It did not take a great leap of imagination to see that missiles might eventually be mated to an atomic bomb and flown (either in the atmosphere or out of it) great distances to a target.
nuclear weapons including the Canadian Argus, German and Italian Tornados, the British Shackleton and Nimrod and the Italian Atlantiques.Īn almost equal technological marvel to the atomic bomb is the development of the missile, specifically the ballistic missile. There are also several types of allied non-American aircraft that were certified to carry U.S. military has used to carry nuclear weapons: 11 varieties of Air Force bombers, a dozen types of Air Force fighters, 13 types of Navy/Marine corps fighters, three types of helicopters, and three maritime patrol aircraft. There have been more than 40 different types of aircraft that the U.S. Soon after the war, a great profusion of new types of aircraft appeared offering greater range and capable of carrying many bombs. The first delivery system was an airplane dropping a bomb: specifically the B-29 carrying a single Little Boy or Fat Man type bomb. As technological advances were made in reducing warhead weight and volume the military services adopted nuclear weapons for almost every conceivable military mission. If we break down the stockpile by delivery system the Air Force has made use of 42 types of nuclear weapons, the Navy and Marine Corps 34 types, and the Army 21 types. The profusion is even more extensive when modifications and yield options are added: the B-61 bomb has come in eleven modifications (soon to be twelve) and a variety of yields. Some warhead types have had wide applicability, used in one configuration as a bomb and in another as a warhead for one or perhaps several kinds of missiles, an early example of this is the Mark 7. Many of the cancelled programs make interesting stories by themselves in capturing the thinking of the day. All four military services have had nuclear weapons: the Air Force adopted 52 warhead types, the Navy 35 types, the Army 26 and the Marines 15. Los Alamos has designed 77 types and Livermore 23. warheads were developed at one of two nuclear design laboratories, Los Alamos or Lawrence Livermore, both supported by Sandia National Laboratories to weaponize the warheads.
We now have official figures for the number of nuclear warheads in the stockpile from 1946 to 2009: In 1993, Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary released figures for the years 1946-1961, and on the Pentagon released a fact sheet with stockpile numbers for years 1962-2009.Īll U.S.
This stockpile, beginning in the mid-1950s, has been characterized by great dynamism and turnover. stockpile was reached in 1967 with 31,255 nuclear warheads. nuclear weapons ceased in 1990, twenty-three years ago, though modifications and life-extension programs continue. Nuclear Warheads, 1945- 2009,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July 2009, vol. Nuclear Stockpileīy my estimation, the United States has produced approximately 66,500 nuclear weapons from 1945 to mid-2013, of approximately 100 types.Robert S. The primary goal of my presentation today is to reconstruct the nuclear order of battle of the Cold War, to see how nuclear weapons were integrated into military forces, to assess what influence they had, and finally with all of that as a backdrop, revisit some crucial events and decisions that may make more sense when viewed with this additional information and perspective. Norris for a presentation at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s 2013 Summer Institute on the International History of Nuclear Weapons (SHARF) in Washington, DC. Editor’s Note: The following text was prepared by Dr.
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