to me. Definitely not something to be proud, all those atomic crap thingies. May be an impressive amount of energy (and knowledge and technology to master it) ... but disgusting when used as a weapon nonetheless.
the video might have been edited for time in some way, but the above ground test was real or rather did happen.
Keep in mind that they fired very low yield devices in these artillery pieces. I'm not sure exactly how powerful they were, but considering her bore was only something like 250mm, they couldnt have been that powerful (especially in the 50's). David_S- yup, I'm in New Mexico. How close is white sands to soccorro? I don't work at white sands, but is that where you got the casings from? Z0RR0- I completely agree with your comments about how horrible these weapons are. We havent detonated one since 1992, and hopefully we will never use one again. People high up in the gov't think that the US's deterebce policy will make it so we dont have to use nuclear weapons again. Whether they are right or wrong is anyones guess There is a bunker somewhere out here in the desert storing thousands of nuclear weapons. That may sound like a lot, but during the cold war there were many times that number, however once the cold war ended Pantex started taking them apart.
I dont know how many they tested in 92, or what their yeilds were. 1992 is when the US stopped underground nuclear weapons testing. Little boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima reportedly had a yeild of up to 20 kt, and it was very big in size so its amazing that they were able to make it small enough to be fired by mobile artilery. The most powerful nuclear weapon that the US says it has is 1,200 Kt- its scary to think of how powerful that is.
russians tested a 50mt weapon that had the potential to be a 100mt weapon, now thats big...im sure we have something on par if we wanted too. Itd also be cool to see what kind of simulated testing they can do on computers now. I wonder if there is really even a need to do live testing anymore(i know they dont do this, but im sure a few want too) now that computers, and especially their computers, are so good.
Yup, thats the plan- to use computer simulations. They just finished building the worlds fastest supercomputer (the red storm) here. One of it's purposes is weapons performance and safety simulations, of which I think they are still developing and verifying the computer models for.
Yup, "Little Boy" was huge about 9,000lbs. and about the size of a minivan with a 20kt yield. http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm42.htm Here is the largest nuke we ever had. The Mk-41 was the only three-stage thermonuclear weapon ever deployed by the U.S. It weighed 4,840 kilograms and was 3.8 meters long.[6] It could be carried by the B-52 or the B-47.[7] While about 500 were built from September 1960 to June 1962, retirement began in November 1963 and the last B41s withdrawn in July 1976.[6] Best estimate here is that the B41 was produced in at least two versions, one of which had a yield of 25 mt--the highest yield weapon ever built by the U.S. It is likely that only a small fraction of the weapons built were the high yield version, and that these were the first ones retired (in the 1960s). These conclusions are based on the following: * In 1962 DOE declassified the statement "The U.S. has a nuclear weapon in stockpile with a yield of approximately 25 megatons." [8] * A 25 mt yield for the B41 would give it a yield-to-weight ratio of 5.2 kilotons/kilogram. While this would require a far greater efficiency than any other U.S. weapon (at least 40% efficiency in a fusion fuel of lithium deuteride), this was apparently attainable. In 1963 DOE declassified statements that the U.S. had the technological capability of deploying a 35 mt warhead on the Titan II, or a 50-60 mt gravity bomb on B-52s.[8] Neither weapon was pursued (the Titan II was deployed with a 9 mt warhead), but either would require yield-to-weight ratios superior to a 25-mt B41. * While in 1989 Chuck Hansen gave a yield of "less than 10 megatons" for the B41,[1] he gave two yields in 1995: "less than 10 megatons" and "25 MT...the highest-yield weapon ever stockpiled [by the U.S.]".[6] His discussion suggests that two versions were developed: a high yield "dirty" version and a low yield "clean" version. The NRDC gives a yield of 10 mt.[4] * A TX-41 prototype was tested in shot Hardtack Poplar with a yield of 9.3 mt.[5] This may correspond to the low yield Mk-41 version. * DOE has released cumulative stockpile data, including numbers of stockpiled warheads each fiscal year and total stockpile yield each fiscal year.[9] This data is inconsistent with all B41s having a 25 mt yield, but are consistent with limited numbers of a high yield version which were then retired early. * Development of the B53 was ordered as a replace for the B41.[10] This may be interpreted as a continuation of the shift away from high-yield and/or dirty weapons. Note that with the exceptions of the B41 and B53, all other multi-megaton strategic bombs were retired by 1964. From here:http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html#U2 As far as largest we have now you are correct with it having a 1.2MT yeild. (disignated the B83) Some scary facts about the Soviet Unions. The largest Soviet nuclear weapon The largest nuclear weapon ever developed by any nuclear power was the Soviet RDS-220,[62] also nicknamed "Vanya" or "Tsar Bomba" (King of Bombs). It was a three-stage weapon weighing 24.8 metric tons and was 8 meters long. Its 2-meter diameter required a specially modified version of the Tu-95 Bear bomber for delivery. The single such Tu-95V carried the RDS-220 partially protruding from the bomb bay.[63, 64] The U.S.S.R. tested this design in an airdrop over Novaya Zemlya on 30 October 1961 at a yield of 58 megatons (the U.S. estimated 58 mt[65], while Russian sources report 50 mt[66]). However, this was a reduced yield "clean" version: the uranium sleeve on the tertiary stage was replaced with lead, and the fission yield was only 3% of the total yield.[63] The full yield version had a yield of 150 mt[62] (Russian sources report 100 mt[64] to 150 mt[67]). From here:http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html#S2 As for as nuclear artillery: The US development resulted in a number of test weapons. The first artillery test was on May 25, 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. Fired as part of Operation Upshot-Knothole and codenamed Shot GRABLE, a 280 mm shell with a gun-type fission warhead was fired 10,000 m and detonated 160 m above the ground with an estimated yield of 15 kilotons. This was the only nuclear artillery shell ever actually fired in the US test program. The shell was 1384 mm long and weighed 365 kg; it was fired from a specially built artillery piece, nicknamed "Atomic Annie", by the Artillery Test Unit of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Around 3,200 personnel were present. The warhead was designated the W-9 and 80 were produced from 1952-53 for the T-124 shell. It was retired in 1957. More info here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_artillery. Scary thing is they also had versions for a 155mm and for recoiless rifles. Yes, I'm bored but this is interesting stuff to me and I don't have crap better to do right now besides drink beer and cruise the internet.
Heres that picture I promised. I took it this morning. Unfortunately, that fence is in the way and for some stupid reason they put those things in it that make chain link fences harder to see through. Either way, you can still see how long the thing is when you compare it to the B-52 thats like 50 feet behind it. Image Unavailable, Please Login
