Call me inspired by the upcoming Punkin’ Chunkin’ competition, and the engineering efforts of the Libyan rebels…
To be specific, are there any existing siege engine designs—like a catapult, trebuchet, etc—that could deliver a small nuclear weapon to a target without killing the launch crew or the siege engine?
For “small,” I’m specifically listing the W-54 “Davy Crokett”, which weighed 51 lbs, and had a yield of about 20 tons [sic] of TNT. According to at least one site I’ve seen, a 20-ton nuclear explosion would produce lethal radiation out to about between…400, 500 meters. One can calculatethe other effects for 0.02 kilotons here.
And yes, I realize that this is a slightly impractical weapons system concept. But when has that ever stopped us?
Designs? Sure. It’s trivially easy to scale up any trebuchet design to accommodate any given payload mass, and there are real-world trebs that get well over that range.
Whether any has actually been built, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
On TV I’ve seen “trebs” that chunk small cars a decent distance. Take “decent distance” and multiply by weight of small car divided by 50 lbs and there is your ballpark answer right there.
If you put your trebuchet behind an earthen berm, you can block the majority of that radiation and go back to worrying about the actual blast. Given the up-and-over firing style, this wouldn’t be a problem offensively, though you’d spend a lot of effort moving that much dirt around. You could also try some sort of mobile lead shielding. It sounds like this would mean a range of just 150-200 meters should be sufficient, and that’s child’s play even for ancient trebuchets.
That was 800 years ago. Doesn’t sound to difficult to send half that weight another 100 - 200 meters. You might want to get further away than that, which you could do with a long rope attached to the release lever. That’s assuming they can’t work up other triggering mechanisms using modern technology.
But they have to stay close enough to the machine to protect it from manned assault. And they have to stay far enough away from the nearest artllery or RPG. RPGs make the minimum distance at least 1000 meters, probably more. But if a trebuchet made out of wood and rope can get half way there, one made of steel can’t be too hard to build if the materials are available. Getting that nuclear weapon might be the tough part of the job.
Hills smills and berms smerms… dig a small hole for each guy with a small berm and use some ropes to pull the trigger. Radiation problem greatly reduced.
Yeah but radiation isn’t the only danger. When they see you setting up the giant war machine, they might start shooting. You have to be out of range of their weapons.
A better approach might be to build a large wooden rabbit.
the davy crockett system (m-28 and m-29) were nominated as being the dumbest weapons ever designed. this is because the missile, m-388, had a yield between 10 and 20 tonnes, can be heaved to a maximum range of only 2.5 miles (1.2 miles for the m-28) whereas the blast will yield a fatal dose to humans within 0.25 miles. a 1.0-mile clearance looks rather iffy especially under (nuclear) battlefield conditions. they say the only dumber weapon would be a nuclear hand grenade.
but the davy crockett had clear tactical value to NATO forces at the time. smarter and more modern delivery systems eliminated its need.
your launch system will be useful as such: to launch a heavy weapon. much of a rocket’s force is expended during launch and initial acceleration. some assistance during launch will extend the range considerably.
Well, dumb from the point of view of the safety of the operator, but they could have been used as a weapon of last resort against a ballistic missle submarine. Similarly, the US air force had nuclear tipped air-to-air missiles for shooting down Russian bombers. Prior to the widespread introduction of ICBMs these weapons might have been useful in the event of a nuclear exchange.
While we’re on the subject of silly nuclear weapons, the British considered deploying a nuclear mine with a chicken inside it.
When I first read this, I thought perhaps it was an air-dropped or rocket-launched torpedo, but a quick glance at wikipedia notes that the Mk 45 nuclear-armed torpedo was intended to be submarine-launched:
What were they thinking?
In a related issue, the Nike-Hercules antiaircraft missile system envisioned destroying incoming Soviet bombers with nuclear warheads. While a 2 kT blast 70 miles from a city is definitely preferable to a 30 kT blast in the city, it’s probably not optimal either - but then what aspect of global thermonuclear war really is? Let’s just play a nice game of chess.
I think Alka Seltzer nailed it already on this question. If the choice is “We lose one submarine” vs “We lose the eastern seaboard” then it’s a pretty useful weapon.
I doubt the claims of the wiki for the Mk-45 nuclear torpedo that detonation would automatically kill the launching submarine, particularly if the Mk-45 indeed had a range of 5-8 miles (9000 to 14,000 yards). A similar warhead for the ASROC system was tested in May 1962. The Swordfish test utilized a “fully-manned” observer submarine, 4000 yds from the intended ground zero. The ASROC’s W-44 warhead had a nominal yield of 10kT; the W-34 used in the Mk-45 had a yield of 11 kt. The spray dome for Swordfish was 3000 feet across, so being closer than that to the explosion would be a bad idea. The Wahoo test in Operation Hardtack utilized a 9 kt device, detonated at 2000 feet below the surface. It formed a base surge 2.5 miles in diameter.
So I would definitely be uncomfortable being closer than, say, a mile and half from detonation, but I think it is inaccurate to say that launching the Mk-45 automatically meant the death of the launching submarine. I believe, though I can’t prove, the Mk-45 was merely a stopgap until the considerable technical difficulties in SUBROC’s development were solved.
Also bear in mind the submarine would have been able to turn away and open the range by a useful amount (although this may have been limited by the wire guidance system).
