Questions tagged [nuclear-weapons]
Questions about the history of nuclear weapons.
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How much did the production of the Tsar Bomba cost to the Soviets?
The Tsar Bomba, also known as the "King of Bombs," was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Developed and tested by the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, this ...
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Why are the Russian Federation's Strategic Rocket Forces and the 12th Chief Directorate separate?
It seems that:
the Strategic Rocket Forces (РВСН РФ) is the branch of the Russian Armed Forces (ВС РФ) tasked with the employment of nuclear weapons.
the 12th Chief Directorate of the Ministry of ...
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Why did the United States drop a uranium bomb instead of a plutonium bomb on Hiroshima?
Why did the United States choose to use an untested uranium-fueled (Little Boy) bomb at Hiroshima instead of a plutonium-fueled (Fat Man) bomb, which had been successfully tested at Trinity? Surely ...
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Is the assertion that the A-bomb deterred Stalin plausible? [closed]
An answer on Quora asserted that if the USA had not dropped the a-bomb on Japan that Stalin would've invaded France and not stopped to meet the rest of the allies in Germany?
Is there any evidence to ...
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What were Russia and the US were planning to do if Ukraine refused to give up their nuclear arsenal?
In 1994, Ukraine famously gave up their nuclear arsenal in exchange for the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. But is it known if Russia or the US had any backup plans in case Ukraine stood ...
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What was the ethnic identity of first class sergeant Patrick Joseph Cleary?
Recently, I saw this video concerning two Los Alamos criticality accidents, which took place in 1945 and in 1946. The second accident took place on May 21, 1946. There were eight persons in the room ...
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How did the Soviet Union support the development of their atomic bomb in 1949?
The Manhattan Project cost the United States a reported $2 billion. The Soviet Union managed to come up with an A-bomb four years later, even though their economy was about one third the size of ...
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Was the danger of radiation in the case of nuclear war overestimated during the cold war?
This article tells about signal "Atom" and its intended effect on Moscow metro:
All trains stop, escalators automatically start move downwards.
After 15 min, all hermetic gates on metro ...
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How much did J. Robert Oppenheimer get paid while overseeing the Manhattan Project?
I am curious to determine how much J. Robert Oppenheimer got paid in today's dollars when he was the head of Los Alamos National Laboratory?
Do we have any HR or accounting documents of the Los Alamos ...
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Would Stalin have dropped the nuclear bomb on Germany in 1945, if he had it then? [closed]
In an interview on RT Putin said, "I really doubt that Stalin,
in the Spring of 1945, if he had a nuclear bomb, I doubt that he would have
dropped it on Germany. In 1941 or 1942, when it was a ...
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Did the US really consider demonstrating the atomic bomb to the Japanese by "blowing the top" off of Mt. Fuji?
In reading this Washington Post article titled Five myths about the atomic bomb, it's mentioned:
The decision to use nuclear weapons is usually presented as either/or: either drop the bomb or land on ...
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Why did the Soviet Union take the risk of deploying missiles to Cuba, which precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis? [closed]
During the Cuban Missile Crisis both sides risked further escalation into a WW3. However, under MAD, Wikipedia says:
By the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, both the United States
and the ...
user26470
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Why did the USA ever test nukes on their own soil? [closed]
I've recently read about these atom bomb tests that frequently occurred semi-near Las Vegas, which people flocked to. Even if they didn't understand the risks at the time, isn't it a serious problem ...
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When did the United States ratify the Non-Proliferation Treaty? [closed]
According to Wikipedia the United States are a signatory state of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was signed on 1968-07-01 and came into effect on 1970-03-05. But when did the USA ratify it?
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Historically, why did the US station their nuclear weapons in Germany for delivery through German pilots?
Recently, somewhat controversially, Germany considers ordering 45 F-18 fighter jets for replacement of the old Tornado bombers, in order to still have jets capable of delivering US nuclear bombs.
How ...
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Did the leaflets from the US to Hiroshima/Nagasaki civilians on bombing cities reduce the civilian casualties of the two nuclear bombs in August 1945?
I read on Wikipedia
Various leaflets were dropped on Japan, three versions showing the names of 11 or 12 Japanese cities targeted for destruction by firebombing. The other side contained text stating ...
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Did the Japenese consider the atomic bomb no worse than any other bomb? [duplicate]
I read another article asserting that the US needlessly dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, but this one had a different spin: the Soviets had already defeated the Japanese. It basically lays out the ...
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Were Soviets invited to the Marshall Islands to observe the first hydrogen bomb detonations?
In 1952, did the US invite, or consider inviting, Russian scientist to observe the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb? These were above-ground tests far away from Russian in the Marshall Islands, ...
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How long did it take for Japanese high command to believe 1 bomb could destroy a city? [closed]
In 1776, had a man walked into the Continental Congress and told the Founding Fathers that the city of Boston seemed to be "gone". A few days prior, as he approached Boston, in the distance he'd seen ...
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What was the purpose of each project site during the Manhattan Project?
I'm looking for an answer as to what the purpose of each project site was during the Manhattan Project. The following image illustrates (but only includes some of the sites) where each site was ...
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How much support did America give to the scientists working on the Manhattan Project?
How much support did America give to the scientists working on the Manhattan Project, be it financial or otherwise?
Did physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who headed the project to develop the atomic ...
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How important were Einstein and Szilard and other scientists to the creation and ultimate success of the Manhattan Project?
How important was Einstein and Szilard and other scientists to the creation and ultimate success of the Manhattan Project?
I understand that the Einstein-Szilard letter to President Roosevelt ...
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What was the Soviet plan to respond to a nuclear first strike post WW 2?
I'm interested in the period between the war ending and the Soviets making their own bomb. Did they have a plan? Were they expecting a first strike?
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Where was Carl Sagan working on a plan to detonate a nuke on the Moon? Where was he applying when he leaked it?
At 18:49 in Scott Manley's video The Craziest Things You Can Do With Nuclear Weapons he says:
This was an idea to… it was a number of ideas; they thought it could raise morale with the US. The idea ...
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When did the US invite Iraqi scientists to study nuclear technology/science?
From an interview with Noam Chomsky in September, 2015: "President Bush I, the statesman Bush, even invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the U.S. for advanced training in weapons production, an ...
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Why did the United States not resort to nuclear weapons in Vietnam?
Before getting into this note that I am NOT saying this would have been a good idea, nor am I advocating this as being a correct approach, not at all, it would surely have been horrific and very hard ...
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What happened to all the nuclear material being smuggled after the fall of the USSR?
I'm currently on my lunch break and deep in the Wikipedia hole which brought me to this article that details thwarted nuclear smuggling incidents in 1993/6. Many of the incidents involve elements that ...
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Where did one-in-a-million chance of nuking the atmosphere come from?
There's a well-known story that, while developing the atom bomb, the scientists at Los Alamos determined that there was a one-in-a-million chance that setting off the bomb would cause the atmosphere ...
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What was the plan for an abort of the Enola Gay's mission to drop the atomic bomb?
Following up on this answer...
@mark, in the answer, writes that "[i]n the event that the crew of Enola Gay had to abort their mission, they had no intention of trying to land with the bomb still ...
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Was there a contingency plan in place if Little Boy failed to detonate?
It's August 6th, 1945. The first atomic bomb ever dropped hurtles to the ground. Its fuse fails and with a thunk it buries itself in the ground. The Enola Gay flies home, its crew worried they did ...
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Public knowledge of hypothetical nuclear weapons before Hiroshima?
The following is an account of an impromptu conversation aboard the Enola Gay while in flight toward Hiroshima. According to Rhodes, The making of the atomic bomb, p. 707, the pilot, Colonel Paul ...
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Did Soviet Union really consider using atomic bomb against US aircraft battlegroup?
In this video youtube narrator says that:
"During Cold War Soviet Union considered American battle-group such a dire threat that they predicted the only way to defend against them would be by use ...
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Why aren't ICBMs (and missiles in general) built using stealth technology?
I read this question and was struck by something "obvious": why are not ICBMs built using "stealth" technology? A rocket, basically a pipe, must be much easier to "stealthify" than a irregular vessels ...
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Why did many scientists spy for the Soviet Union and contribute to their atomic program?
I want to understand why some scientists collaborated with the Soviet Union and its atomic program during and after the WWII. What I want to know is if there were some specific characteristics or ...
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Why did the movement that initiated the Stockholm appeal never condemned Soviet atomic experiments?
The Mouvement mondial des partisans de la paix, or Comité permanent mondial des intellectuels pour la paix according to Touchard in Le Siècle des Excès, stood for "the absolute prohibition of atomic ...
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Could the nukes involved in the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash have detonated?
According to Wikipedia on the 1966 Palomares B-52 Crash:
The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land ...
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How did the US plan to use nuclear shells for naval guns?
Acoodring to wikipedia:
The W19 nuclear system was adapted into a nuclear artillery shell for the US Navy 16 inches (410 mm) battleship guns, the W23. Production of the W23 began in 1956 and they ...
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Why did the Soviet Union name their strongest bomb Tsar Bomba?
The Soviet Union has/had the most powerful (Hydrogen) Bomb ever, the Tsar Bomb.
Why did they name it Tsar Bomb, when they had freed themself from the Tsars before, and even executed Tsar Nicholas II?
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Did the Allies' attacks on Germany's heavy water supply lead to any reevaluation of its nuclear goals?
It is well-known that throughout much of WWII the Allies made persistent attacks on Norsk Hydro's Vermork heavy-water plant, and on the transportation of heavy water from there, up until the point ...
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1985 magazine cover about Strategic Defense Initiative - Who is Darth Vader?
Here is a the cover of the French magazine "Science&Vie", dated February 1985.
The lead article, "La Paix des Étoiles" (Star Peace) is obviously about the Strategic Defense Initiative. February ...
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What were the plans to use the atomic bomb if it had been in time for the war in Europe?
The United States, Britain and Germany started to research of the atomic bomb at the beginning of World War II. When Americans got it, the war in Europe was over and the bomb was only used against ...
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Was there an official name for the bomb detonated in the Manhattan Project [closed]
In 1939 the Manhattan Project was started. The Manhattan project eventually gave us the precedents to the incredible and terrifying weapon known commonly as "a nuke" or "a nuclear bomb"
During the ...
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Were there films or literature that lampooned Mutual Assured Destruction made by non-Americans?
Dr. Strangelove is a 1964 film by American director Stanley Kubrick that lampooned Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
In the 1960's was this film a phenomenon singular to America, or were there ...
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Did Truman really believe that Hiroshima was a military base?
Harry Truman claimed, in his July 25, 1945 diary entry, that:
I have told [Stimson] to use [the first nuclear bomb] so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women ...
user2848
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Who made these comments relating to the use of the atomic bomb?
I recall that someone, possibly in Truman's cabinet, noticed that many of Truman's advisers had visible injuries from long-ago fights. This individual commented that their rough upbringing including ...
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Why is the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima so much more infamous than that of Nagasaki? [closed]
I am not American, so this might just be something in my country, but growing up everyone knew about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. However, when we began studying this in high school everyone was ...
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Unknown Symbol on an Atomic Bomb [closed]
A 1997 czech movie Knoflíkáři depicts a "Fat Man" atomic bomb that should have been dropped on Kokura town, but the target has been changed to Nagasaki for a bad weather conditions (which is ...
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RAF Vulcan nuclear missions - returning to base planning
Having seen several documentaries and interviews with Vulcan crew & pilots regarding their nuclear flight plans and proposed missions, there's a reticence to discuss the post-mission plan.
It's ...
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Why were there no nuclear detonations in 1959?
According to this visualization there were no nuclear detonations in 1959, and only 3 by France in 1960. Why were there no nuclear detonations by the USA or USSR in 1959 and 1960 but over 50 in each ...
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Why was Hiroshima selected to be the city in Japan on which the first atom bomb was dropped? [closed]
What were the reasons that the U.S. government selected Hiroshima to be the city in Japan on which the first atomic bomb was dropped, other than the obvious reason that Hiroshima was a large, ...
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