The Robin was the common design nuclear fission bomb core for several Cold War designs for American nuclear and
thermonuclear weapons
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
, according to researcher Chuck Hansen.
Primary is the technical term for the fission bomb component of a thermonuclear or fusion bomb, which is used to start the reactions going and implode and detonate the second, fusion stage.
The Robin design was used as the
W45 nuclear warhead, and as the primary (stage) in the
W38
The W38 was an American thermonuclear warhead used in the early to mid-1960s as a warhead for Atlas E and F, and LGM-25 Titan I ICBMs. It was first built in 1961 and was in service from 1961 to 1965. 70 were deployed on Titan I missiles and 110 o ...
and
W47
The W47 was an American thermonuclear warhead used on the Polaris A-1 sub-launched ballistic missile system. Various models were in service from 1960 through the end of 1974. The warhead was developed by the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory between 1 ...
thermonuclear weapons.
Designations Of U.S. Nuclear Weapons
Andreas Parsch, 2005, accessed Dec 11, 2007
It has been associated with the W48
The W48 was an American nuclear artillery shell, capable of being fired from any standard howitzer. A tactical nuclear weapon, it was manufactured starting in 1963, and all units were retired in 1992. It was known as the XM454 AFAP (artillery ...
nuclear warhead, but this is probably an error.
History
The Robin is apparently a weaponized version of the Swan primary tested during Operation Redwing
Operation Redwing was a United States series of 17 nuclear test detonations from May to July 1956. They were conducted at Bikini and Enewetak atolls by Joint Task Force 7 (JTF7).Blumenson, Martin and Hugh D. Hexamer (1956). ''A History of ...
and shares its design features.
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 ...
* Teller-Ulam design
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
* Python primary
According to researcher Chuck Hansen, the W34 Python was a gas-boosted fission primary used in several designs of American thermonuclear weapons.
Hansen's research indicates that the W34 Python primary was used in the US B28 nuclear bomb, W28, ...
* Tsetse primary The Tsetse was a small American nuclear bomb developed in the 1950s that was used as the primary in several US thermonuclear bombs and as a small stand-alone weapon of its own.
The Tsetse had a boosted composite core which used 2.25 kg Pu-239, 1. ...
References
{{United States nuclear devices
Nuclear bombs of the United States