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Nuclear Weapons
This category is for questions about weapons that use nuclear fission or fusion to gain explosive power.
3,869 Questions
Was Germany developing nuclear weapons?
Germany had spent roughly a little over a year and a half, beginning sometime in 1939, doing preliminary work on the atomic bomb. However they made a few errors (e.g. overestimating the critical mass of uranium-235 by enough that it suggested that an atomic bomb would be too heavy for any bomber that could be available during the war to carry). At that time it was decided to scale the project back. Work on bombs ceased and only work on prototype reactors that might be scaled up after Germany won the war continued.
The US Manhattan Project did not begin work on the atomic bomb until after the German work had already ended!
What are the dimensions of a nuclear bomb?
Depending on the design and purpose of the nuclear bomb this varies dramatically. Publicly released data shows that the US has built ones as small as about 11 inches in diameter and 31 inches long (Davy Crockett in image above) to ones as large as 80 inches in diameter and 244 inches in height (1952 Ivy Mike test device). Nuclear artillery shells have been built as small as 5 inches in diameter and 24.5 inches long to as large as 11 inches in diameter and 54 inches long. Nuclear landmines have been built as small as 11 inches in diameter spheres, but the most typical size is similar to a standard "55 gallon oil drum".
After the war did America test nuclear bombs?
Yes, the US continued testing into the early 1990s performing somewhere around 10000 total tests.
When was the last time US soldiers were killed in a nuclear explosion?
That depends on how you define "killed".
There were US prisoners of war at Hiroshima and some of them died in the atomic bombing.
Many of the US nuclear tests in the 1950s exposed soldiers to levels of radioactivity that killed them from cancers and other diseases as late as the middle 1980s.
What caused the arms race after World War 2?
Project 'Manhattan' or to simply say, Nuclear Bombs and the US "Red Scare" in the early 1950s. from then on every country wanted nuclear weapons, And the First to acquire was the US, then Russia, then the United Kingdom, then France, then China, then India, then Pakistan, then North Korea. It is believed that Israel also has them, but they refuse to either confirm or deny.
At the peak of the cold war arms race both the US and Russia had more than 10,000 strategic nuclear weapons and roughly 50,000 tactical nuclear weapons each, no other country in the world has ever had more than a few hundred total strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. As of 2014 both the US and Russia have reduced their stockpiles to about 3000 strategic nuclear weapons and zero tactical nuclear weapons (however the US maintains the parts from the dismantled 7000 strategic nuclear weapons and in an emergency could still reassemble them in a few months time into usable weapons, Russia likely has similar ability).
Are atomic bombs bigger now than in World War 2?
That depends on what you mean by "bigger":
- physically, no. in WW2 the bombs were about 10 feet long and 5 feet in diameter and weighed about 5 tons, modern bombs can be built 3 feet long and 18 inches in diameter and weigh about 600 pounds (much smaller bombs than that have been built, including a bomb 1 foot in diameter and weighing 50 pounds)
- yield, generally but not always. in WW2 the bombs had a yield of about 20000 tons of TNT equivalent, modern bombs typically vary in yield from about 10000 to about 300000 tons of TNT equivalent (bombs have been built with yields as low as 10 tons of TNT equivalent to as high as 52000000 tons of TNT equivalent)
Was there ever an atomic bomb dropped during the cold war?
Yes, many. But not in an attack on anyplace; just for test, troop training, and propaganda purposes. These real live bombs were dropped from airplanes from 1946 through 1962 by various nations deliberately. In some training exercises the troops were required to march over Ground Zero within hours of the shot.
There were also several launched on missiles to explode in space (but these technically did not drop). One of these space nuclear test shots actually caused a manned Gemini space mission to be postponed several days out of fear of exposure to radiation from that bomb captured by the earth's magnetic field.
And this does not count all the tower, balloon, underwater, underground, surface, cratering, etc. test shots done from 1945 to the present.
Answer:
As far as dropping real live nuclear weapons there were 32 incidents (in Military speak "Broken Arrows") where nuclear weapons were dropped or lost by accident. Six have never been recovered. These include:
- Date: July 27, 1956 Location: Suffolk, England
- Date: February 5, 1958 Location: Off Georgia, United States
- Date: February 28, 1958 Location: Greenham Common, England,
- Date: January 24, 1961 Location: Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States
- Date: July 4, 1961 Location: North Sea (Russian submarine)
- Date: December 5, 1965 Location: Pacific Ocean off the deck of the USS Ticonderoga.
- Date: Mid-1960s (Date undetermined) Location: Kara Sea Russian source
- Date: January 17, 1966 Location: Palomares, Spain
- Date: April 11, 1968 Location: Pacific Ocean (Near Oahu) Russian source
- Date: November 1969 Location: White Sea
- Date: April 12, 1970 Location: Atlantic Ocean Russian Source
- Date: November 22, 1975 Location: Off Sicily, Italy
- Date: October 3, 1986 Location: Atlantic Ocean 480 miles east of Bermuda. Russian Source
- Date: April 7, 1989 Location: Atlantic Ocean 300 miles north of the Norwegian coast, Russian source .
- Date: August 10, 1985 Location: Near Vladivostok, Russia
- Date: September 27, 1991 Location: White Sea Russian source
- Date: March 20, 1993 Location: Barents Sea
- Date: February 11, 1992 Location: Barents Sea
Which country has tested the least number of nuclear weapons?
Any country that has never had a nuclear weapons program and those that did but never got far enough to build devices, which basically means every country in the world except: US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, and North Korea.
Note: Israel and South Africa are believed to have conducted only one shared test over the South Atlantic. So of those countries that have tested nuclear weapons, these two have tested the least number at the equivalent of half a test each.
Do terrorists have nuclear bombs?
No one knows for certain. However the fact that they have not yet tried to use them suggests that they probably don't, yet.
What is the difference between plutonium weapon and uranium weapons?
The obvious difference is a plutonium weapon uses plutonium as its fuel while a uranium weapon uses uranium as its fuel, however there are also composite weapons that use both as their fuel.
Plutonium, being produced in reactors has some degree of plutonium-240 and plutonium-241 as undesired contaminates that can cause a fizzle. So weapons made with plutonium must be assembled much more rapidly than uranium weapons. So uranium weapons can use either gun or implosion rapid assembly systems, but weapons using any amount of plutonium must use implosion rapid assembly systems.
How is nuclear fusion used in an atomic bomb?
fusion can be used in several ways:
- external electronic neutron sources, uses a miniaturized particle accelerator with tritium gas to produce a burst of neutrons to initiate fission at the best time for desired yield
- boosting, injects a controlled amount of deuterium and/or tritium gas into a hollow core, when the device is detonated this undergoes fusion producing a large burst of neutrons increasing the fission efficiency; this permits either a reduction in amount of fissile material required or an increase in yield or both; this also permits dial-a-yield bombs having selectable variable yield
- staged fusion, a bomb permitting unlimited theoretical yield; also commonly called the hydrogen bomb
Less than 10000, about half held by US and half Russia with small numbers held by UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
How much was spent on the atomic bombs during World War 2?
The US spent 2 billion dollars on the Manhattan Project during WW2, almost all of this was on infrastructure not bombs themselves. Each of the bombs themselves probably cost on the order of a million dollars, although no exact costs have been declassified.
What color was the atomic bomb?
This question cannot be answered as written.
If you mean the physical bomb itself it was painted in a typical army color, but I don't recall seeing any photos or documents that would show the actual bomb used (they would still be classified unless touched up to obliterate certain external detail). Most likely a khaki. I have seen casings in museums painted khaki, brown, black, camo, and white.
If you mean the explosion that cannot be described as a color, it was blinding light covering the entire spectrum IR, visible, UVA, UVB, and soft x-rays. Similar to a black body spectrum for an object at a temperature of a few million degrees.
If you mean the mushroom cloud, that was a muddy brown/black with flickers of red and orange "flame" and enveloped in a multicolored ionization halo glow.
How many weapons were used during the arms race of the cold war?
Used in war: 0
Used in "testing": many, I don't have exact number but it can be looked up.
