Mark 17 nuclear bomb

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mark 17 nuclear bomb
TypeThermonuclear gravity bomb
Place of originUnited States
Service history
In service1954-1957
WarsCold War
Production history
DesignerLos Alamos National Laboratory
Designed1954
ProducedEC-17: Mar-Oct 1954
Mk-17: Jul 1954-Nov 1955
No. builtEC-17: 5
Mk-17: 200
Specifications
MassEC-17: 39,600 lb (18,000 kg)
Mk-17: 41,400–42,000 lb (18,800–19,100 kg)
Length24 feet 8 inches (7.52 m)
Diameter61.4 inches (1.56 m)

Detonation
mechanism
Air burst
Blast yieldEC-17: 11 megatonnes of TNT (46 PJ), Castle Romeo test
Mk-17: 15 megatonnes of TNT (63 PJ)
Drawing of a Mark 17 bomb

The Mark 17 and

hydrogen bombs
deployed by the United States. The two differed in their "primary" stages. They entered service in 1954, and were phased out by 1957.

Design and development

Design and development originated when Los Alamos National Laboratory proposed that a bomb design using lithium deuteride with non-enriched lithium was possible. The new design was designated TX-17 on February 24, 1953. The TX-17 and 24 were tested as the "Runt" (Castle Romeo shot) device during Operation Castle in 1954.[1] After the successful tests, basic versions of the Mk 17 and 24 were deployed as part of the "Emergency Capability" program.

The MK 17/24 bombs were 24 feet 8 inches (7.52 m) long, and 61.4 inches (1.56 m) diameter. They weighed 42,000 lb (19,000 kg). The Mark 17 had a yield of 15 megatonnes of TNT (63 PJ).[2] 200 Mk 17s and 105 Mk 24s were produced, all between October 1954 and November 1955. The Mark 17 and Mark 24 were identical in all respects save for the design of their primary section.[2] They were the largest nuclear weapons ever put into service by the United States; only the Convair B-36 Peacemaker was capable of carrying them.[3]

The bomb used manual in-flight insertion (IFI) that required a crewmember to crank a handle that was inserted into a hole in the nose of the bomb. This process inserted the weapon's pit into the implosion assembly.[4]

Operational history

Carswell Field in Fort Worth
, Texas

A total of five EC 17 and ten EC 24 bombs subsequently entered stockpile and were added between April and October 1954. The EC weapons were quickly replaced with Mk 17 Mod 0 and Mk 24 Mod 0 bombs in October and November 1954. Those weapons included a 64-foot-diameter (20 m) parachute to allow the delivery aircraft to escape. With the addition of in-flight insertion of the primary capsule to prevent a nuclear explosion in case of an accident, the weapons were upgraded to the Mod 1 standard. The inclusion of a contact fuze upgraded some bombs to the Mod 2 version, allowing the bombs to be used against "soft" targets (air burst), or buried targets such as command bunkers (contact burst).

Due to the introduction of smaller and lighter weapons such as the

B-36
, the Mk 24s were withdrawn by October 1956, with the Mk 17s withdrawn by August 1957.

1957 incident

A Mark 17 on display at the Castle Air Museum

On May 27, 1957 a Mark 17 was unintentionally jettisoned from a Convair B-36 Peacemaker just south of Albuquerque, New Mexico's

plutonium pits were stored separately on the plane as a safety measure, the incident spread radioactive contamination and debris over a 1-mile-wide (1.6 km) area. The military decontaminated the site although a few fragments of the bomb - some still radioactive - are occasionally found in the area. A marker was placed on the site in 1996 by the Center for Land Use Interpretation, but it was later removed.[6]

Survivors

Five MK 17/24 casings are on display to the public:

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Parsons and Zaballa 2017, p. 64.
  2. ^ a b Gibson 1996, p.92.
  3. ^ Rhodes 1995, p.761.
  4. ^ Crompton, J; Kohut, F A (August 1958). Aircraft Modification for the Mk 17 and the Mk 24 Atomic Bombs (Report). Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States). p. 11. Archived from the original on 2022-11-19. Retrieved 2022-11-19.
  5. ^ "Accident Revealed After 29 Years: H-Bomb Fell Near Albuquerque in 1957". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. August 27, 1986. Archived from the original on 2014-09-10. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
  6. ^ Ausherman 2015, p.158.

Bibliography