Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Bye, Bye, B-53



No, its not a typo, I'm not talking about the B-52 bomber.

The last B-53 nuclear bomb in the US arsenal is being dismantled at the Pantex facility in Amarillo, TX, today.

The 10,000 pound weapon was the big stick nuclear deterrent for the bomber portion of US's nuclear triad during the Cold War. Its one and only purpose was to put a big hurt on the Soviet Union. It's yield of 9 megatons (roughly 600 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb) was intended to destroy underground control complexes. First entering service with the USAF in 1962, approximately 50 of the weapons remained in the active arsenal in 1997, when they were officially retired from service.

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