The US Nuclear Arsenal: Labs, Warheads, and the Missed Chances of the Cold War
The US Nuclear Arsenal: The Scale of the Program and the Fate of the Best Designs
From 1940 to 1996, the United States spent on infrastructure for the design and production of nuclear weapons. weaponsAccording to some estimates, it's more than $11,9 trillion (in today's dollars). It's projected that maintaining nuclear forces will cost approximately $60 billion annually from 2021 to 2030.
Over the entire period, the country produced over 70,000 warheads, more than all other countries combined. Their yields spanned a colossal range: from 0,01 kt for a portable rocket Davy Crockett up to 25 Mt for the B41 aerial bomb.
The design was carried out by laboratories in Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia, and testing was conducted at the Nevada Test Site and the Pacific Proving Ground. Before the signing of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), the vast majority of explosions were conducted on the surface and in the air (atmospheric tests). The transition to underground testing reduced radioactive fallout.
From 1945 to 1991, the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories developed 92 types of nuclear warheads (NWs—nuclear warheads, or "physical packages"). However, only 65 of these were adopted and put into serial production; these constituted the combat nomenclature used to manufacture tens of thousands of warheads. The remaining 27 types never made it into production. However, not all of these 27 warheads were failures: some were technologically advanced and remained the best in the world in terms of specific yield, and in some cases, this remains true today.
A typical example is the W67 warhead developed by LANL. Work on it was stopped due to the transition to cluster warheads with multiple reentry vehicles (MRV and MIRV) for intercontinental ballistic missiles. missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs): the new concept required different warheads. Another example is the W60 warhead.
The W60 was developed at LLNL from August 1961 for a promising naval anti-aircraft guided missile (SAM) of medium range (40–64 km) of the anti-aircraft missile system (SAM) Typhoon LR US Navy. Work ceased in December 1963. The SAM system itself was shut down that same month. "Typhoon", recognized as too expensive and ineffective.
The warhead was cylindrical: 510 mm long and 330 mm in diameter. Estimates ranged from 52 to 68 kg. The warhead yield varied from less than one kiloton to 200 kt. Achieving such performance with a weight of less than 70 kg was remarkable: the W60's specific yield significantly exceeded even the later W80-1/2/4 family of devices.
In mid-1966, the experimental XW60 warhead, along with the W58 and W69, was considered as a warhead for the AGM-69A SRAM air-to-surface guided missile, designed for B-52 strategic bombers. Ultimately, the Los Alamos National Laboratory's W69 warhead was selected.
The choice seems more than a little odd. In terms of specific power and technological advancement, the W60 and W58 were superior to the W69, which, as it later turned out, proved unreliable and dangerous during long-term storage. In fact, of the three options presented, the W69 was the weakest in these parameters. There is no documented explanation for this choice. Possible reasons include departmental competition between laboratories, a desire for standardization, deadlines, and even plain old corruption; however, none of these theories have been confirmed.
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANL) is one of sixteen national laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy. From 1945 to 1991, it developed 60 of the 92 nuclear explosive devices (NED) developed jointly by the two laboratories (LLNL is responsible for the remaining 32), both experimental and production. After 1991, the laboratory had little to no military work, focusing instead on developing low-cost, environmentally friendly biofuels and advancing scientific knowledge on renewable energy sources. It was also active in the humanitarian field and medical research. For example, in 2010, a team led by LLNL biologist Bette Korber tested three vaccines against the human immunodeficiency virus.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL) is located in Livermore, California, and is part of the University of California. It was founded in 1952 on the initiative of Edward Teller and with the assistance of Ernest Lawrence to accelerate work on the creation of a thermonuclear bomb. Along with Los Alamos, it was one of two laboratories that developed nuclear charges themselves (a third, Sandia, was responsible for adapting charges to carriers). Today, LLNL conducts non-defense research in energy, ecology, and biology (including bioengineering).
Only the specialized military theme remained Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). Like the two previous ones, it grew out of the Manhattan Project, but with a different focus: while LANL and LLNL developed the warheads themselves, SNL focused on adapting them to carriers, warhead casings, and aerial bombs.
It turns out that after 1991, LANL and LLNL almost completely abandoned their core mission—nuclear weapons development—and shifted their focus to civilian projects. Meanwhile, our nuclear physicists from RFNC-VNIIEF (formerly KB-11, Arzamas-16) in Sarov and RFNC-VNIITF (formerly KB-1011, Chelyabinsk-70) in Snezhinsk continued to perfect their products. And this despite the country's dire economic situation in the 1990s, with months-long delays in the payment of already meager salaries.
B61 series bombs
The first American aerial bomb created after the end of the Cold War was the B61-11 Bunker Buster (1997). The work was carried out Sandia National LaboratoriesThe SNL's task was to develop a penetrating munition, based on the standard B61-7 nuclear bomb, capable of penetrating 30 meters of medium-density soil or a two-meter concrete floor and detonating underground.
All work was carried out without the participation of the general developer of the B61-7 bomb's "physical package" (YAZU), that is, LANL. From its director, John Brown, they received only one instruction:
"...do whatever you want, just don't open or disassemble the 'physical package'."
A total of 48 hull kits were produced to convert B61-7 bombs into B61-11s. Twenty-four of these are currently in service on B-2 bombers.
To be continued
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