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The Mark 8 nuclear bomb was an American nuclear bomb, designed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which was in service from 1952 to 1957.
Weapon Design: We've done a lot but we can't say much
by Carson Mark, Raymond E. Hunter, and Jacob E. Weschler,
Allbombs.html
list of all US nuclear warheads a
nuclearweaponarchive.org
* {{United States nuclear devices Mark 08 Gun-type nuclear bombs Nuclear bombs of the United States Military equipment introduced in the 1950s
The Mark 8 nuclear bomb was an American nuclear bomb, designed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which was in service from 1952 to 1957.
Description
The Mark 8 was a gun-type nuclear bomb, which rapidly assembles severalcritical mass
In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fi ...
es of fissile nuclear material by firing a fissile projectile or "bullet" over and around a fissile "target", using a system which closely resembles a medium-sized cannon barrel and propellant.
The Mark 8 was an early earth-penetrating bomb (see nuclear bunker buster
A nuclear bunker buster, also known as an earth-penetrating weapon (EPW), is the nuclear equivalent of the conventional bunker buster. The non-nuclear component of the weapon is designed to penetrate soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclear ...
), intended to dig into the earth some distance prior to detonating. According to one government source, the Mark 8 could penetrate of reinforced concrete, of hard sand, of clay, or of hardened armor-plate steel.
by Carson Mark, Raymond E. Hunter, and Jacob E. Weschler,
Los Alamos Science
''Los Alamos Science'' was the Los Alamos National Laboratory's flagship publication in the years 1980 to 2005. Its main purpose was to present the laboratory's research and its significance to national security to the scientific community, and US ...
, Winter/Spring 1983, pp 159.
The Mark 8 was in diameter across its body and long depending on submodel. It weighed , and had a yield of 25-30 kiloton
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a ...
s.
A total of 40 Mark 8 bombs were produced.
The Mark 8 was succeeded by an improved variant, the Mark 11 nuclear bomb.
Variants
The Mark 8 was considered as a cratering warhead for the SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missile. This W8 variant was cancelled in 1955. A lighter Mark 8 variant, theMark 10 nuclear bomb
The Mark 10 nuclear bomb was a proposed American nuclear bomb based on the earlier Mark 8 nuclear bomb design. The Mark 10, like the Mark 8, is a Gun-type nuclear weapon, which rapidly assembles several critical masses of fissile nuclear material ...
, was developed as a lightweight airburst (surface target) bomb. The Mark 10 project was cancelled prior to introduction into service, replaced by the much more fissile-material-efficient Mark 12 nuclear bomb implosion design.
See also
*List of nuclear weapons
This is a list of nuclear weapons listed according to country of origin, and then by type within the states.
United States
US nuclear weapons of all types – bombs, warheads, shells, and others – are numbered in the same sequence starting wi ...
* Mark 1 Little Boy nuclear bomb
References
External links
Allbombs.html
list of all US nuclear warheads a
nuclearweaponarchive.org
* {{United States nuclear devices Mark 08 Gun-type nuclear bombs Nuclear bombs of the United States Military equipment introduced in the 1950s