Showing posts with label radiation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radiation. Show all posts
1948 ... B-45 "Tornado"
... the first US operational jet bomber, the "Tornado" gained importance as it assumed a tactical nuclear delivery assignment when atomic bombs became smaller and lighter.
1986 ... multiple warhead strike!
I don't know where they lost the 'T' in the acronym.
Each of these warheads could have the explosive force of up to 300 Kilotons- or 14 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Fortunately for the test they were dummies.
... holy crap is right. The effects of eight detonations are much higher than one big bomb of the equal megatonage.
Having multiple warheads gives defensive systems more threats to track and neutralize. Since each re-entry vehicle can follow a pre-programmed independent ballistic path- one missile can take out different targets. The current Minuteman III force has only 3 MIRVs per missile. Before taking their seperate firey re-entry paths they ride on a last rocket stage called the 'bus'. The Peacekeeper, which was never actually deployed, could have carried up to ten. There were rumors that the USSR had designs for a missle that could have carried 30 MIRVs!
This was all part of the chess game of targeting the other sides missile and silos. In theory a 'first strike' could wipe out the opponents missile force. Obviously both sides adopted a 'launch on warning' protocol. As soon as the early warning system of satellites and radar spotted the incoming missile barrage a massive retaliation would be launched. It was also known as the 'use them or lose them' strategy.
Both sides had (have) a 'Nuclear Triad' of silo based missiles, bombers and ballistic missile submarines. This ensures that enough of a superpower's nuclear forces will always survive to launch a devastating counterattack. This maintained the wobbly balance of Assured Mutual Destruction'. Each piece of technology being advanced and then counter-advanced across the chess board that was known as The Cold War.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRV
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeper_missile
... oh boy, here's the AV Kid with an official Air Force film on the Peacekeeper missile. It was tested but never deployed.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhjMHBBdbM
1951 ...
Before the advent of Hydrogen Bombs made mere survival problematic, there was a lot of ballyhoo about the need for good citizens to crawl out of the rubble, dust themselves off and get to work on bringing the GNP back up.
...here's the AV Kid with "Our Cities Must Fight"
This is the lead capsule for the four man crew which flew the aircraft and ran the reactor tests. The windscreen was 10 inch thick leaded glass.
The dream was that an Atomic Powered airplane could fly - forever. Or at least for a very long time and a very long distance without having to worry about the pesky little problem of thousands of gallons of fuel. Your bombers and their atomic payloads could be on constant patrols near Russia and China ready to respond to an attack order.
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A nuclear reactor will do it's "reactor" thing with a small amount of uranium for a long, long time.
The terrific heat of the reactor could be used to directly superheat air in the engines resulting in the same thrust action as burning jet fuel.
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There were just three small problems. First was the most efficient system left a contrail of radioactivity behind the aircraft. Second was the tremendous weight of the shielding to protect the crew from the radioactivity of the working reactor. Thirdly was how messy it would be if one of these airplanes crashed.
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None of these problems were even close to being solved after a lot of money and time.
In air refueling worked better and the Air Force no longer had to look for bomber crews who didn't mind becoming sterile.
green glow
Oh yes, any Atomic Powered airplane of the future would have to be serviced by mechanics sealed inside a forty ton lead coffee can using huge clumsy robot arms. [Only worked in an artist's drawing]
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Check out the 'comment' from Bill Higgins which gives detailed info on monster robots for handling radioactive airplanes!
concept cover Convair B-58
This 1956 Popular Mechanics gives a hint to one of our favorite bombers- the B-58 "Hustler"
This was a Mach 2 medium bomber that pushed 1950's technology to the limit and beyond.
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Looks like that Delta Dart is taking "fighter cover" under the sheets!
North American "Savage"
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The Navy was desperate to get into the atomic bomb business. In the early years of the Cold War the newly formed Air Force and it's big bombers were getting all the funding. Atomic bombs were still big and very heavy- over 5 tons. This aircraft is as big as could be fit onto a carrier of the times. The "Savage" has two piston engines, plus a turbojet in the tail.
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Robert McCall
Speaking of science fiction movie props...
already tried writing to the address- sold out 45 years ago.
1962 ...deep beneath Silver Lake grade school.
Where I'd spend my eighth birthday fighting off Atomic Zombies.
This was the cafeteria under my grade school. I have no doubt that it also doubled as a bomb and fallout shelter. If we could pan to the right a little there'd be Rod Serling "Little Jimmy Vaughan thought this was going to be just another day in second grade..."
in a glacier. They're always so cranky when they get thawed out!
At the movies finale the pesky insectoid is cornered in the Lincoln Tunnel and killed with big hand grenades filled with Raid. [No kidding.] In which case these guys are well protected because these are not radiation suits. These are 1950s chemical protection suits, used by hapless rocketeers who got to fuel primitive missiles with fun stuff like nitric acid, benzene and anything else that was super-corrosive and explosive.
As far as I can find there never has been a garment that will protect it's wearer from hard radiation- nasty gamma rays handed out by pulsing glowing reactors and such.
An effective anti-radiation suit would need to be lined with lead and lots of it. Think of that half a bullet proof vest the dentist plops over you when he's going to shoot you full of x-rays. Now imagine a whole set of pajamas of the stuff. Can't even move in the thing, let alone fight monsters with a flame thrower!
But these, hope there's no leaks or I'll dissolve, freeze and burn-up, suits look just great and made appearences in many of the sci-fi movies of the era.
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Nasty stuff that radiation. Can't see it, taste it, smell it or rely on B grade science fiction movies to tell you what to do about it. Oh well. Hand me another can of that Raid will ya?
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sorry about the poor picture quality- 1957 was a good year for movie monsters!
advertisement for Convair
The Military Industrial Complex has provided us with some wonderful illustrations.
These are surface to air anti-aircraft missles.
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It's my guess that if the Defcon level is high the conventional warheads were switched out for small 'nukes'-
1/10 to 1 kiloton range. Same size was used on air-to-air aircraft mounted missles.
That's explosive equivalent to 100 to 1,000 tons of TNT. That's a lot of whallop on the end of that not so big missile.
"Hey, when the bad-guy's bombers are planning on dropping H-bombs on you and the 30 square miles of the Atlantic your aircraft carrier task force occupies, fleet air-defense wants a sure kill as far away as possible. Now which one of you swabbies wants to be the first to try arming
a nuclear device?"
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* a large percentage of the thousands of warheads stockpiled or deployed at the height of the Cold War were small low-yield "tactical" weapons as described above. So there- you sissies!
not a view you want.
Looking up from stairs of a test bomb shelter. Shot tower visible.
Operation Plumbbob used the tallest towers of all the tests. Some of them over 600 ft high. The structure on the top is called the "cab" and housed the weapon. Putting a weapon on top of a tower provided a more controlled experiment. Dropping them from airplanes, although done, always provide the possibility of a "miss".... oops!
Many of our NATO allies, who did not have atomic weapons, came to our tests and built various types of shelters to see how they would stand up to an actual blast. This one was built by the West Germans.
"Let's see, I think the way to the press viewing area is up these stairs and...OH SHIT!"
Yep, if you want to ride her out real close, looks like a bank vault is the place to be!
... here is a post about a company that bragged about their bank vault surviving the blast at Hiroshima!
Parking for Armageddon
One of the many shelter structures constructed for the Plumbbob tests was an underground parking garage. [Yes, you heard me right.] With urban areas prime targets it seemed to make sense to study modifying underground parking facilities so as to be used for blast protection and fallout shelters.
The upper photo shows the drive down entrance to the underground parking deck after the test. Although the retaining wall facing the blast collapsed the rest of the structure, with it's buried 36 inch walls of reinforced concrete, remained intact.
The lower photo shows the entrance to the garage. The 3 foot thick blast door is in its retracted position. Information was a little vague just how this door worked but it was said to open easily after the blast. Important if the shelters occupants did not want to end up like King Tut. Dust off the ramp and drive out! I suppose you wouldn't have to stop to pay the incinerated lady in the glass booth. Oh well, she never seemed very happy anyway.
What a great location for a post-apocalypse movie or video game. All the suburban housewives who had driven into the city for a shopping trip, now living in their '55 Buicks deep underground, fighting with the marauding atomic mutants for the dwindling supply of candy bars.
Somewhere out there in the Nevada Test Site the parking garage is still there.
Why tear it down? How do you tear it down? It's tough enough to survive an atomic blast near ground zero. It's radioactive. Besides, someday we might need the parking.
Boy, if I was going to set off atomic bombs I'd sure choose a swell layout like this!
Two big microphones on swing arms, squeaky steel chairs, tons of amp meters, knurled bakelite knobs for days- and when the atomic mutants attacked- you could call the MPs on the rotary dial phone and then breakout the carbines from that locker over on the left! gee whiz !
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list of "shots" Operation Plumbbob: http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/films/fulltext/0800021_22.htm
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