Fired as part of Operation Upshot–Knothole and codenamed Shot GRABLE, a 280 mm (11 inch) shell with a gun-type fission warhead was fired 10,000 m (6.2 miles) and detonated 160 m (525 ft) above the ground with an estimated yield of 15 kilotons.
Original Caption:
Frenchman’s Flat, Nevada - Atomic Cannon Test - History’s first atomic artillery shell fired from the Army’s new 280-mm artillery gun. Hundreds of high ranking Armed Forces officers and members of Congress are present. The fireball ascending.
Thought this was interesting, not small arms related, but we don’t normally think of nuclear weapons outside of the nuclear triad.
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Never had I thought of a nuke being fired from artillery like that.
There was a great interactive documentary made about where they took the technology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_(1998_video_game)
Loooool, funnily enough I just played through this. Great game all around. Excited to replay 2 whenever I feel like getting around to it.
I remember being blown away seeing a jeep mounted nuke launcher at the museum in Albuquerque
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They may have called it GAMBLE, 10km sounds like it’s a sentence for your enemy’s Frontline and a 20 years of cancer lottery for yours
They had expected to use them at closer distances as well. Someone I know was deployed in the Pacific with these. They had prepared to use them in close island to island barrages, but never did. He said he was very lucky in WW2.
Ah tactical nukes… Mad men.
Lookup the recoilless rifle if you haven’t: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
Actually tested and intended to be launched with a Max range of 2.5 miles… you can see one at the national infantry museum in Columbus, Georgia (which is worth the visit regardless).
Being a scientist/engineer in the US during the fifties must’ve been a party
It was such crazy time of “We’ve got this thing, how do we use it?” Cave Johnson is the picture that pops into my head when I think 1950s American science.
Also look up the wikipage for ‘Pentomic army’ if you want to see how the army thought things would go.
I’m a chemist and right now I’m doing somewhat spicy chemistry. Tucked away we have some pretty spicy legacy materials from the cold war on our site. I regularly think about chemists back then and how they essentially had carte Blanche, a lot of chemistry was new, budgets were plentiful, safety concerns were an afterthought and environmental protections were nonexistent. Must’ve been so fun.
Amazing! Wasn’t there a shoulder mounted one once?
10,000 m (6.2 miles)
I wonder what the fall out would do to the people during the thing.
It’s even better as a gif
