[Vendome]

Blew them away....

[RC one]

[ClearCase_guy]

[Captainpaintball]

...or by the sort of uninformed juicebox mafiosi that become “national security” writers for Wired...

I am stealing that line.

[donozark]

One DC would have worked magic on Tora Bora, early on...

[njslim]

Davy Crockett got (somewhat incorrectly) tagged with being “suicide weapon”

That was because weapons minimun range was inside the blast radius of its warhead . Another issue was that weapon was
detonated by time fuse - firing crew would have to consult
range chart to estimate time of flight and set fuse accordingly

If there were strong head or cross winds warhead could burst
short of target and catch launch crew in blast

There were 2 warheads - 10 tons (.01 kt)nominal yield
and 20 tons (.02 kt) nominal yield - were not user selectable

In the tests can see the variability - one 22 tons and other 18 tons yield

Radiation effects outranged thermal/blast effects. Lethal
(500 rem) radiation extended out to 350 meters (10 ton)
and 400 meters (20 ton)

[njslim]

Weapons effect calculator -

If have MS EXCEL or WORKS or calculator which does fractional exponents

Y = weapons yield (in tons , ie 1 KT = 1000 tons) divided by 2500

Ranges in meters for lethal damage

Thermal (burn on exposed skin)

Y ^ .41 (3rd degree burn, Y raised to .41 power)

Y ^ .40 (2nd degree burns)

Y ^ .38 (1st degree burns)

Blast (4.7 PSI, enough to collapse most houses)

Y ^.33 (Y to .33 power)

Radiation (500 rem dose)

Y ^.19

Example 20 ton Davy Crockett

Thermal 138 meters 3rd degree
145 meters 2nd degree
159 meters 1st degree

Blast 203 meters 4.7 psi overpressure

Radiation 400 meters 500 rem exposure

[centurion316]

A lot of tripe is written about the Davy Crockett, including that it could not fire a projectile further than its blast radius, but most of that tripe is written by people who either apply unreasoning fear to all nuclear weapons (something that was encouraged during the Cold War by the Soviet Union and its witting and unwitting agents of influence), or by the sort of uninformed juicebox mafiosi that become “national security” writers for Wired.

My view of this urban myth is that it was mostly a joke. However, the whole concept was a desperate one, in my opinion. The Army was in danger of becoming irrelevant (sound familiar) in the nuclear era. The Air Force and Navy were successfully making that argument and the Army budget was shrinking to the level of the National Park Service. This and "Atomic Annie" were the only technologies that put the Army in the nuclear game. As soon as they developed a warhead that could be fired from a standard 8" howitzer, the Davy Crockett headed for the museums.