The W19, also called Katie, was an American
nuclear artillery
Nuclear artillery is a subset of limited- yield tactical nuclear weapons, in particular those weapons that are launched from the ground at battlefield targets. Nuclear artillery is commonly associated with shells delivered by a cannon, but in ...
shell, derived from the earlier
W9 shell. The W19 was fired from a special howitzer. It was introduced in 1955 and retired in 1963.
Specifications
The W19 was in diameter, long, and weighed . It had a yield of 15-20
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 t ...
s and was like its predecessor the W9, a
gun-type nuclear weapon.
Variants
W23
The W19 nuclear system was adapted into a nuclear artillery shell for the US Navy's
16-inch (406 mm) main battery found on the
''Iowa''-class battleships, the W23. Production of the W23 began in 1956 and they were in service until 1962, with a total of 50 units being produced.
The W23 was 16 inches (406 mm) in diameter and long, with a weight given variously as in reference sources. As with the W19, yield was 15-20 kilotons.
See also
*
Nuclear artillery
Nuclear artillery is a subset of limited- yield tactical nuclear weapons, in particular those weapons that are launched from the ground at battlefield targets. Nuclear artillery is commonly associated with shells delivered by a cannon, but in ...
*
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 ...
*
W9
External links
Allbombs.html webpage listing all US nuclear weapons, at nuclearweaponarchive.org
{{United States nuclear devices
Nuclear warheads of the United States
Gun-type nuclear bombs
Nuclear artillery
Military equipment introduced in the 1950s