10 times more powerful? Little Boy was 15 kilotons. Hydrogen bombs are measured in megaton’s. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The B61-3 has a dial-a-yield ranging from .3 to 170 kt, while the ...
B61 nuclear bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb Proxy Highlight
The B61 nuclear bomb is one of the primary thermonuclear weapons in the U.S. Enduring Stockpile following the end of the Cold War. It is an intermediate-yield strategic and tactical nuclear weapon featuring a two-stage radiation implosion design. The B61 is a variable yield bomb (0.3 to 340 kiloton yield in various versions .... Accuracy has not been a guarantee for air-dropped nuclear weapons
This article states these are “dial-a-yield” bombs:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-h-bombs-in-turkey
“According to Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, underground vaults at Incirlik hold about fifty B-61 hydrogen bombs—more than twenty-five per cent of the nuclear weapons in the nato stockpile. The nuclear yield of the B-61 can be adjusted to suit a particular mission. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima had an explosive force equivalent to about fifteen kilotons of TNT. In comparison, the “dial-a-yield” of the B-61 bombs at Incirlik can be adjusted from 0.3 kilotons to as many as a hundred and seventy kilotons.”
Modern thermonuclear weapons are in the 100kt range and most are dial-a-yield.
Above a certain level, it is more efficient to use multiple smaller warheads than one big one.
There are still some 60’s megaton warheads still out there but most have been disassembled.
That would be “1000” times more powerful...no?
The gadgets in question are flexible — they can be dialed from 300 tons to 340 kilotons. Bad day for a city. Bad day for a metro area. Depends on the mission.
Tactical nuclear bombs like the Mk 61 are still in kilotons, but in the hundreds of kilotons.