The W52 was a
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 lo ...
developed for the
MGM-29 Sergeant short-range ballistic missile
A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range of about or less. In past and potential regional conflicts, these missiles have been and would be used because of the short distances between some countries and their rela ...
used by the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...
from 1962 to 1977. The W52 is in diameter and long, and weighted . It had a yield of 200
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 300 W52 warheads were produced.
Researcher
Chuck Hansen
Chuck Hansen (May 13, 1947 - March 26, 2003) was the compiler, over a period of 30 years, of the world's largest private collection of unclassified documents on how America developed atomic and thermonuclear weapons.
Research
Hansen's documents ...
claims based on his research into the US nuclear program that the thermonuclear W52 and (fission-only)
W30 warheads both use a common
primary
Primary or primaries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels
* Primary (band), from Australia
* Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea
* Primary Music, Israeli record label
Works
...
or fission first stage, and that this design was nicknamed the
Boa primary.
Reliability controversy
Three models of the W52 were produced, the Mod 1, Mod 2, and Mod 3. A warhead test was performed in 1963, which failed, showing that the Mod 1 and Mod 2 versions of the W52 were essentially duds. The Mod 3 was subsequently redesigned to work properly.
The design failures of the Mod 1 and 2 W52, along with early problems with the
W45
The W45 was a multipurpose American nuclear warhead developed in the early 1960s, first built in 1962 and fielded in some applications until 1988. It had a diameter of 11.5 inches (292 mm), a length of 27 inches (686 mm) and weighed 150 pounds ( ...
and
W47 warheads, are still an active part of the debate about the reliability of the US nuclear weapons force moving into the future, without ongoing nuclear testing.
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 ...
References
External links
Allbombs.htmllist of all US nuclear weapons a
nuclearweaponarchive.org
{{United States nuclear devices
Nuclear warheads of the United States
Military equipment introduced in the 1960s