M29 Davy Crockett - Davy Cricket's example is a recoilless gun capable of hitting nuclear weapons. (Aaron Provost / Missions and Objectives).

For U.S. troops and veterans who have seen the movie Starship Troopers, one important aspect — aside from the fact that male and female jobs may one day coexist — is that infantry squads of the future will be equipped with small tactical nuclear weapons.

M29 Davy Crockett

M29 Davy Crockett

As it happens, the military first developed such a tactical nuclear weapons system during the Cold War. A "Davy Crockett" is a gun that fires a nuclear warhead with a yield of 0.01 to 0.02 kilotons, or approximately 10 to 20 tons of TNT.

Davy Crockett (atomkraftverk)

According to the Military Historical Foundation, beginning in 1961, the Davy Crockett weapon system began fielding infantry units in West Germany, Guam, Hawaii, Okinawa and South Korea. Davy Crockett was driven into a jeep by three soldiers. The "light" M28 120mm recoilless rifle had a range of 1.25 miles.

"Although the military never officially said that Davy Crockett would deliver a lethal dose of radiation to the crew, it was known that there was a significant chance that the crew was not properly protected," said Matthew Selinger. Military Historical Foundation.

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But even if crews protect themselves from radiation exposure, the military's concept of fighting on a nuclear battlefield is inherently flawed, because if either the US or an enemy ever uses a tactical nuclear weapon like Davy Crockett in combat, if the weapons are used, a conflict will ensue. As the possibility of full-scale nuclear war grew, Salinger explained the mission and purpose.

Davy Crockett Nuclear Recoilless Rifle Mounted To A Jeep.

"Every military officer I served with during that period, especially those in field artillery, said that once the first nuclear round was fired, the conflict would immediately spiral out of control," Selinger said.

Nevertheless, from 1957 to 1963, the Army's infantry and airborne units were reorganized into "pantomic" units intended to fight on a nuclear battlefield.

The Davy Crockett was designed to be used against advancing Soviet, Warsaw Pact and North Korean troops, allowing U.S. service members to take out a dozen enemy tanks, said former Army Capt. Don Cassetta. White House Advisor on Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons from 1996 to 2002.

M29 Davy Crockett

When the warhead produced a small nuclear explosion, the direct radiation from the explosion had a larger strike radius than the explosion itself. If a warship explodes at an altitude of 75 to 85 meters, anyone within a 400-meter radius of the explosion could receive dangerous radiation, said Cassetta, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense think tank. Tank in London.

Atomówki Na Froncie, Czyli Atomowa Broń Taktyczna M388 Davy Crockett

On December 30, 1960, US Army soldier Davy Crockett drives a Jeep as three fellow soldiers stand and watch on a snow-covered road. (Holden Archive/Getty Images)

"But a lethal dose will kill you in a few days or a week, not immediately," Kazita told Task and Aim.

Although the Davy Crockett only had a range of 2.5 miles, firing the weapon was not a suicidal mission for its crew, Casita said. The explosion was very small. And using nuclear weapons for aerial detonation could reduce the amount of radiation fallout, he said.

"Also, it takes a while for the fallout to develop," Casetta said. "It comes from the cooling of the mushroom cap and most of the results come from the upper third of the stem and the wider cap of the mushroom cap." The principle of Davy Crockett's work was to actually shoot, hide behind hard cover to avoid seeing the flash, and then quickly eject the bug.

Davy Crockett — Drive2

Davy Crockett's tenure ended as short as a streak of comets burning through the atmosphere. In the late 1960s the military began withdrawing the weapons from service because they were not sufficiently accurate to suit foreign policy. The last Davy Crockett retired in 1971.

The mushroom cloud from "Grable", the first nuclear cannon shell, was part of Operation Upshot-Nuthole. The cannon used to fire the nuclear bombs weighed 85 tons. (Getty Images via Corbis)

To understand why the military thought Davy Cricket was a good idea in the first place, you have to understand the time it was created, says retired Army Col. David E. Johnson said. . With Rand Corporation.

M29 Davy Crockett

From 1953 to 1961, President Dwight D. While in office, Eisenhower looked for ways to reduce spending on conventional military forces as part of efforts to streamline the U.S. economy, Johnson told Task & Purpose. Until Eisenhower, expanding America's nuclear arsenal was the most expensive way to deter the Soviet Union.

King Of The Wild Frontier

"So, the military is in this position: You have to show fitness to survive," Johnson said. "And the connection is: How do you operate on a nuclear battlefield? That's where the Pantomime Division came in. They started bringing weapons into the field because they seemed effective.

At the time, nuclear weapons were considered "almost magical" because they had been introduced for less than a decade, said Johnson, who served as a field artillery officer in the 1970s and 1980s and led an 8-inch battery. Employed guns capable of firing nuclear bombs and later served as executive officer for a battalion of 155 mm howitzers capable of firing conventional and nuclear bombs.

Johnson said the military and military personnel who adopted Davy Cricket and other tactical nuclear weapons were acting maliciously. He recalled that retired Army Major Robert Danford, who argued after World War II that the military should continue to use horses instead of vehicles to pull artillery, honestly believed he was right.

"We look back and say: How could they have thought of these things," Johnson said. "Well, if you weren't there at the time, you have no sympathy for the decisions they make under pressure."

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But the idea of ​​limited nuclear war is not entirely dead. In June, Congress voted to defund a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile carrying a low-yield warhead. Once again US military leaders are arguing that it is possible to limit nuclear reactors before they move to megatons.

But Davy Crockett reminds us that even a small nuclear weapon can start a major and potentially apocalyptic war.

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M29 Davy Crockett

Jeff Skokol is the senior Pentagon correspondent for missions and objectives. He has served in the Army for 15 years. You can email him at @ schogol , direct message him on Twitter at @JeffSchogol , or reach him on WhatsApp at 703-909-6488. Contact the author here. During the Cold War, as the US Navy and Air Force maintained America's strategic nuclear arsenal of long-range bombers and submarine-launched and land-based ballistic missiles, the military focused on the development and use of tactical nuclear weapons. Use on the battlefield. In the early 1950s, the military introduced unguided rockets, guided missiles, artillery shells, explosive charges, and other systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons, with yields ranging from one kiloton to a few megatons. The smallest weapon in the Army's nuclear arsenal is the M28/M29 Davy Crockett, which entered service in the early 1960s with a three-man crew.

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The development of nuclear weapons during World War II and their use against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 ushered in a new and devastating era of warfare. Now an entire city can be destroyed in seconds with a single weapon. Some military planners believed that expensive, large-scale ground forces were now all but obsolete because nuclear bombs "had more ground to cover". However, early versions of these weapons were primarily for strategic use. The two devices dropped in Japan, "Little Boy" and "Fat Man," were large, complex weapons, each weighing more than 10,000 pounds and about ten feet long. Only the B-29 Superfortress was capable of carrying and dropping these bombs, and they saw little tactical use on the battlefield.

In the early 1950s, advances in nuclear weapons development, the Cold War, and the detonation of atomic bombs by the Soviet Union in 1949 allowed the size and weight of nuclear weapons to be significantly reduced. As a result, the military began developing and deploying tactical nuclear weapons systems in Europe, starting with the M65 "Nuclear Cannon".

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