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The Swords of Armageddon : U.S. Nuclear Weapons Development since 1945 is the
first and only comprehensive illustrated history of the post-World War II
design, development, and testing of U.S. nuclear weaponry available to the
public.
This unique over 2900 page set of documents published as Adobe Acrobat pdf files
includes.
· A complete technical glossary
· Description of weapons physics
· Postwar technological innovations in fission weapon design
· A history of American thermonuclear weaponry between 1942 and 1957
· Individual nuclear warhead histories, including gravity bombs, artillery
shells, missile and rocket warheads, anti-submarine weapons, and atomic
demolition munitions
· A history and description of warhead arming and fuzing techniques and
equipment, including radar and barometric fuses, manual and automatic inflight
insertion equipment, and Permissive Action Links
· Three detailed appendices summarizing the objectives and results of U.S.
nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962; warhead specifications; and typical nuclear
weapons accidents between 1950 and 1981
Since 1945, the U.S. nuclear weapons program has included 60,000 warheads of
71 different types for 116 separate weapons systems. Another 29 designs were
canceled before they reached production. By the end of 1992, the U.S. had
detonated more than 1,000 nuclear explosions on the surface of the earth,
underground, underwater, in the atmosphere, and in space over and under the
Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and in several states in the continental U.S.
The cost of this program has been staggering: over $89 billion in development
costs and $700 billion for delivery systems. These nuclear warheads were
fabricated by a vast administrative and materials production complex that spans
the west coast from Washington to California and which ranges east across the
country to the District of Columbia and south to Florida. Many thousands of
persons have been and are employed by this network.
In spite of the massive size and scope of this weapons development effort, its
products and activities have remained largely out of the public consciousness.
This has been even more true since the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 which
sent U.S. nuclear testing and, until just recently, most protest underground.
The information in the Swords of Armageddon (Version 2.0) is currently divided into
seven volumes. Significant advances in postwar U.S. nuclear weapons described in these
volumes are listed below.
Boosting Linear Implosion
Composition Non-lensed HE ignition systems
Levitation External initiators
Penetrating weapons Sealed-pit weapons
Hollow implosion Tailored effect weapons
Improved high explosives (HE) Lightweight primaries
Interchangeability U-235 implosion
Improved reflectors & tampers Application of U-233
Clean weapons Lightweight high-yield weapons
Dirty weapons Radiation implosion
Enhanced radiation weapons Solid-fueled weapons
Improved secondary designs Three-stage weapons
Classical Super Small clean tactical weapons
Pure-fusion devices Uranium hydride implosion
Volume I, Part I. Includes the front matter and a description of fission and
fusion weapon physics, fuels, and weapon design and detonation principles. Part
II. describes the technology of postwar U.S. fission weapons
development, comprising the application of specific materials and design
techniques. These include improvements in high explosives; levitation and
composition; the use of uranium hydride and uranium-233; hollow cores;
interchangeability; linear implosion; tamper and reflector improvements; the
development of internal and external neutron sources (initiators); and the
development of boosted pits and primaries.
Volumes II, III and IV describe the development and testing
of thermonuclear weapons between 1942 and the fall of 1957. These sections are
written chronologically, and discuss several topics in parallel, including
design advances in "clean" and dirty weapons; weapons testing; the
debate over sharing of information with U.S. allies; and interface problems
between weapons and their delivery vehicles.
The first two parts (Vols. II and III) of this U.S.
hydrogen bomb history, covering the period between 1942 and mid-1954, describe
the search for feasibility, and the development and tests of the first U.S.
liquid-fueled and solid-fueled devices. Some of the highlights of these sections
include:
· The development of fission and fusion weapons by the Los Alamos Scientific
Laboratory
· The development of deuterium, lithium, and tritium production facilities
· The genesis of "dirty" and high-yield thermonuclear weapons
· The origins and early program of the Livermore laboratory, including the
controversy surrounding its establishment, and later efforts by LASL to gain
control of the new lab
· Early Department of Defense war plans for combat uses of thermonuclear
weapons
· The on-again, off-again plans for sharing of weapons information between the
U.S. and Great Britain
· Soviet reconnaissance of early U.S. Pacific tests, and efforts made by U.S.
forces to thwart them
· The effects of over-classification on the thermonuclear weapons program
· Objectives, conduct, and results of early U.S. Nevada and Pacific nuclear
tests, including RANGER, TUMBLER-SNAPPER, GREENHOUSE, IVY, UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE,
DOMINO, and CASTLE, including details of the selection of test devices for
GREENHOUSE and CASTLE
· The repeated frustration of Atomic Energy Commission efforts to conceal
results of the Pacific tests from the American public and the Soviets
· Major decisions in the H-bomb program, including the October 1949 General
Advisory Committee meeting and Truman's January 1950 directive
· How steadily-increasing tritium requirements finally doomed the
"classical Super"
· The symbiosis of the Teller-Ulam H-bomb design concepts
· The effects of the Korean War on Operations GREENHOUSE and IVY
· The Department of Defense's "emergency capability" thermonuclear
weapons deployment
· Problems surrounding the mating of as-yet-undesigned weapons to delivery
systems
· Attacks by the Luce publishing empire on LASL and J. R. Oppenheimer
· What the AEC was telling Congress, the public, and the President about the
weapons development and weapons testing programs
Volume IV, the history of U.S. thermonuclear weapons between 1954 and late
1962, includes detailed descriptions of the objectives, conduct, and results of
Operations REDWING, PLUMBBOB, HARDTRACK and DOMINIC, including a lengthy exposition on the
development of so-called "clean" weapons.
Volumes V and VI comprise individual warhead histories,
including aircraft-delivered gravity bombs; nuclear artillery shells; missile
and rocket warheads; anti-submarine weapons; and atomic demolition munitions.
Volume VII describes nuclear warhead and arming techniques and
equipment, including radar and barometric fuses, manual and automatic inflight
insertion equipment, and Permissive Action Links.
Also included in the latter volume are three detailed appendices which summarize
the objectives and results of U.S. nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962; list
warhead specifications; and describe typical nuclear weapons accidents between
1950 and 1981.
WHAT CHUCK HANSEN WROTE ABOUT SWORDS OF ARMAGEDDON (RELEASE 2.0 OR VERSION 2.0):
SWORDS PROGRESS REPORT (AS OF JUNE 1997)Work continues on Release 2.0 of The Swords of Armageddon. Most of our effort since January has concentrated on document collection.
Nonetheless, much has been accomplished. We have considerably expanded the W-47 warhead history, including the incorporation of a description of the conduct and results of Project STARDUST, the 1960 Nevada experiment to determine what would happen when a W-47 primary was flooded with salt water. The W-47 history has grown by 50%.
The XW-59 warhead history has been extensively augmented by the receipt of several dozen formerly-classified United Kingdom documents which describe British efforts to influence warhead selection for, and design of, the SKYBOLT missile re-entry vehicle.
In addition, as the result of a Freedom of Information request, we have received a 28-page Sandia history of the development of external and internal initiators between 1945 and 1955. This document is one of the largest single aggregations of information ever compiled on this subject, and it will result in a doubling of the length of the "Advances in Neutron Sources" section in Volume II of Swords.
Volume II has also been expanded by the addition of a full description of Norris Bradbury's nine new schemes of January 1947 which might either improve the efficiency of implosion systems or make possible more economical use of uranium-235.
We have also filed FOIA requests for 46 weapons histories written by Frederick Alexander of Sandia. Redacted excerpts from these histories were used as a basis for U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History in 1987.
Release 2.0 of Swords will include updated versions of all existing eight volumes, and at least one new volume, which will continue Part III, the U.S. thermonuclear weapons development history. Another new section may be Part VI, a history of the evolution of delivery methods of airborne gravity bombs. At present, there is no scheduled publication date for Release 2.0.
Future expansion of this U.S. thermonuclear weapons history will detail
Operation HARDTACK Phases I and II; weapons development during the 1958-1961
test moratorium; preparations for a return to atmospheric and underground
testing in late 1961; Operation NOUGAT in Nevada; and Operation DOMINIC Phase I
in the Pacific in 1962.
This history will also contain a description of the continuing attempts to
develop "clean" and high-yield bombs, including an account of what I
call the "great clean weapons fraud," wherein the Atomic Energy
Commission deliberately misled the President, Congress, and the public about the
state-of-the-art of small "clean" tactical weapons as an excuse to
continue nuclear testing in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
As more information becomes available, the hydrogen bomb history will be
extended into post-1962 testing, including the objectives, conduct, and results
of early U.S. underground weapons development tests. Ultimately this hydrogen
bomb history will be extended into the 1970s and 1980s.
Future changes and growth are somewhat dependent upon declassification actions
by various U.S. government agencies, and upon the number and quality of new
books, articles, theses, reports, and other secondary sources which deal with
subjects of interest. Since 1987, I have been reviewing declassified documents
at a rate of between 10,000 and 50,000 pages per year. My present documentation
archives and library now hold enough information for this service to be
maintained for the indefinite future.
Chuck Hansen
Editor
PROGRESS ON SWORDS, ETC. (AS OF JUNE 1998)
Work continues on Release 2.0 of The Swords of Armageddon. The current manuscript is about 16% larger than the September 1995 Release 1.0. No publication date for Release 2.0 is yet scheduled; we have sold just over 50% of our inventory of Release 1.0 and we will not publish Release 2.0 until this figure gets up around 80%.
Among new information that will be in the next release will be updates on all eight previously published volumes, including many associations of Nevada and Pacific Ocean atmospheric and underground tests to specific weapons and devices. The initiator history in Volume II is now nearly six times as long as the September 1995 version, and many new weapon accidents and incidents have been added to Appendix 3 in Volume VIII.
We still occasionally receive inquiries about Chuck Hansen's 1988 book, U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History. This book has been out-of-print for several years, and used copies -- when they can be found -- have been selling for between $75 and $200. Copies are not available from Chukelea Publications.