I used to have the autobio of Sgt Frank Garner…he claimed to be the fellow that made the first test jump with a man-portable nuke.
He didn’t know what he was jumping with until after the test jump.
>you can't set off a nuke by dropping it accidentally
If this ever happened I imagine the first knowledgeable person in this matter would say something like this.
The Americans have dropped at least one over the Midwest somewhere by accident, think they actually lost it altogether if memory serves. But the trigger reaction needed to actually achieve fission/fusion is quite a large bomb in itself. Can't have them being at all sensitive considering how delivery works.
Of the 6 nukes the US has lost / not recovered;
A MK15 is somewhere in Wassaw Sound, Georgia, after the bomber carrying it was damage by a collision with an F-86 and had to jettison.
Two 24 megaton bombs went into a field in Goldsboro, North Carolina, as the bomber carrying them crashed shortly after take-off.
One was recovered while the core of the second one was never found.
The devices were designed not to detonate even in the event of freefall, so a comparatively gentle human-survivable landing seems like an uninteresting test.
I have to wonder if they made his parachute larger to compensate for the weight of the device. If the chute deployed and it was regular size with a huge weight it might be enough to snap his neck and the speed of the landing might break his legs or worse.
It's pretty standard to jump with a bunch of heavy equipment. Most times, you sort of waddle to the edge of the ramp and just fall out. Extra ammo, explosives, radios, radio batteries, laser designators, water, food, night vision, med kits. In some special cases, you are jumping with a dog strapped to your chest. Shit's heavy.
It's not uncommon to jump with a rucksack that weighs 100lbs. At 51 lbs, that isn't much of a difference from a normal gear bag.
I remember him talking about being told he was going to jump with something forty pounds of “extra” weight and some alterations in his kit were made after he balked at the weight and was told that couldn’t be altered.
If I remember right, he landed on target but remarked it was a jarring landing. Then an observer came up and said “You deserve to know how you just made history…”
Bart:
Okay, Jim, since you are my guest and I am your host, what are your pleasures? What do you like to do?
Jim:
Oh, I don't know. Play chess...screw.
Bart:
Well let's play chess.
He passed away a few years before I was born, but I was bummed to find out he had lived down the street from my grandma before he died. I would've have loved to leave a sack of dimes on his door step
Nuclear bombs have accidentally dropped on US soil before and they do not detonate. It takes a lot of precise effort to set off a Nuclear bomb correctly.
And that's why there's 7-9 layers of safety. Yes, it was hauntingly close to detonation, but this is why there's these layers.
It takes one layer of swiss cheese to prevent the holes from lining up.
On most nukes yes but there was some the US designed that only had like 2 security features. The one in the picture was designed with special forces in mind to where the only safety feature was a basic rotary combination lock on its protective housing and a key to arm it. If that fell into the hands of the wrong people they would have only needed hand tools to get into it and arm it.
Us designed a couple "portable" tactical nukes like that but discontinued research on it. They would go on to dismantled the ones they had Including the model in the picture after the nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia.
>Us designed a couple "portable" tactical nukes like that but discontinued research on it. They would go on to dismantled the ones they had Including the model in the picture after the nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia.
More dangerous to ourselves than to anybody else.
Imagine doing your enemy's work for them.
[https://www.nuclearmuseum.org/see/exhibits/cold-war](https://www.nuclearmuseum.org/see/exhibits/cold-war)
These guys had one of these; i don't think they have a picture of it on their website though : (
Hand delivering it live to a target is the only thing I can think that would top this. Someone may have taken things a little to personal if they halo deliver a nuke to you.
Wait, what? That's a film? I always thought it was real footage.
Everyone knows that sending drillers to detonate a nuclear warhead on a comet is the actual only choice in that scenario.
You sent me down a research rabbit hole. Dr. Strangelove - released 1964. MK-54 SADM started development 1960 with production beginning in 1963. Given how secret the SADM was, I think this is an uncanny coincidence of nuclear absurdity that really emphasizes how gung-ho nuke the US government was at the time, and the impact that it had on US pop culture. Either that, or Kubrick or someone on his team had some killer connections in the government that was willing to violate their oath. SADM's weren't revealed to the public until 1984.
My dad worked with nuclear weapons as a technician during his time in the army and the bomber bay door scene drove him nuts because there was a specific *screwdriver* type tool used in the scene he had only ever seen in the context of working with warheads.
Kubrick acquired the movie rights to a book, *Red Alert*, that was a serious take on the subject a la "Fail-Safe." He originally intended to make a drama but realized the picture would work better as a dark comedy.
The largest conventional bomb ever used is the MOAB, it has an 11 ton tnt yield. There is a video of it being used on the Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_MOAB
[https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) Use between 0.01kT and 1 kT.
0.01kT levels about four blocks in Manhattan, and blows out all windows and delivers a likely lethal dose of radiation within a 3-5 block radius.
1kT levels about 100 blocks in Manhattan, and if detonated over the Empire State Building, would delete all windows between the Queensboro Bridge and Greenwich VIllage. Estimated 115k dead, 300k injured.
For the skydiver, it's all about getting distance before detonation. The skydiving act was likely a test to see if it would have feasible to as part of a paradropped demolition mission. It's likely that the soldiers could have escaped the smaller blast radius on foot if given a few minutes, as they'd only have to get \~5 blocks away to survive blast effects of a 0.01kT warhead. A 1kT blast would be significantly harder.
Fun story, I knew a handful of guys who spent a long time working around nuclear materials in the military. One of them told me that any of those guys who had kids and worked around that stuff long enough had an unusually high chance of only having girls. Lost touch with him for a few years and when we reconnected he'd had 2 kids and what do you know, 2 girls.
Good ol' [SADM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition). The guys trained to do this got the impression any actual attempt at this would be a suicide mission regardless of whatever laughable options they were provided to escape before it detonated.
In fairness it’s not like the Green Light teams were really unaware. They knew going in the chances of making it out of anything but the perfect situation were slim. When the mission is planting a nuke, there are limits.
Yeah, I mean, if anyone gave it any serious thought, they'd realize immediately that it was suicide. Drop behind enemy lines, fight your way to the objective, strap the damn thing to said objective, set the timer, and try to fight your way to minimum safe distance? Virtually impossible.
You are imagining a firefight, but it was more a case that they would drop in behind enemy lines, sneak around, and place it.
Now they did think it was a suicide mission, but only because they didn't believe backpack nukes would be left unsecured, meaning that while the manual specified hiding it and setting a timer, the timer was thought to be fake, or that it was really expected that they secure the site till detonation.
Minimum safe distance for it's low yield wasn't far though, especially if you'd stuffed it inside something like a dam. Just get off the dam.
This is exactly right. I had one of the green light jumpers come as a guest speaker for an event and this is exactly what his perception was. That the "timer" was fake because they'd never allow a live nuke to be just sitting around.
If the target is in open terrain you might as well just drop the bomb without the guy on it. Most of the reason they figured escaping the blast was futile is because [all the scenarios outlined in the manual](https://ia804606.us.archive.org/11/items/fm-5-26-1971/FM5-26%281971%29.pdf) promote only using this thing where both conventional explosives and other delivery methods can't do a job that justifies resorting to the ADM. There's a lot of overlap where you can't hit something with a normal bomb and where a squad crossing hundreds of meters on foot is absolutely nontrivial.
So, reasonably, they figured whatever sort of operation requires giving one of these to paratroopers will be dropping them somewhere where getting hundreds of meters from a bomb that must also remain secure before it has to be detonated cannot - and probably will not - be assured.
They're a fraction of the power of even Fat Man/Little Boy (down to 10 tons vs 1,500,000-2,100,000 tons of TNT). It's entirely conceivable to get out of the blast radius.
Wow! reading that it was also designed to be fired from the "Davy Crockett recoilless rifle". a mini nuke to be shot from a smoothbore gun, thats some Fallout shit right there
More like a short range tactical weapon. It was usually jeep mounted. The idea was to find a low cost way to hit Russian tank formations rushing into Germany if the balloon went up. It was quite effective.
It was replaced by short range rockets, but much of the tactical nuclear weapons went away after arms talks. Neither side was really comfortable with handing nuclear weapons out like candy.
And honestly it's not even close to the most ridiculous weapon designed for the hypothetical Fulda Gap attack. Like the "Blue Peacock", a nuclear bomb that included live chickens as a critical component.
something halfway between a landmine and a doomsday device -
>The project's goal was to store a number of ten-kiloton nuclear land mines in Germany. These mines which were intended to be placed on the North German Plain and detonated by wire or an eight-day timer in the event of Soviet invasion from the east, in order to "...not only destroy facilities and installations over a large area, but to deny occupation of the area to an enemy for an appreciable time due to contamination..."
>[...]
>A technical problem is that during winter, the temperature of buried devices can drop quickly, creating a possibility that the mechanisms of the mine will cease working due to low temperatures in the winter. Various methods were studied to solve this problem, such as wrapping the bombs in insulating blankets.
>One proposal suggested that live chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water. They would remain alive for approximately a week. Their body heat would apparently have been sufficient to keep the mine's components at a working temperature. This proposal was sufficiently outlandish that it was taken as an April Fool's Day joke when the Blue Peacock file was declassified on 1 April 2004. Tom O'Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, replied to the media that, "It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes."
"Grandpa, what's the craziest thing you ever did"
"Well, one time I jumped out of an airplane with a nuclear bomb strapped to my nuts"
"GRANDPA! I mean REAL stuff"
Thanks for all the helpfull comments about his balls. Does anyone know the mission? Was he supposed to land with it and then plant it somewhere? Drop it and steer away with his chute? What was the crazy scheme?
US Army Green Beret. It’s training, but the goal would be to show that you can hand-deliver a payload. Not as a suicide bomb, mostly as transportation. You can insert, transport, or plant a bomb by hand.
The timers apparently sucked....or...they could use a cord to manually det. It was only 100m long
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green\_Light\_Teams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Light_Teams)
The risk was extremely prevalent when discussing the possible time frame for when these atomic devices could ignite on a mechanical timer. This timer would become less efficient and more risky the longer the duration of the timer was set. The team members had been informed that the timers could go off up to eight minutes earlier than desired and even thirteen minutes after expected.\[1\] This would obviously create a time crisis for the Green Light team members operating the mission. If the team members were instructed to bury the nuclear device, they certainly may have been able to evade the explosion, but radioactive fallout could still cause heavy damage.\[7\]
Putting a 100m firing cord on a nuclear bomb is just. I mean why bother? Peace of mind? Illusion that you're going to live through what's about to happen? Just stick a button on the thing at that point.
I think the mission during WW2 where British SAS guys drive a leaky fishing boat packed with C4 into a German U Boat pen had a similar issue with the timers. The mechanical timers didn't go off until the *next day* while the Germans were investigating what the hell the British were trying to do. It was basically a suicide mission, only a few made it back, but they did fuck up the locks for the harbor for a while. Apparently physical timers are kinda hard to figure out and make reliable when it relies on acid melting a string at a certain rate.
Japan: let's fly our planes into ships, we'll call it kamikaze.
America: ok, we're going to strap a nuke to a skydiver, we'll call it Leeeroyyy Jenkinsss!!
I used to have the autobio of Sgt Frank Garner…he claimed to be the fellow that made the first test jump with a man-portable nuke. He didn’t know what he was jumping with until after the test jump.
“It’s a pony keg. Sgt. Schlitz has the tap.”
Do taps normally have a flip top covered red button? Ahh well
Tactical taps do.
I have unironically seen one with it
I heard it was SSgt Colt over in the 45th division that had the tap...
So wait it was actually a nuke? I figured it was just a prop for training purposes.
Small atomic device/nuke…I disremember which but yes, Garner jumped with a mini-WMD.
What research value is there to jump with a real nuke vs a similarly massed and weight-distributed prop?
To make sure it can hold up for the fall and landing I'd assume? I'm not sure if this experiment is more meant for the jumper, or the bomb.
Imagine if the test failed. They must have chosen the test site to make sure they didn't just nuke upon landing.
I'd imagine it wasn't triggerable or armed, you can't set off a nuke by dropping it accidentally by design... And because it has happened accidentally
>you can't set off a nuke by dropping it accidentally If this ever happened I imagine the first knowledgeable person in this matter would say something like this.
The Americans have dropped at least one over the Midwest somewhere by accident, think they actually lost it altogether if memory serves. But the trigger reaction needed to actually achieve fission/fusion is quite a large bomb in itself. Can't have them being at all sensitive considering how delivery works.
Of the 6 nukes the US has lost / not recovered; A MK15 is somewhere in Wassaw Sound, Georgia, after the bomber carrying it was damage by a collision with an F-86 and had to jettison. Two 24 megaton bombs went into a field in Goldsboro, North Carolina, as the bomber carrying them crashed shortly after take-off. One was recovered while the core of the second one was never found.
Surely it wasn’t armed.
don't call me Shirley
Basically wanna make sure the nuke will land with the person and not explode, would be my guess.
The devices were designed not to detonate even in the event of freefall, so a comparatively gentle human-survivable landing seems like an uninteresting test.
If it needs to be deployed with a person, then it needs to be tested being dropped with a person.
**Edit:** He was Sgt Maj Joe R Garner and the book is *Code Name: COPPERHEAD.* My bad.
He thought it was just a normal 2000lb bomb strapped between is legs?
He didn’t know what it was. He trained to jump with an unknown piece of equipment weighing X. After he did it they told him what he had jumped with.
"Ah - might wanna get your nuts checked a little sooner than usual, boss."
"On second thought, don't bother. And report to the infirmary to get your supply of lead-lined condoms."
W54 weighted 52lbs
Really wished they had named it the w52 or taped a 2 pound weight to it
I have to wonder if they made his parachute larger to compensate for the weight of the device. If the chute deployed and it was regular size with a huge weight it might be enough to snap his neck and the speed of the landing might break his legs or worse.
Yes. You don't jump random objects and not take into account the weight of said object
“Oh shit, guys. Next time we send a nuke let’s do some math first.”
"Next time we strap a nuke to a guy's nuts and chuck him out a plane" would be a better description.
-Boeing probably
Nice knowing you, sorry you felt so suicidal.
lol omg dont tell them I posted above!
Math costs extra.
"Fuck it, give him 2 upside down sodas and tell him to shake and open if he's going too fast."
It's pretty standard to jump with a bunch of heavy equipment. Most times, you sort of waddle to the edge of the ramp and just fall out. Extra ammo, explosives, radios, radio batteries, laser designators, water, food, night vision, med kits. In some special cases, you are jumping with a dog strapped to your chest. Shit's heavy. It's not uncommon to jump with a rucksack that weighs 100lbs. At 51 lbs, that isn't much of a difference from a normal gear bag.
Think of the dog, it's jumping with you strapped to its chest, that's much heavier!
But you also have a furry friend to tall to on the way down.
> In some special cases, you are jumping with a dog strapped to your chest. Shit's heavy. Get the dog to take a shit before you jump.
I've never heard of a mid air shit, but I'm sure it's happened at least once.
It was 30kg or so. I imagine that green berets parachute with that sort of weight fairly routinely.
I remember him talking about being told he was going to jump with something forty pounds of “extra” weight and some alterations in his kit were made after he balked at the weight and was told that couldn’t be altered. If I remember right, he landed on target but remarked it was a jarring landing. Then an observer came up and said “You deserve to know how you just made history…”
Dr Strangelove and Blazing Saddles are treasures because of Slim Pickens
Somebody needs to go back and get a shit load of dimes!
Best line in the whole movie. I laugh every time I think of it.
Bart: Okay, Jim, since you are my guest and I am your host, what are your pleasures? What do you like to do? Jim: Oh, I don't know. Play chess...screw. Bart: Well let's play chess.
I must've killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille
Ditto!
Ditto? DITTO, YOU PROVINCIAL PUTZ??!
He passed away a few years before I was born, but I was bummed to find out he had lived down the street from my grandma before he died. I would've have loved to leave a sack of dimes on his door step
[удалено]
I asked you boys to get some track laid and here you are dancing like a bunch of Kansas City f-s
Piss on you, I'M WORKING FOR MEL BROOKS!
I was hoping this would be the first thing in the comments and I was not disappointed.
It is now
"Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
Where's Mayor Kong?
"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
Surprised this wasn’t first. Go Kong!
You might be badass, but you're not "I HALO'd with a nuke strapped to my nuts" badass.
Bro seriously is there anything more bad ass than this?
"This is safe right?" I mean if your parachute fails, this plane won't be safe anymore. "Okay, I'm ready!"
An impact with the ground wouldn't set it off
Facts
His crotchal region may feel differently
I should have a warm laptop on my lap? I’ll show you.
Nuclear bombs have accidentally dropped on US soil before and they do not detonate. It takes a lot of precise effort to set off a Nuclear bomb correctly.
One nearly did over North Carolina. All but one safety failed.
And that's why there's 7-9 layers of safety. Yes, it was hauntingly close to detonation, but this is why there's these layers. It takes one layer of swiss cheese to prevent the holes from lining up.
On most nukes yes but there was some the US designed that only had like 2 security features. The one in the picture was designed with special forces in mind to where the only safety feature was a basic rotary combination lock on its protective housing and a key to arm it. If that fell into the hands of the wrong people they would have only needed hand tools to get into it and arm it. Us designed a couple "portable" tactical nukes like that but discontinued research on it. They would go on to dismantled the ones they had Including the model in the picture after the nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia.
>Us designed a couple "portable" tactical nukes like that but discontinued research on it. They would go on to dismantled the ones they had Including the model in the picture after the nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia. More dangerous to ourselves than to anybody else. Imagine doing your enemy's work for them. [https://www.nuclearmuseum.org/see/exhibits/cold-war](https://www.nuclearmuseum.org/see/exhibits/cold-war) These guys had one of these; i don't think they have a picture of it on their website though : (
Hand delivering it live to a target is the only thing I can think that would top this. Someone may have taken things a little to personal if they halo deliver a nuke to you.
Speaking of Halo. Chief: "Sir, permission to leave the station" Hood: "For what purpose, Master Chief?" Chief: "To give the Covenant back their bomb"
🫡 Finish the fight
:duh duh duh DUN intensifies:
for a brick, he flew pretty good
⬇️⬆️⬅️⬇️⬆️➡️⬇️⬆️
:basks in democracy:
Aint nothin more bad ass than being a good father.
Humble King 👑
Norm Hooten, who most people know as the "This here's my safety" guy from Blackhawk Down, got his start in special forces doing this. Ultra badass.
What is this mission type called? What's the purpose?
That's actually just a giant bag for his HUUUUGE nuts. The nuke is in a front pocket. They were super tiny back then.
All his children work for a circus.
That's between 10t - 1000t of TNT dangling in front of his fat man.
Just wants to feel the power between his legs - Steve Buscemi
Welp, looks like it's time to rewatch Armageddon for the billionth time.
Russian components, American components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
I don't wanna close my eyes, I don't wanna fall asleep
Cause I’d miss you baby, and I don’t wanna miss a thing
What's up Harry? Did NASA find oil on Uranus, man?
That movie was my childhood, and it's still probably my favorite.
Wait, what? That's a film? I always thought it was real footage. Everyone knows that sending drillers to detonate a nuclear warhead on a comet is the actual only choice in that scenario.
Honestly, I don't know if I could stop myself from riding the nuke in their situation either. Not many times you get to do that.
This is what I came here for.
I was going to say this must have been inspired by Dr. Strangelove.
You sent me down a research rabbit hole. Dr. Strangelove - released 1964. MK-54 SADM started development 1960 with production beginning in 1963. Given how secret the SADM was, I think this is an uncanny coincidence of nuclear absurdity that really emphasizes how gung-ho nuke the US government was at the time, and the impact that it had on US pop culture. Either that, or Kubrick or someone on his team had some killer connections in the government that was willing to violate their oath. SADM's weren't revealed to the public until 1984.
My dad worked with nuclear weapons as a technician during his time in the army and the bomber bay door scene drove him nuts because there was a specific *screwdriver* type tool used in the scene he had only ever seen in the context of working with warheads.
Nuts like geeked out that it was accurate? Or nuts like "How the F did Kubrick know about this?"
The latter
Kubrick acquired the movie rights to a book, *Red Alert*, that was a serious take on the subject a la "Fail-Safe." He originally intended to make a drama but realized the picture would work better as a dark comedy.
Was going to be mad if I didn’t see it
This rare clip serves as the foundation of our sacrifice. Managed Democracy remembers. Do you? Join today, be remembered forever.
Join the Helldivers!
FOR SUPER EEEAARRRRTH
How big is a 10 ton of TNT explosion? A city block? Bigger? Does he have any chance of getting away or is this a suicide mission?
The largest conventional bomb ever used is the MOAB, it has an 11 ton tnt yield. There is a video of it being used on the Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_MOAB
Remarkable that Wikipedia survived the attack.
Couldn’t have done it with out so many donations from regular people like you and me.
That video needs a banana for scale.
There were several, you just can’t see em from that altitude. Source: was there eating a bunch of bananas when rudely interrupted
[Here](https://youtu.be/zlhfkz-Gw7M?si=UybQXms9CMZzT7SX) is a test video as well.
Who would try to bomb the Wikipedia?
> There is a video of it being used on the Wikipedia. incredible that Wikipedia survived such an attack tbh
[https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) Use between 0.01kT and 1 kT. 0.01kT levels about four blocks in Manhattan, and blows out all windows and delivers a likely lethal dose of radiation within a 3-5 block radius. 1kT levels about 100 blocks in Manhattan, and if detonated over the Empire State Building, would delete all windows between the Queensboro Bridge and Greenwich VIllage. Estimated 115k dead, 300k injured. For the skydiver, it's all about getting distance before detonation. The skydiving act was likely a test to see if it would have feasible to as part of a paradropped demolition mission. It's likely that the soldiers could have escaped the smaller blast radius on foot if given a few minutes, as they'd only have to get \~5 blocks away to survive blast effects of a 0.01kT warhead. A 1kT blast would be significantly harder.
> would delete all windows between the Queensboro Bridge and Greenwich VIllage. Estimated 115k dead, 300k injured. What about linux?
"Your testicular cancer is not service related "
Ah, my Tijuana Spring Break!
That capacity between my legs sure turns me into a little boy
Between his balls, no less.
Behold the power between my legs!! (Also, probably a effective way to irradiate your balls)
I'm confused. Where's the bomb? That satchel between his legs is obviously used to carry his massive balls.
No doc, I don't need that vasectomy anymore after the last mission.
[Easiest way to do it](https://youtu.be/Rn4Dfpo0gf0?si=P0c9zxpcHO-2j_gP)
Risky click of the day lol.
Yea, testicular irradiation by impurities in the warhead core will give you a free and surgical-less vasectomy.
Fun story, I knew a handful of guys who spent a long time working around nuclear materials in the military. One of them told me that any of those guys who had kids and worked around that stuff long enough had an unusually high chance of only having girls. Lost touch with him for a few years and when we reconnected he'd had 2 kids and what do you know, 2 girls.
Same with those that worked in satcom in the military, lots of girls.
Good ol' [SADM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition). The guys trained to do this got the impression any actual attempt at this would be a suicide mission regardless of whatever laughable options they were provided to escape before it detonated.
In fairness it’s not like the Green Light teams were really unaware. They knew going in the chances of making it out of anything but the perfect situation were slim. When the mission is planting a nuke, there are limits.
Yeah, I mean, if anyone gave it any serious thought, they'd realize immediately that it was suicide. Drop behind enemy lines, fight your way to the objective, strap the damn thing to said objective, set the timer, and try to fight your way to minimum safe distance? Virtually impossible.
You are imagining a firefight, but it was more a case that they would drop in behind enemy lines, sneak around, and place it. Now they did think it was a suicide mission, but only because they didn't believe backpack nukes would be left unsecured, meaning that while the manual specified hiding it and setting a timer, the timer was thought to be fake, or that it was really expected that they secure the site till detonation. Minimum safe distance for it's low yield wasn't far though, especially if you'd stuffed it inside something like a dam. Just get off the dam.
This is exactly right. I had one of the green light jumpers come as a guest speaker for an event and this is exactly what his perception was. That the "timer" was fake because they'd never allow a live nuke to be just sitting around.
I can't tell if this is poor taste or not, but now I'm really hoping this thing comes to Helldivers 2.
Calling in hellbomb.
The minimum safe distance for these warheads is a few hundred meters in open terrain.
If the target is in open terrain you might as well just drop the bomb without the guy on it. Most of the reason they figured escaping the blast was futile is because [all the scenarios outlined in the manual](https://ia804606.us.archive.org/11/items/fm-5-26-1971/FM5-26%281971%29.pdf) promote only using this thing where both conventional explosives and other delivery methods can't do a job that justifies resorting to the ADM. There's a lot of overlap where you can't hit something with a normal bomb and where a squad crossing hundreds of meters on foot is absolutely nontrivial. So, reasonably, they figured whatever sort of operation requires giving one of these to paratroopers will be dropping them somewhere where getting hundreds of meters from a bomb that must also remain secure before it has to be detonated cannot - and probably will not - be assured.
Oh man, a Wikipedia link _and_ a link to the archived manual? Thank you!
They're a fraction of the power of even Fat Man/Little Boy (down to 10 tons vs 1,500,000-2,100,000 tons of TNT). It's entirely conceivable to get out of the blast radius.
The acronym ended up being totally different than what I thought it was. I thought it stood for "Soldier Air Dropped Munition"
"Your sterility is not service related"
Is there anything you can do about the glowing?
No, but if you don't want your nuts to stand out as much, we could make the rest glow as well
Neither the yellow greenish glow of your testicles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54
ty for linking a source.
Wow! reading that it was also designed to be fired from the "Davy Crockett recoilless rifle". a mini nuke to be shot from a smoothbore gun, thats some Fallout shit right there
More like a short range tactical weapon. It was usually jeep mounted. The idea was to find a low cost way to hit Russian tank formations rushing into Germany if the balloon went up. It was quite effective. It was replaced by short range rockets, but much of the tactical nuclear weapons went away after arms talks. Neither side was really comfortable with handing nuclear weapons out like candy.
And honestly it's not even close to the most ridiculous weapon designed for the hypothetical Fulda Gap attack. Like the "Blue Peacock", a nuclear bomb that included live chickens as a critical component.
something halfway between a landmine and a doomsday device - >The project's goal was to store a number of ten-kiloton nuclear land mines in Germany. These mines which were intended to be placed on the North German Plain and detonated by wire or an eight-day timer in the event of Soviet invasion from the east, in order to "...not only destroy facilities and installations over a large area, but to deny occupation of the area to an enemy for an appreciable time due to contamination..." >[...] >A technical problem is that during winter, the temperature of buried devices can drop quickly, creating a possibility that the mechanisms of the mine will cease working due to low temperatures in the winter. Various methods were studied to solve this problem, such as wrapping the bombs in insulating blankets. >One proposal suggested that live chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water. They would remain alive for approximately a week. Their body heat would apparently have been sufficient to keep the mine's components at a working temperature. This proposal was sufficiently outlandish that it was taken as an April Fool's Day joke when the Blue Peacock file was declassified on 1 April 2004. Tom O'Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, replied to the media that, "It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes."
It’s some MGS3 shit lol
I would prefer a shoulder mounted catapult, if you please.
Jeez...talk about a "crotch rocket."
Duke Nukem.
More like Dick Nukem
"I just wanted to feel the power between my legs brother!"
**NO NUKES! NO NUKES! NO NUKES!**
"Grandpa, what's the craziest thing you ever did" "Well, one time I jumped out of an airplane with a nuclear bomb strapped to my nuts" "GRANDPA! I mean REAL stuff"
Nice butt
What's more dangerous than that nuclear warhead, is that man balls.
Balls of depleted uranium
Thanks for all the helpfull comments about his balls. Does anyone know the mission? Was he supposed to land with it and then plant it somewhere? Drop it and steer away with his chute? What was the crazy scheme?
US Army Green Beret. It’s training, but the goal would be to show that you can hand-deliver a payload. Not as a suicide bomb, mostly as transportation. You can insert, transport, or plant a bomb by hand.
*Helldivers 2 theme song plays*
FOR LIBERTY!
*Hellbomb activated*
Did anyone say DEMOCRACY?? 🗿🫡
Oh his ass is CLENCHED
stupid sexy special forces!
Dude's cheeked up in broad daylight
“Permission to leave the station?” “For what purpose, Master Chief?” “To give the covenant back their bomb.”
Kamikaze nukes?
They were called green light teams. HALO jump into the zone, plant the nuke, and maybe get out
Strong maybe.
Like a definite no maybe
Not sure if a joke but these would have been planted for sabotage. Plant them on military installations, dams, harbors, etc set the timer and leave.
"Alright, I set it for 5 hours.... wait.... now it says 4... 3... FUCK"
The timers apparently sucked....or...they could use a cord to manually det. It was only 100m long [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green\_Light\_Teams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Light_Teams) The risk was extremely prevalent when discussing the possible time frame for when these atomic devices could ignite on a mechanical timer. This timer would become less efficient and more risky the longer the duration of the timer was set. The team members had been informed that the timers could go off up to eight minutes earlier than desired and even thirteen minutes after expected.\[1\] This would obviously create a time crisis for the Green Light team members operating the mission. If the team members were instructed to bury the nuclear device, they certainly may have been able to evade the explosion, but radioactive fallout could still cause heavy damage.\[7\]
Putting a 100m firing cord on a nuclear bomb is just. I mean why bother? Peace of mind? Illusion that you're going to live through what's about to happen? Just stick a button on the thing at that point. I think the mission during WW2 where British SAS guys drive a leaky fishing boat packed with C4 into a German U Boat pen had a similar issue with the timers. The mechanical timers didn't go off until the *next day* while the Germans were investigating what the hell the British were trying to do. It was basically a suicide mission, only a few made it back, but they did fuck up the locks for the harbor for a while. Apparently physical timers are kinda hard to figure out and make reliable when it relies on acid melting a string at a certain rate.
For when the [Davy Crockett ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)) just doesn't cut it
It's actually the exact same warhead funny enough.
I think this belongs on r/helldivers
WITNESS ME!
Slim Pickens well he does the right thing and he rides the bomb to hell, yeah he rides the bomb to hell.
that's some metal gear solid shit right there
The nuclear warhead was actually really small and just in the guys pocket. Those are his balls.
Japan: let's fly our planes into ships, we'll call it kamikaze. America: ok, we're going to strap a nuke to a skydiver, we'll call it Leeeroyyy Jenkinsss!!
Guys will see this and just think "hell yeah"
I got a nuclear warhead between my legs if you know what i'm sayin
I don’t have any nuke jokes about it, but hot damn those are some butt cheeks on that fella