Mark 8 nuclear bomb
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The Mark 8 nuclear bomb was an American nuclear bomb, designed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which was in service from 1952 to 1957.
Description
The Mark 8 was a gun-type nuclear bomb, which rapidly assembles several critical masses of fissile nuclear material by firing a fissile projectile or "bullet" over and around a fissile "target", using a system which closely resembles a medium-sized cannon barrel and propellant.
The Mark 8 was an early earth-penetrating bomb (see nuclear bunker buster), intended to dig into the earth some distance prior to detonating. According to one government source, the Mark 8 could penetrate Template:Convert of reinforced concrete, Template:Convert of hard sand, Template:Convert of clay, or Template:Convert of hardened armor-plate steel.[1]
The Mark 8 was Template:Convert in diameter across its body and Template:Convert long depending on submodel. It weighed Template:Convert, and had a yield of 25-30 kilotons.
A total of 40 Mark 8 bombs were produced.
The Mark 8 was succeeded by an improved variant, the Mark 11 nuclear bomb. Both the Mark 8 and the Mark 11 could use the same fissile material "gun cores."[2]
Variants
The Mark 8 was considered as a cratering warhead for the SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missile. This W8 variant was cancelled in 1955.
A lighter Mark 8 variant, the Mark 10 nuclear bomb, was developed as a lightweight airburst (surface target) bomb. The Mark 10 project was cancelled prior to introduction into service, replaced by the much more fissile-material-efficient Mark 12 nuclear bomb implosion design.
See also
References
External links
- Allbombs.html list of all US nuclear warheads at nuclearweaponarchive.org
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Template:United States nuclear devices
- ↑ Weapon Design: We've done a lot but we can't say much by Carson Mark, Raymond E. Hunter, and Jacob E. Weschler, Los Alamos Science, Winter/Spring 1983, pp 159.
- ↑ Specifically, they both used what was listed in a later report as the 991 and 992 "Gun Cores." The 991 and 992 cores could also be used in the W19 nuclear artillery shell, and the 992 core could be used in the W33 artillery shell. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".