Posted on 05/25/2021 3:53:54 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
The US Army fired its atomic cannon for the first and last time 68 years ago.
The cannon, initially named "Able Annie," was later renamed "Atomic Annie."
During the May 25, 1953 test, the cannon fired a nuclear shell that unleashed a 15-kiloton blast.
The US Army successfully test-fired an atomic cannon exactly 68 years ago Tuesday. It was the first and only time the US military ever fired a nuclear weapon from a conventional cannon, according to the Army.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Me too. In fact I worked for several months in the building across the street from Atomic Annie. That was about 35 years ago - seems like yesterday.
I remember touching it back in 96 when I was at Sill.
There had been little plastic cordon chains keeping us undisciplined 13b from wandering off the pathwaus.
Not that it stopped us.
Major asked me what it felt like, I said “POWERRRR”.
He laughed.
Was she kin to Able Able Common?
Totally suicidal, but made to stop the Soviets, in the Fulda Gap.
I had a friend (who died just last fall) who was in the army unit that deployed these cannon. He was stationed in Europe, near as possible to the Soviet Union Border. He had a Physics degree from Princeton, which was probably he got assigned to that unit. He said that his only claim to fame there was that he almost ran over Albert Einstein.
I read that the Soviets ALWAYS knew where Atomic Annie was.
The 280 MM Gun At The Nevada Proving Ground
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9F-l_3eLcE
They fired it by lanyard. The guy who pulled it was probably wondering what a muzzle burst would be like.
We won in WW2 because we were fighting on the same side as the USSR, and thus did not have our Communists at home sabotaging our efforts.
Fire it from a hill, with your crew scooting over to the other side of the hill before it exploded, and you would be ok. Or at least more ok than having a Soviet tank brigade roll over you, which would also be unhealthy.
Atomic weaponry was a staple in military arsenals during the Cold War. During the early onset of the arms race in the 1950s, atomic projectiles were not yet being fitted on missiles, but rather appeared in the form of bombs. For the U.S. Army, however, where military tactics included the use of atomic weapons on and close to the front line, a weapon was designed to deliver an atomic artillery around behind the front lines. The demand for such a weapon led to the development of the M65 280MM Motorized Heavy Gun, also known as “Atomic Annie” or the Atomic Cannon.
Radar proximity fusing?
Might these guns have been used in the making of “The Guns of Navaronne?”
It was at the Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground. “Anzio Annie” was there also. I read somewhere they moved it to Fort Lee in VA and is not open to the public yet.
Same kind of size maybe.
Big enough to go on a modest sized battleship.
Good question, I can’t remember, but I don’t know if proximity fuses were used. Most of the time we computed using VT fuses. (Variable Timed). We never called called them radar proximity fuses., just proximity fuses.
I was in the Army from 1982-1984, before GPS and lasers.
‘‘We won in WW2 because we were fighting on the same side as the USSR, and thus did not have our Communists at home sabotaging our efforts.”
I hate to argue the narrative that the USA won world war 2, but the Russians really won the war. They had the most casualties (20,000,000 versus 500,000). The US was simply put in a position to not be defeated because we got in the war late. DDay might have been a different story if hitler didn’t have troops in the east.. What is also interesting is that the USA did give the Russians food and equipment while they gave up lives.
The Russians supplied the bodies, but the US supplied the equipment and supplies. Inflation-adjusted, about $180 billion worth, without which they would have lost.
https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/
Including
400,000 jeeps & trucks
14,000 airplanes
8,000 tractors
13,000 tanks
1.5 million blankets
15 million pairs of army boots
107,000 tons of cotton
2.7 million tons of petrol products
4.5 million tons of food
We won in WW2 because we were fighting on the same side as the USSR, and thus did not have our Communists at home sabotaging our efforts.
We did at the start of the war, but when Hitler attacked the USSR it all changed.
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