[ZOOKER]

I'm not an artillery expert, either, but I recall seeing a History channel story on nuclear artillery.

The gun was huge, took two large wheeled trucks to transport it and all day to set it up. It had to be that large so it could throw the shell far enough that the gun's crew wouldn't be in the blast radius.

There was another, smaller nuke, called the Davy Crockett, but the crew had to dig a bunker and wear rad gear if they expected to survive the blast.

Both weapons were considered impractical and dangerous to our own forces as well as the enemy.

Battlefield nukes may still have their place, but I think missiles are a better delivery system.

[ZOOKER]

Test of nuclear artillery piece, Nevada test range, 1953

[U S Army EOD]

The gun you are talking about was the 280mm Atomic Cannon. The Davy Crocket could be fired off the back of a Jeep but the range was less than the secondary damage radis.

[July 4th]

The Davy Crockett was one mean bazooka.

[GreyFriar]

Atomic Annie, the gun you refer too was the first atomic cannon in the US inventory. It was a 240mm gun. The main problem with the Davy Crockett nuke was that the inner radius of danger was greater than the range of the system. Both were early 1950s systems

Later improved systems: 155mm Self-propelled gun-howitzers (M-109 series) put nukes out to 16+ kilometers, the 8inch (M-110) guns (vice howitzers) had a longer range. Both shells made the occupants of a grid square and their neighbors evaporated critters. I served in the Fire Direction Center (FDC) of M-109 units in the States and Germany. We trained constantly in figuring the firing data for nukes.