http://www.guntruck.com/DavyCrockett.html

(scroll down for pics)

The warhead even looks like a mini-nuke.

Interestingly enough, this thing killed with rads in a very large radius, rather than doing lots of blast damage. Not that it didn't pack a big punch, but it was very inaccurate, so it was hard to land right on top of a tank.

Did anyone else know about this weapon? Came as a complete surprise to me, and I'm a child of the Cold War.

I would be SOOOOOOO scared if I was the dude to man that weapon. I'm sure most of you have seen videos of failed mortar launches...

Gives me chills down the spine thinking of one of these failing to fully launch and detonating right in front of you...

Yeah, I have read about it multiple times over the years. Pretty fricking wild eh? You'll appreciate this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2v0YuDatpc

The hysteria (for lack of a better word?) surrounding the early Cold War era and on which the game is built was no joke. The world probably came very close to ending at least once in the early 1960s, maybe more than that.

Every year more and more gets de-classified and I've seen some second hand syntheses of primary historical anolysis that have revealed that the world came uncannily close to the apocalypse more than once.

ADDIT: and it still could happen. U.S. and Russia still have on the order of "~4500 nuclear weapons" each in their arsenals, though how many of those are operational at any given time I don't know.

Given there are about 9,300 "city agencies" listed in the FBI's crime statistic database, and only about 900 "metro areas" with more than ~13,000 population, it would seem that a couple thousand warheads is more than enough to saturate the U.S. and/or any country with enough bombs to effectively reduce any town, city or base/installation to a pile of ash, it would seem the world still lives in a state of potential apocalypse despite the much reduced tension, or at least reduced public discourse about it.

ADDIT^2: Check out "General Arson" at about 9:00 in that video, and tell me you couldn't imagine this guy as the template for the Colonel Gutsy!

Also, for those who have never seen it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=her67M_clPc is of course a brilliant and insightful view at the "abuse of technology" themes that make the fanciful Brotherhood of Steel (and their uncanny likeness to that which they abhor!) so poignant and effect as a satire.

I knew it existed for a while now, but..

I just watched a Modern Marvels episode yesterday, didn't catch the name of the episode, but they were (I think) discussing impractical or failed weapons, and that was on there...they basically said that it had a range of 2-3 miles, but the fallout from it would reach beyond that, and the team of men firing it would not have time to escape the exposure...it ended with some weapons expert saying it was a desperation weapon at best..

but yea the mini nukes in fallout, look strikingly similar to the Davy Crocket warheads..

Have never seen it but thought the shell did not arm at once, know that RPG grenades don't arm before after 30 meter or something.

But yes the david crockett demanded that you was under cover then it hit the target, then getting away fast.

The purpose of the weapon was to assist in defense against mass Soviet tank assaults in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulda_Gap. Exact numbers I cannot recall, but suffice to say, from pretty much 1946 onward, the Soviets enjoyed a sizeable numerical advantage in conventional military power. The various types of tactical nukes that were developed and deployed in Europe were intended as a way to level the playing field and allow a few hundred thousand American and Western Europeans some hope of holding out in defense against millions of invading Russkies.

The issue with the "range of the fallout" versus the "range of the weapon" is I suspect a bit of a myth. I do not think the crew firing the weapon would be exposed to the immediate effects of the blast, though it might be a close call. I walked my way through the maths on this stuff some years back and it was surprising. Being "in range of the fallout" is not really a reason for the weapon to be impractical or failed, because once that stuff goes up into the atmosphere, effectively the whole planet is "in range of the fallout" and it becomes a question of the concentration of particles and the time for them to spread and lose their density.

It is possible I suppose that even at the range of the rifle they would have been subject to the initial effects of the detonation, but I find that hard to believe based on the little bit of research I've done over the years.

Yea, I don't know, that's just what I saw about it..I haven't looked into it myself..but I'll tell you one thing, if I was in the military during that time, and my CO told me to go grab Davy and get it ready for use, I would be filling out my will on the way..

For an interesting read on the effects of Little Boy (16 kt) and Fat Man (21 kt)

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/index.php?pagenumber=11&documentdate=1946-06-19&documentid=65&studycollectionid=abomb

Page 11 through 15 cover a bit of background on the layout of Hiroshima and effect of Fat Man on the city and its inhabitants; 15 through 20 goes through Nagasaki.

To synthesize, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#The_bombing

So a 16 kiloton "Little Boy" bomb dropped in the center of a Hiroshima (pop of >340,000) resulted in effectively "total destruction" of an area 1 mile radius, and fires that spread over an area about 4 times that size. According to the Japanese report 62,000 of the 90,000 buildings in the city were destroyed.

At 10 to 20 ton (~0.015 kiloton) yields the W-54 warheads used on the Davy Crockett were about 1,000 times less powerful than Little Boy. Given we read in that U.S. strategic bombing report that there were buildings "on the outskirts" of Hiroshima that were barely damaged (2 or 3 miles from ground zero? Not seeing any specific numbers) I think we can conclude that, troops at a distance of a mile or two from a Davy Crockett detonation wouldn't be in too much immediate danger.

The effects were rather different at Nagasaki, which if I recall was in large part because of the valley shape of the landscape.

Yeah, I knew about it, but there's nothing to be surprised about considering that's very likely what the fat man was inspired by.

Former B-52G aircraft commander here.

I used to sit alert with 12 AGM-86 ALCMs on the wing pylons. Each one was roughly 150 kilotons. In the bomb bay we carried 4 free-fall bombs, either B28 or B83, in the 1.5 megaton range.

Neat

Thanks for your service to the country! Do correct anything I said up above

I'm definitely no physical scientist or weapons expert but got interested in the stuff about 10 years ago as a result of playing a scenario called "The Next War: 1979 Tension" in "The Operational Art of War III" (TOAW3) which included tactical nuclear stuff in a simulation of a NATO versus USSR war in Western Europe. I found the effects of these to be seemingly "small" in game, which was incongruous given how technically detailed and accurate most of that game is, but after reading up more I came to the conclusion that it might not have been too inaccurate.

The problem with using tactical nukes against tanks is that the tank crews are pretty well shielded by the thick armor of the tank. They'll die from radiation poisoning eventually, but the immediate effect won't be that great.

That was the point of the "neutron bomb", or more properly, "enhanced radiation warhead" back in the 1980s.

It wasn't intended to "kill the people and leave the buildings" as some claimed. It was intended to produce a relatively small blast but a huge burst of radiation that could kill tank crews fairly quickly.

That's awesome...I've always been a huge fan of military aircraft, other than some jet fighters, the B-52 is my favorite, with the AC-130 in a close second...when I was a young lad, we used to live near an air force base in ND that had a squad of B-52s..

That was chilling. Somehow I doubt Armageddon would proceed so smoothly...or so coolly. How did we not annihilate ourselves? Not too long ago I read an article about how Operation Able Archer (a NATO military exercise in the 80s) freaked the Soviets out so much they almost pushed the button. And we're still not safe...

Dr. Strangelove was an amazing movie. It's been too long since I've seen it. This stuff is so horrific to contemplate, laughter seems like the only sane response.

Using standard bombardment with artilery or aircraft bombs is even less efficient, tried with carped bombing and battleships during WW2, you pretty much need an direct hit.

Cluster bombs has an effect you generate an high saturation as its usually enough if one of the bomblets hits.

And yes the neutron bomb was to kill tank crews as the steel is not an good radiation shielding.

When we hit the Republican Guard divisions each three-ship "cell" had two bombers carrying 750-lb high explosive (MK117) and one aircraft carrying 1000-lb cluster bombs. Each aircraft carried 51 bombs (24 external and 27 internal). All of that would go into a box maybe a mile on each side.

That was our one neat trick that nobody else could do. We could take a square mile of the planet and turn it into a waffle.

From the article.

"Examples of Significant Radiation Effects:


200 REM causes sterility, and increased cancer risk, temporary immune system suppression. In our example this dosage occurs at a little under 500 meters (1,650 feet) from ground zero.


600 REM is considered a fatal dose - 50% fatality rate. This dosage occurs just inside 400 meters (1,320 feet) from blast center. At the 20 ton TNT yield setting, this would become the minimum distance the operators would want to select for setting the Davy Crockett projectile to detonate.


1000 REM is 100% lethal - perhaps a soldier might make it back to a rear area or Stateside before death. 1000 REM will kill those solders such exposed within two weeks. Why did I say Stateside? This dosage occurs outside 300 meters from blast center - which is also the minimum detonation range (also meaning the shortest detonator timer setting option) of the Davy Crockett. However, the selection of the minimum detonation range when firing the Davy Crockett in this example would spell certain death for the weapon operators - even at this low setting. This is the edge of Davy Crockett's lethal zone. The weapon's operators could be evacuated and transported back Stateside for treatment, but ultimately would perish."


Bloody scary stuff here, death's one thing but sterility? [censored] that job, I'd want to be a cook or something, away from the radiation. Although I fear my cooking would kill waaay more men then any nuclear weapon.

Friend wrote a paper on the what if senario with these, idea seemed to be to use them on choke points to slow the Soviets advance, might not kill the tank crew but their support crews wouldn't be so lucky which would lead ot their tanks breaking down, running out of fuel/ammo. The irony being both sides were scared of the other invading and not thinking they'd be able to hold out lol

Wouldn't mind seeing a FO version of one of these tho:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_P6M_SeaMaster

Failed mortar launches is not important, since the mortar bomb isn't armed. Mortar bombs needs the force from the airblast / velocity to arm (no less of ~100+ meter trajectory is required), so if nothing happens (dud), you free the barrel from the plate (let it rest in the bipod) tip it gently, and have the second helper of the crew have his hands in front of the barrel to catch it. Done it plenty of times, since I was trained on 81mm Mortar during my first year's in the military (I later became recon, but that's another story). I know there is this "hilarious" video where the grenade just pops out and land in front of them, but reality is, nothing will happen. It is just a natural reaction, from inexperience / lack of knowledge on the munition and being around explosives.

Point being, that those warheads will have similar safety measures and conditions, before they will arm.

Yes, most grenades has pretty strict arming requirements, know that normal artillery shells need both spinn and hard acceleration to arm.

Nuclear weapons are even safer here as they need to set off all the triggers at once to get an nuclear blast. Yes if you hit it directly with an rpg or shell it might explode but you only get an dirty bomb spraying plutonium around, yes it would not be healthy either but neither is standing next to an exploding shell

Pretty much my reaction exactly. Big-Brained apes with Nukes

Talk about an Iracus mythos . . .

But somehow Mutually Assured Destruction and the systems of failsafes have worked.

I've seen Dr. Strangelove enough times to have the script memorized.

Somehow it is very reassuring to hear a former B-52 commander say that

I did redo that vast extensive complex fully sneaking! and I really had that feeling that I was now playing the game with skill and finesse, I so enjoyed it. The 4 named Ghouls were apparently the mine workers who had been made into Ghouls by some ceremony, that was shown in ‘flashback’. Information that would have been of interest to management of the location, and also to management at the ironworks location. Kind of impacting everywhere. Can I de-Ghoul them…. I think that might be above my current skills…. but I left all 4 of them alive, so can figure it out some other time.

Oops, I seem to have gotten lost, I’m apparently in the wrong thread, oops, but I hope you found it of interest….. it’s easy to get 'lost' sometimes, bye, smile.

It was meant as a Suicide Weapon to stop the tank assault when other methods failed. In fact, the armies of the 50's used to do training on "Charging the Blast" to mop up afterwards. In those days, survivability meant staying alive long enough to achieve your objectives. Not dance with your granddaughter at her wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWSMoE3A5DI

Color footage of atomic bomb tests with active duty military personnel at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada Test Site, Nevada. Shows soldiers in foxholes as nuclear detonation occurs nearby; light and shockwaves; blowing dust; soldiers climbing out of foxholes and running towards mushroom cloud. Some of this footage is familiar by virtue of having been seen in the film Atomic Cafe. Many soldiers who were present were exposed to high levels of radiation.