The Tactical Nuclear Warfare envisioned in the 50's & 60's had a lot of one way trips.

Many of the TAC strike aircraft in Europe were tasked with nuclear destruction of various Airbases or SAM facilities (to help the SAC Bombers cross to their targets)

Flying very fast & very low, they were to "Toss Bomb" (Lob a nuke in a loop or steep climb).





If they survived the delivery (and nuclear explosion), they then faced the problem that most of their targets were so deep in the Warsaw Pact that they didn't have enough fuel for a return to base.

So "the plan" was they would eject and evade & escape across a nuclear fallout irradiated hostile country / countries that they had recently nuked to eventually make their way to "friendly territory".

Basically a T.O.A.D. mission (Take Off And Die).

The nuclear scenarios of the 50's & 60's were definitely a "special time".

Bigger_Hammer

During the Vietnam War, Soviet “recovery” teams operated in the NV jungle (without permission of the NV government) in hopes of capturing US pilots who were shot down and survived ejection.  The Soviets wanted more information about ECM from RB-66 crews and also wanted to know how the Americans planned to deliver nuclear weapons from tactical aircraft flying at low altitude under radar detection and escape the blast.  

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Soviet archives were opened up for a brief period of time under Boris Yeltsin.  Records were researched and it was found where a few US pilots were captured during the war, transported back to the USSR from NVN/VN, interrogated, and ordered killed via lethal injection at the conclusion of the interrogation process.

ECM crewmembers were highly sought "targets" for capture by the Soviets & Chinese.  

When the 1972 bombings of the North Resumed, capture of B-52 crewmen was a very high priority to learn about SAC procedures & methods.

The Book & Movie "BAT21" about  the shoot down of a USAF RB-66C ECW aircraft & the Vietnamese efforts to captured the sole survivor of the shootdown (USAF Lieutenant colonel Iceal E. "Gene" Hambleton) who was able to eject by luck of being in the Navigators seat (US B-66s had eject seats for the normal 3 crew positions unlike it's naval "cousin" the A3D which did not receive eject seats and resulted in the nickname "All 3 Dead".)

The "Crows" (ECM guys) worked in a compartment inside the converted bomb bay with no capability for ejection seats and thus a very small chance to get out in the event of a shootdown.

There were similar concerns in the early 60's that some US SAC Aircrews who were shot down in Reconnaissance or Ferret missions might have been reported dead while secretly being held by the Soviets or Chinese in hopes of exploiting their knowledge.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_RB-47_shootdown_incident

Bigger_Hammer

My dad dropped some guys jumping the trainer once. He was transient, I forget the mission. I wanna say he was ferrying a C-12 somewhere and some guys in ops at a place he stopped were bitching about how one of the Casa pilots had an ear infection and couldn’t fly. He said “I’m current in the Casa and Im stuck here for 48hrs”. Yadda Yadda Yadda he ended up flying right seat so the guys could get their jumps. He said that at the time he didn’t know that doohickey existed and finding out that was a thing kept him up at night for days.

For a while if you could envision a use for a nuclear explosion Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Lab built something for the job.

Need to wipe out an entire flight of Soviet Tu-4 bombers with one weapon?  Got you covered, get about 3 miles away before launch and nuke em with a 1.5 kt W-25 inside an unguided mach 3 AIR-2 Genie (Ding Dong).

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Little house on the prairre….

About a year ago they had one of these (inert) for sale on Gunbroker

Given the low yields the SADM and the Davy Crockett were very survivable weapons

Considering the Russians have never signed a treaty they intended to uphold, I wouldn't have gotten rid of anything either

The one in Hillary Clinton’s vagina?

It could be the size of a VW and still fit.

Had a neighbor that was a davy crocket crewman when he was in the Army.  He said they were told they would survive the blast and radiation if they dug in and did things right.  He thought they were lying but said that it did not matter.  He figured he was dead man anyhow if the Soviets came across the boarder and he just wanted to take a battalion of Russians with him.

My best friend in the Army was a 12E until he reclassed back to 12B when they did away with the MOS.

"Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons."

RIP Dodge.

They had timers on them.

Good video of the arming process:

From the video it appears there are different models.  The one we had would just fit into a large ALICE.  We never used the pack in the pics.  I didn’t know one existed. The thing weighed just short of a hundred pounds. Jumping it was a bitch.  I can’t imagine just snatching one up and falling off the back of a fast moving boat as depicted.  

The team chose the timing according to the tactical situation.  There was no requirement to “guard it until death”.  We always planned to give ourselves time to at least put a terrain feature between ourselves and the blast.  The arm/disarm process was complicated and coded. We didn’t worry overly about it being discovered. The finders would be in for a BIG surprise.

Actually given the time period, its not that crazy of an idea.  It is merely another munition.  public ignorance of nuclear is what makes it seem ludicrous.

I got to meet him a couple of times in the 80's,  he played golf at the same club as my parents.

We did not lose any of  them. But some of  them 4, went to Israel.
That came straight from a guy from DOE/ NNSA.
HE WAS HIGH ENOUGH UP IN THE ORGANIZATION THAT I BELIEVE HIM.

grail form 1.

This.

Its important to notice that all of this stuff was made before Chernobyl and the associated hysteria it created in the public.

Old Amarillo AFB/airport is right across 60.

Man who owned the big truck repair shop was an SF snake eater type in both VN and Germany. I could see him doing that, stout as a MFer. Killed in his R44.

A good friend of mine (retired around 2007) was one of the guys tasked with this in Germany in the 80s, IIRC it was his first team assignment.  He was the typical Infantry/Ranger/SF guy.  10th SFG I think?  Anyway, he said that they were told that they would set the timer and have X amount of time to exfil, but nobody believed that.  Everyone assumed that when you armed it, it would go off immediately.  

He passed away a few years back, brain cancer.  He blamed it on cell phones and the sat phones they used in ops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Call his cell phone a "death ray".  I wonder if the radiation from the nukes contributed though.

Dude do you even Amarillo?
Pantex is 21 miles from downtown Amarillo.

It was just a carrying container. There were several, the H-911/912/913/1402, plus an underwater system. 911 is the drum bag you saw in the toy photo, and the model the guy made. 912 is the jump bag with the red lollipop, one is laying on the floor in one museum, and that's what they had for sale on GB (I bid on it). This container was classified at one point because the internal crushable sleeve revealed data on the odd shape of the front case of the system.

The 913 was the ruck, and the 1402 was the pelican / rotomolded case with the electrical passthroughs many places use as the picture of the SADM. All of these things fit inside each other.

I forget the nomenclature of the UW case.





Correct. A dual timer (I can get the MC if it matters) that is set by a single knob. The maximum hours differed over time, because going over time did... a thing. It was manufactured by a well-known clock company that refused to tell me anything about it. It never worked right, and teams were offered a chart. The longer a period of time you set it, the further off the clocks got, and you had to use the chart to tell you the real time arm / time detonate window, because you'd never know the exact ToD.

Once either ran down, they set off a wind up generator that provided a small voltage to a junction box, that did two things; one of which was fired a small detonator (I can get that MC also, and the specs of the device if anyone cares). That detonator functioned a special explosive device that provided input to essentially a giant gas grill lighter; if you didn't have that device in the arm well, the system wouldn't fire high order and would dud itself.



Hello.

I have questions, if you can remember. (I often can't remember what I did last week)

There were different models. AEC provided three main types. There were a couple of configurations. There has never been a single publicly released item saying there was a selectable yield unit.

There were three yields and a trainer. XM129, XM129E1 & XM129E2, were probably the 54-1; XM159, XM159E1 & XM159E2 were probably the 54-2, and the trainers were the XM130 and XM130E1 were probably the trainers. (XMnnnn were the Army nomenclatures for the systems, X meaning Experimental / not validated as a system). (I think there may have been another set as well). I think from recollection the Navy / MC units were generally the same, but with the addition of the watertight case.



I know of four. Three are in museums around the Nevada area, one I think is just the jumpable case, one is the version with the watertight case someone hand painted gold, there is one trainer cutaway in the classified museum, and the fourth is... a round front case version one somewhere in a museum on a mil base, like armor or engineers, I forget now.

I really wish there were someone to talk to that really knew this system; 80% of it has been declassed over the years, there are only three things-ish that haven't been released on it. Bugs the shit out of me, but the reticence is because this system design also served as the primary for some multi-stage systems. I think, TSETSE? I forget now, there's no one to talk to about any of this stuff.

I missed this.

Here is how that worked:

There have always been two factions inside the fence. One realizing that nucs protect us, and the other group that either wants to sabotage or give the secrets away thinking parity protects us (spoiler, it doesn't).

So, when all of the people who started getting nervous at all of the different flavors of systems being tested (it wasn't really the larger ones, it was apparently the smaller ones most were concerned with), moratoriums, drawdowns and agreements started.

They didn't throw them away. They baked into all the agreements that a system had to be in a particular configuration to be counted as an all-up round for treaty counting.

Sweating its nuts off in a container in a container in a container in a magazine are pretty much every pit they ever made (besides the ones damaged being disassembled, the ones destructively tested, and the ones used for very low yield testing).

All of the rest of the components are pretty much gone, but I know at least in the case of the SADM, that several trainers and some other components still live on for use in testing detection systems.

I don't believe, never had CNWDI/SIGMA so I can speculate without danger, that there are any ADM's from the 80's remaining in war reserve configuration (publicly, they announced when the last units were disassembled). The chemical parts of them would be ruined by now, and the LLC stuff impotent. So, there would have to be refurbishment programs, that takes people and money, paper trails, blah blah blah.

The worst part is, they kept everything so secret, it would be difficult to rebuild one from scratch; a LOT of data, especially as-built information, is lost to the sands of time. I have a ton of documents that the low wage person who scanned them in clearly did not give a shit, and there apparently was qc in the form of a stamp saying 'best available copy'.

There is supposed to be a single book that tells everything about each particular system; there is one repository for these, I know where it is. They really do not have the data in usable form any more. The ink on the pages faded, microfiche deteriorated; I just didn't get a Glomar response... they shut the vault, spun the dials, signed the card and walked away. Don't think the stuff is in a complete, viewable archive on the internal classified system either, but I could very well be wrong. (Shrugs)

I don't.

Here's my (unasked) thoughts on it, based on unclassified (can't really call it that, considering how much data DoE has reclassified over the years, and, by putting together U sources you can create a classified item) public information:

1 - The US gave them a ton of fissile material to work with. Go research NUMEC. The guards testified to the FBI that there would be times where, at a plant working with CAT I amounts of plutonium, that they would be told something was happening at the shipping dock and to find some place else to be. Really. The plant was Izzy run, and it is not publicly known how much material to this day is unaccounted for.

2 - There are leaked photos from inside the Izzy nuc place, allegedly. The pics look very, very much like US systems are thought to have looked like from that time period. One image of a sphere that unscrewed in a peculiar fashion was extremely telling.

3 - It would have been difficult then to walk off with a war reserve round at that point in history. It would take years and a change in how people treat NMAC before that could credibly happen, and it only happened briefly. Too many levels would have to all agree to lie in order for it to happen. Not like a pallet of grenades where two people sign the disposal/residue form then a second level pencilwhips it. (I think. rebuttals invited here)

They have them, they just made their own with mostly our benefit, and when we balked, they teamed up with other countries to test them. Do they still have them, or is it like japan, who I also suspect of having the components done, just not assembled? Seems like there would be more leaks over time, but I've never seen anything in the last ten-fifteen years to suggest they still have functioning systems.

There were so many trees that I wasn't sure exactly where I was.

I already fessed up that I it was Amarillo & not Lubbock back on page 1

Bigger_Hammer

AF killed a bunch of B-47s practicing this, I read once, had to hard on the airframe and pilots..

Whoever wrote the article is retarded. I stopped reading after, "In the wake of World War II, and throughout the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies were severely out manned and outgunned compared to the Soviets and their allies."

Whatever they have to say about the b54 is surely better said by someone else that's not a complete moron.

Are  you in the business? Looking at your avatar pic , being from Tennessee and how you worded your post makes me think  you are.  

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


nope

There was a CODEL gear layout at 1/10 in the late 1970's IIRC and there was a SADM trainer on display. Das Spiegel got pics of the gear and the german GOV went nuts….I'm sure they were read on but by putting it out in the open it painted them in a corner.

I knew it! You can't fool me.

lol   I'd love to see someone F1 a nuke as a DD.

They also did several foreign mil fams with the ADM's. I have pictures of one such training, the board is all in German.





I am merely talking as a long-time nuclear weapons design speculator, all the things I say on here I learned from open sources I found reading, and then later, the internet. I am a nobody that never had any kind of detailed access.



What I wanted to do was build a 1:1 model, then get my picture made with it under the no nukes sign at the planet hollywood in gatlinburg.

Ok, and  good luck with your model.

@mikejga

A question for you.

Was this prechamber an actual bunker? If so was it stored there or you guys had to emplace?

Or did you roll out to “X” on a map, plug it in and then smoke cigs?

Pantex stores 10,000-15,000 of those pits.

https://archive.bredl.org/sapc/Pu_ReportIII.html#:~:text=There%20are%20more%20than%2012%2C000%20plutonium%20pits%20stored,stored%20in%20nuclear%20weapons%2C%20both%20deployed%20and%20stored

Awhile ago I started a thread where someone commented. “When all else fails, send in the Mach 3 thermonuclear kamikazes.”

That does sound like a final move, but what a move!

Build party?

That aircraft was dangerous, as were most of that time period. between 57-58, 49 of the damn things crashed.  

https://b-47.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Boeing-B-47-Losses-and-Ejections.pdf

I didn’t know there were more than one make model.  We played with one type.  About the size of a half barrel of beer, fit exactly into a large Alice, weighted about a hundred pounds.  We were not a SCUBA team but we were not concerned about it getting wet.  No special case was provided.  

We did a test shot one time.  Non nuclear of course. I don’t remember the timer setting, I’ll say more than 30 mins and less than three hours.  The explosion came 38 seconds late.

I like the blockhouses that are still outside Y12 from the war.

Pass em every time on the way to Windrock.

There was someone in the DoD/Pentagon in the 1960s who gave the soviets names of aircrew who were briefed in on SIOP, nuclear warfighting plans.  So they knew which prisoners and shootdowns they wanted.   They were also very interested in Wild Weasel EWOs too i have read.
And I think it was more than a "few" aircrew who disappeared into the soviet gulag system for interrogation and disposal.

And back to more or less the subject, I've mentioned in such threads before that the old national security journalist Jack Anderson wrote back in the 1980s and maybe after the collapse of the USSR that they had their own atomic demolition weapons obviously, but what happened the the ones they had smuggled into the USA?    He said as I recall there were rumored to be ones hidden away on some farms in the upper midwest, Minnesota For one.    All they would've had to do was find some commuinst sympathizer farmers, probably not that hard to do in some places, to let them hid the devices in barns or caves on their property.
So who/what side got those out?   Or did they, and when?   Are they sure they got them all?

Thanks! I've built a couple of other models. One is the carrying case for early pits.
Another was a scale model of the MADM casing. The idea was, it would have refrigeration inside it and hold a small keg of beer, for ceremonial purposes. I started on it before I got the money from the group that commissioned it,  then the money never came, so it sits about 1/3 completed in pieces.

To build the SADM, there are still a few hurdles to overcome, and I just don't have the current interest.


They were (and still are) manhole covers at certain places around the Fulda Gap, if you know where to look.  Not certain it's declass, but there are pictures of them on the net if you go far enough down the rabbit hole.

SADM'S weren't really built for those military characteristics. They had MADM, HADM and TADM for those target folders.

They were approaching water heater sized, several hundred pounds, and took multiple people to emplace, according to the old websites where the vets talked about them.
This is the way

Thank you.

That squares up with my research, including the fact there were he trainers (many say there were none).

From Sandia's perspective, water was a *huge* deal. They could not mate the fiberglass front case to the metal rear case in a way that it would be environmentally secure at altitude and temperature to guarantee it would be safe for worldwide employment.

At the end, they issued an alt that removed the plane wave generator from the individual units and made special cases for them under separate lock and key; they found out that the combination dial lock they were using for positive control of several systems had a peculiar failure mode, and places were finding them 'unlocked '.

Somewhere I have a mid 80's copy of the Group-generated SOP for SADM. I was, like with many things, super stoked to be given it; only to find it not terribly interesting from a technical perspective.

Did they ever teach a wireless command detonation system to you?

SADM could be timer, wireless, or RF commanded, but I got people arguing with me on that back in the day when I was trying to puzzle it out.

You should stop.  They have one open for tours now,  and part of K25 is a Federal Park with a small museum in addition to what they did to AMSE