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ivy King vs. w-78 - Comparison of sizes
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ivy King
w-78

Drop a bomb over your town - Bomb simulator

ivy King
w-78
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ivy King

ivy King
ivy King
Blast Radius Blast Radius1.730km
Fireball Radius Fireball Radius 0.950km
Kilotons Kilotons0.500kt
Radiation Radius Radiation Radius2.290km

Ivy King was the largest pure-fission nuclear bomb ever tested by the United States. The bomb was tested during the Truman administration as part of Operation Ivy. This series of tests involved the development of very powerful nuclear weapons in response to the nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union. The production of Ivy King was hurried to be ready in case its sister project, Ivy Mike, failed in its attempt to achieve a thermonuclear reaction. The Ivy King test actually took place two weeks after the Mike test. Unlike the Mike bomb, the Ivy King device could theoretically have been added to United States' nuclear arsenal, because it was designed to be air-deliverable. On November 16, 1952 at 11:30 local time (23:30 GMT) a B-36H bomber dropped the bomb over a point 2,000 feet (610 m) north of Runit Island in the Enewetak atoll, resulting in a 540 kiloton explosion at 1,480 feet (450 m). The tropopause height at the time of the detonation was about 58,000 feet (18 km). The top of the King cloud reached about 74,000 feet (23 km) with the mushroom base at about 40,000 feet (12 km).The Ivy King bomb, designated as a Mk-18 bomb and named the "Super Oralloy Bomb", was a modified version of the Mk-6D bomb.



Instead of using an implosion system similar to the Mk-6D, it used a 92-point implosion system initially developed for the Mk-13. Its uranium-plutonium core was replaced by 60 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fashioned into a thin-walled sphere equivalent to approximately four critical masses. The thin-walled sphere was a commonly used design, which ensured that the fissile material remained sub-critical until imploded. The HEU sphere was then enclosed in a natural-uranium neutron reflector. To physically prevent the HEU sphere collapsing into a critical condition if the surrounding explosives were detonated accidentally, or if the sphere was crushed following an aircraft accident, the hollow center was filled with a chain made from aluminum and boron, which was pulled out to arm the bomb. The boron-coated chain also absorbed the neutrons needed to drive the nuclear reaction.The primary designer of the Super Oralloy Bomb, physicist Ted Taylor, later became a vocal proponent of nuclear disarmament.

Source: Wikipedia
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w-78

w-78
w-78
Blast Radius Blast Radius4950km
Fireball Radius Fireball Radius 0.630km
Height Height21,3m
Kilotons Kilotons350kt
Radiation Radius Radiation Radiuskm

The W78 thermonuclear warhead is the warhead used on most of the United States LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), along with the MK-12A reentry vehicle which carried the warhead. Minuteman IIIs initially deployed with the older W62 warhead; the W78 was deployed starting in December 1979 onto 300 missiles, three warheads per missile. Declassified records indicate a total of 1,083 W78s were produced. The W78 was designed at Los Alamos National Laboratory starting in 1974.



The design is thought to combine the secondary (fusion) stage design of older ICBM warheads such as the W50 with a more modern primary stage (see Teller-Ulam design for more details). The W78 has a publicly announced yield of 335–350 kilotons of TNT (1.40–1.46 PJ).Dimensions of the W78 are unknown, but it fits within the MK-12A reentry vehicle, which is conically shaped, 21.3 inches in diameter at its base and 71.3 inches long. The W78 is estimated to weigh 700–800 pounds (317–363 kg).

Source: Wikipedia

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