The Mark III Fat Man was retired in 1950. A nuclear strike would have been a formidable undertaking in the post-war 1940s due to the limitations of the Mark III Fat Man.
The Fat Man was retired in 1950. ==Early decisions== Robert Oppenheimer held conferences in Chicago in June 1942, prior to the Army taking over wartime atomic research, and in Berkeley, California, in July, at which various engineers and physicists discussed nuclear bomb design issues.
Tolman suggested an implosion-type nuclear weapon, but the proposal attracted little interest. The feasibility of a plutonium bomb was questioned in 1942.
The committee concluded that any problems could be overcome simply by requiring higher purity. Oppenheimer reviewed his options in early 1943 and gave priority to the gun-type weapon, but he created the E-5 Group at the Los Alamos Laboratory under Seth Neddermeyer to investigate implosion as a hedge against the threat of pre-detonation.
Thompson was brought in as a consultant, and discussed the problem with Neddermeyer in June 1943.
Neddermeyer was the only person who believed that implosion was practical, and only his enthusiasm kept the project alive. Oppenheimer brought John von Neumann to Los Alamos in September 1943 to take a fresh look at implosion.
Kistiakowsky's name was immediately suggested, and Kistiakowsky was brought into the project as a consultant in October 1943. The implosion project remained a backup until April 1944, when experiments by Emilio G.
Kistiakowsky's name was immediately suggested, and Kistiakowsky was brought into the project as a consultant in October 1943. The implosion project remained a backup until April 1944, when experiments by Emilio G.
The only way to use plutonium in a workable bomb was therefore implosion. The impracticability of a gun-type bomb using plutonium was agreed at a meeting in Los Alamos on 17 July 1944.
Removing the bomb rails allowed a maximum width of . Drop tests began in March 1944, and resulted in modifications to the Silverplate aircraft due to the weight of the bomb.
This was superseded by the Y-1291 design in December 1944.
"Fat Man" is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945.
The final wartime Y-1561 design was assembled with just 90 bolts. On 16 July 1945, a Y-1561 model Fat Man, known as the Gadget, was detonated in a test explosion at a remote site in New Mexico, known as the "Trinity" test.
Ashworth from Project Alberta as the weaponeer in charge of the bomb. ===Bombing of Nagasaki=== Bockscar lifted off at 03:47 on the morning of 9 August 1945, with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki the secondary target.
In November 1945, the Army Air Forces asked Los Alamos for 200 Fat Man bombs, but there were only two sets of plutonium cores and high-explosive assemblies at the time.
Two more were detonated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, and some 120 were produced between 1947 and 1949, when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb.
The first was known as Gilda after Rita Hayworth's character in the 1946 movie Gilda, and it was dropped by the B-29 Dave's Dream; it missed its aim point by .
The wartime Project W-47 was continued, and drop tests resumed in January 1946. The Mark III Mod 0 Fat Man was ordered into production in mid-1946.
Mechanical components were made or procured by the Rock Island Arsenal; electrical and mechanical components for about 50 bombs were stockpiled at Kirtland Army Air Field by August 1946, but only nine plutonium cores were available.
Two more were detonated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, and some 120 were produced between 1947 and 1949, when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb.
Some 120 Mark III Fat Man units were added to the stockpile between 1947 and 1949 when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb.
Production of the Mod 0 ended in December 1948, by which time there were still only 53 cores available.
This required about 40 to 50 men and took between 56 and 72 hours, depending on the skill of the bomb assembly team, and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project had only three teams in June 1948.
Two more were detonated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, and some 120 were produced between 1947 and 1949, when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb.
The Mod 0s were withdrawn from service between March and July 1949, and by October they had all been rebuilt as Mods 1 and 2.
Some 120 Mark III Fat Man units were added to the stockpile between 1947 and 1949 when it was superseded by the Mark 4 nuclear bomb.
The Fat Man was retired in 1950. ==Early decisions== Robert Oppenheimer held conferences in Chicago in June 1942, prior to the Army taking over wartime atomic research, and in Berkeley, California, in July, at which various engineers and physicists discussed nuclear bomb design issues.
The Mark III Fat Man was retired in 1950. A nuclear strike would have been a formidable undertaking in the post-war 1940s due to the limitations of the Mark III Fat Man.
All text is taken from Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License .
Page generated on 2021-08-05