Atomic Weapons – Page 3 – Cold War Giants

March 8, 2022May 17, 2022

Atomic Artillery

“God is on the side that has the best artillery”
……Napoleon

“Atomic artillery may prove to be the most effective ever created by man.”
…….US Army 1953

Atomic Artillery was conceived of a few years after World War II but it was considered impossible to do. There were 2 main concerns. First since no artillery shell had ever had a perfect firing record, one with the power of an atomic bomb could misfire and kill thousand of US troops. Second, from an engineering standpoint, is that the force of thrust needed to propel it out of a gun barrel would disrupt the fissile uranium core resulting again in either a catastrophic misfire or an ineffective, but radioactive dud. No wonder the engineers at the Pentagon deemed it impossible.

Where Atomic Artillery designed and manufactured?

Having been turned down by his peers at the Pentagon, Colonel Angelo R Del Campo, Jr went in search of a ballistics engineer in the US Army Ordnance Corps at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County New Jersey.

Why Picatinny Arsenal?

Picatinny Arsenal had produced the most artillery shells for the US and the Allied forces in World War II. In fact Picatinny Arsenal has had a major impact on every conflict since the Revolutionary War:

-Provided General George Washington and his Continental Army with gun powder and supplies after he crossed the Delaware River during his layover in Morristown, New Jersey. It was during this layover that Alexander Hamilton met and married a Morristown girl.

As one of the outnumbered northern arsenals at the outbreak of the Civil War it provided gun powder and cannon balls to the North’s Union Army. After the Civil War the federal government made it the first Federal Arsenal and using government funds to expanded it’s production and manufacturing facilities.

Running 3 shifts 24/7 starting in 1940 to supply arms to our European Allies, it brought in thousands of assembly line workers to build munitions. Uncle Sam built an entire town to house Picatinny workers nearby. Named “Victory Gardens” it had thousands of small single family homes that were offered for free to anybody that relocated to work on the war-effort at Picatinny. The only cost, or caveat, that the occupants must have a food garden since, with thousands of “Rosie-the Riveters moving into the area, a food shortage was anticipated. It was incorporated as a borough a few years after WWII.

Typical home built to house Picatinny workers during the 24/7 war effort. In back is a small food garden to help feed the thousands of war effort workers that poured into Morris County New Jersey.

Picatinny also constructed a railroad to move the munitions from the assembly line to Morris County Airport where it could be transported to the large metropolitan Airports and flown to Europe. The railroad cars had special “sparkless metal” wheels so that none if the ammunition could be accidentally ignited.

So how powerful is an atomic artillery shell?

The initial shell developed at Picatinny Arsenal was planned to be as powerful as the Fat Man dropped on Hiroshima. Below are the comparative sizes of the first 3 Atomic Bombs that underwent a full military weapon detonation,

February 2, 2022May 17, 2022

Top Secret: Time To Target

One of the most important considerations in the Cold War arms race between the US and USSR was time to target. That is once the enemy target is identified, how long is the interval from command to strike back and the actual hit with our bomb. The USSR had shown itself to be expansionistic and the aggressor in many conflicts in Eastern Europe and in Korea, and America had to be prepared to counter attack in the quickest time possible.

General Joe Collins, Army Joint Chief of staff under Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, served during the entire Korean War and this document below is the result of a study he did during 1952-1954.

The first and fastest were the 280mm (11 inch) Howitzer aka the Atomic Cannon and the Honest John Rocket. These both fired warheads equal or stronger than the Hiroshima bomb and were operational in 1953 and 1954.

The Corporal Missile was available in 1955 and had a W7 warhead that produced 22Kilotons (KT) of TNT or 50% more power than the 15KT Hiroshima bomb. The W7 warhead was an experimental warhead that mixed both plutonium and uranium but was found to produce 1/3 less explosive force than expected.

The Hermes Rocket system was based on the work of captured German Scientist Werner Van Braun and the Nazi V2 self propelled rocket. The Hermes rocket project began in 1944 when the US captured a Nazi production facility and shipped all there equipment to the newly established White Sands Missile Base in New Mexico. The Hermes A-3B missile was produced in 1953-54 and had a 1000 pound warhead. It is thought the weight of the warhead cause many problems.

And that further advances were need in the booster engine. The Hermes failed many launches and never became operational.

As we move down the list we go from artillery, to rockets, to missiles, and then to planes, with TAC and SAC representing the Tactical Air Command and the Strategic Air Command. This study demonstrated the “Strike time” for the Air Force would be much greater, 7-10 hours, than for the Army, 3-4 hours. Hence much of the military budget was dedicated to developing nuclear artillery for deployment in Europe and Asia.

December 28, 2021May 17, 2022

My Father

My father, Irving Mayer, never told me of his US Army Ordnance (weapon) accomplishments, but at the age of 5 along with a couple other families, I was flown to Washington DC for President Kennedy to thank me for dad’s contribution to the defense of the United States. We were a proud family that day.

Over many years I have tried to uncover what his top secret role was in his groups accomplishment of shrinking the Atomic Bomb. While growing up we knew there was a Cold War Arms race with the Soviets. I believe this race was so that America would be a deterrent to the “Evil Empire” known as the USSR. Their motives were expansionists and militarists and only by superior power could they be deterred from taking over West Germany or all of Europe.

Over the years, I realized that President Kennedy was thanking my dad for being one of the key scientists that helped the United States deter the Soviets from military actions. He and the group of Cold War Giants he worked with at Picatinny Arsenal are discussed here.

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