The Littlest Boy (Backpack Nukes)

Foreign Policy Magazine via the WayBack Machine ^ | Jan 30 2014 | Adam Rawnsley & David Brown

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This is a follow on post to an article from a couple of months ago, on parachuting with a backpack nuke between your legs.

Wanted to get the entire article posted here for preservation. And knowing FReepers, I suspect that at least a couple of you will have a story that can be partially shared.

Just so you know - I think that it was crazy to declassify any of this material, and the espionage done by the Natural Resources Defense Council and William Arkin should have been prosecuted, even if a few politicians got embarrassed.

Pictures to follow.

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A parachutist tests jumping into water with a SADM, which is attached to the line hanging below him.
Sandia National Laboratories archive photo

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Special Forces used the delivery container pictured above to protect bombs during parachute jumps. The container and the weapon inside were extremely heavy, adding 90 pounds to a paratrooper's load.

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Archive photo via OpenNet

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An Army field manual for the Employment of Atomic Demolition Munitions.
FP scans from FM 5-26 manual

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Archive photo via OpenNet

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Julius Reinitzer, known to his colleagues as "The Bear." A Czechoslovak-born Special Forces sergeant, Reinitzer advised SADM troops about how to stay alive behind enemy lines.
Photo courtesy of Ilona Reinitzer

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Soldiers receive classroom instruction in the use of Medium Atomic Demolition Munitions or "MADMs." MADM -- SADM's big sister -- weighed in at a hefty 400 pounds and required a team of engineers to carry it with the help of a help of a helicopter or truck. The MADM had a larger, variable yield of 1-15 kilotons and could be triggered by timers, wire, or radio.

From the Collection of Larry Fukalek, retired ADM engineer, 2th Engineer Battalion, 7th Infantry Division

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Sandia Laboratories Archive video

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Colonel Tom Davis (ret.) led a SADM team while serving in the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne).
Photo courtesy of Tom Davis

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Parachuting with a nuke between your legs ...

[dfwgator]

[DesertRhino]

They were told to set it, get that safe distance away and observe it. It was an open debate as to whether or not it would instantly detonate and the “get a safe distance away” story was just a mental comfort for them.

Not kidding.

[desertsolitaire]

Could we not give updated versions of these to the Ukes and deny responsibility?
I mean like give 150 of them?

[algore]

I am certain that the shielding on these was totally adequate.

I read that the former soviet union had a bunch of these as well, and that many disappeared

and I am sure that ours were set to detonate immediately upon being armed, would be shocked if they were not

[Yo-Yo]

There was a Jack Reacher novel (Night School) that was based on these "backpack nukes."

I didn't think they were real, but I see I was wrong. Thanks for posting!

[Grampa Dave]

I know one Army/West Point grad, who is still a competent engineer. One of his assignments in West Germany post WWII would have been to place some of these nukes to destroy bridges, overpasses, train tracks and landing fields in case the Russians/East. Germans attacked West Germany.

Another fellow and maybe the smartest man I ever met, carried the codes where to place these small nukes and to be used if necessary. He is no longer with us.

I wondered how our side had these small nukes delivered, and now I know.

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... get that safe distance away and observe it

I suspect that my idea of a "safe distance" and the perfumed princes in the Pentagon may not be the same ...

[higgmeister]

Excuse me, but how could the guy get drafted with a student deferment?

[SauronOfMordor]

I would not be surprised if the shielding on them was so inadequate, that after lugging one on your back for a couple of days, you were going to die of radiation exposure anyway.