Davy Crockett: A U.S. battlefield mini-nuclear weapon
Davy Crockett
A (mini) battlefield nuclear weapon (1961)
February 17, 2005
The Davy Crockett weapon (shown here at the Maryland test range in March 1961) is the smallest operational nuclear device (known) ever developed by the United States (though numerous variants of these mini-nuclear weapons existed, some of which could be carried in backpacks by commandos or transported underwater by combat swimmers). The Davy Crockett was designed for use in Europe against concentrations of Soviet troops. Its range was 1.24 miles (just over two kilometers). It weighed about thirty kilograms and had a maximum diameter of 27 centimeters. With such a short range, the weapon would have been nearly as dangerous to those deploying it as to those targeted, due to radioactive fallout. This illustrates how little regard the Americans had, even at the beginning of the 1960s, for the lives of their own soldiers.
The "Davy Crockett" proximity tactical atomic bomb
In 1961, there was thus a shocking normalization of nuclear weapons, as if they were just another type of weapon. It is likely that operational commanders, after launching such a weapon at the enemy, would have exclaimed: "Alright, now boys, forward!"
Here, the Davy Crockett mounted on a Jeep
The nuclear warhead used on the Davy Crockett weighed only 25 kilograms. It was a fission device (using an implosion-type charge, a hollow plutonium shell surrounded by chemical explosive). Its yield was equivalent to 10 tons of TNT. A variant, the B54, was used between 1964 and 1989 by the SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition). It weighed 30 kilograms and had a yield ranging from 20 to 1,000 tons of TNT. This weapon was deployed in Europe, South Korea, and on the island of Guam as a mine. In fact, reducing the bomb's power was achieved through "poor performance," by reducing the fission efficiency, but not the amount of plutonium used or the level of toxic fallout.
Between 1956 and 1963, over two thousand of these devices were produced, at a total cost of half a billion dollars. The W54s were tested at the Nevada site, with yields equivalent to 18–22 tons of TNT. These were the last atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by the United States in the presence of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The files were declassified in 1997.
Sources: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project; Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, Milton M. Hoenig, U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities, Volume I, Nuclear Weapons Databook (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1984), pp. 60, 311; Robert Standish Norris and Thomas B. Cochran, "United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 to 31 December 1992," (Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defense Council, 1 February 1994), NWD-94-1, p. 35; Chuck Hansen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History (New York: Orion Books, 1988), pp. 197–198; Ted Nicholas and Rita Rossi, U.S. Historical Military Aircraft and Missile Data Book (Fountain Valley, California: Data Search Associates, 1991), pp. 3-95, 3-101; U.S. Department of Energy.
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