The W50 was an American

thermonuclear warhead 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 low ...

used on the

MGM-31 Pershing The MGM-31A Pershing was the missile used in the Pershing 1 and Pershing 1a field artillery missile systems. It was a solid-fueled two-stage theater ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the PGM-11 Redstone missile ...

short range nuclear missile. It was also used on the

LIM-49 Nike Zeus Nike Zeus was an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system developed by the US Army during the late 1950s and early 1960s that was designed to destroy incoming Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile warheads before they could hit their targets. It ...

anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to counter ballistic missiles (missile defense). Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear weapon, nuclear, Chemical weapon, chemical, Bioagent, biological, or conventiona ...

, but this program was cancelled before deployment. The W50 was developed by the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

. There were two major variants produced (Mod 1, Mod 2), in three yield options (the Y1 with 60 kiloton yield, Y2 with 200 kiloton yield, and Y3 with 400 kiloton yield). All variants were in diameter and long, weighing . The W50 used the

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, 1.4 ...

design for its first fission stage, along with several mid and late 1950s designs. The W50 is thought to have been the source of the W78 warhead's fusion second stage design. The W50 was manufactured from 1963 through 1965, with a total of 280 being produced. They were retired from service starting in 1973 with the last units retired in 1991.

References

Allbombs.html list of all US nuclear weapons
a
nuclearweaponarchive.org

Beware the old story
by Chuck Hansen
''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''
March/April 2001 pp. 52-55. {{United States nuclear devices Nuclear warheads of the United States Military equipment introduced in the 1960s