They still have a couple around at certain places I can't mention, even though officially they have been long since been declared 'destroyed'. It's a 100% analog weapon. It can not be hacked, jammed, intercepted, spoofed or decoyed. Same reason they keep a few of the old atomic demolitions around; the final fail-safe
I feel it for the poor souls in the "no brakes" accident. Years later: - What's the strangest thing that happened to you during your military service? - I've done a downhill race in front of a nuke cannon with broken brakes. - Yeah, sure... when do fairies and dragons enter the story? ..........walking away shaking his head
Thanks for the video. In the 80s I grew up in a small town in Germany where a detachment of U.S. soldiers was stationed along with German artillery. It was an open secret that the GIs were guarding nuclear shells. Germany officially had pledged that it would not develop, build, or own nuclear weapons, but there was a sharing agreement that the German Bundeswehr would be permitted to use U.S. warheads in case of war, so these warheads were for the German artillery batteries (first howitzers, later missile artillery). Of course at the time we felt that WW3 was more a question of "when" not "if" and took some solace in the belief that due to the special munitions depot things would probably over for us quickly as it would be a key target for any nuclear strike by the USSR. Fortunately it never came to that. Still, it was quite good growing up playing with the kids of the U.S. soldiers. 🙂 de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sondermunitionslager_Kellinghusen
I grew up well within the blast radius of a B-52 (Stratofortress) airbase in the US, also under a supposed "when, not if" narrative. We watched the US duck and cover propaganda films but weren't bothered with the under-desk drills because we ALL knew there was no point. Helluvathing to learn at 7-8 years old.🤔
@@markromine5103 Duck and cover was specifically developed thanks to survival testimony from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was later proven to work when the 2013 meteor airburst over Russia, and a teacher told the students to duck and cover while she watched the incident. The students were unharmed but the teacher was blasted with glass shards.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Depending on the yield and height, we were likely within the 20psi overpressure and direct radiation radius. So, completely flattened buildings and 100% fatally cooked. Little value to duck and cover *at that range*.
@@ChucksSEADnDEADDuck and cover makes sense if you're far away. If you're close you spontaneously combust and the building you're in gets blown to pieces.
My dad was stationed at Okinawa and Iwo Jima not too long after WW2. To his dying day he claimed most of what he did and saw was classified, and I'm finding that seemed to have been mostly true. I wish he were alive to see most things decommissioned so he could tell me the stories again, with more detail this time!!! ❤
I love everything in this thread though I think since we're talking about the US military and their personnel, particularly a sergeant and a corporal in the cold war, miles should have been used over kilometers. (5km is a little over 3 miles and 11km is a bit under 7 miles.)
@@marrqi7wini54... the military, at least Army, uses kilometers, the Navy knots. Not sure about the USAF, though knots are pretty much standard there also
Annie's OK. Firing the Davey Crockett required a death wish. BTW, Oppenheimer was an advocate of battlefront nukes. He wanted nuclear development to trend away from city destruction.
I adore whacky cold war weapons. Thanks for spreading awareness of Atomic Annie. The Russians made a wide variety of nuclear shells. As here they where typically gun type weapons (as in mechanism of critical mass assembly not launch method). While relatively inefficient and not particularily powerful (for atom bombs) gun type weapons offer one advantage besides ease of design and that's a small diameter as the device is basically a self contained gun firing 2/3 of a critical mass into the rest. Ted Taylor, who designed many remarkably small nuclear weapons claimed he could make one that fits a 3 inch shell. 5 inch was what they had actually constructed but if one guy knew nukes it was Ted. He also theorised that artillery launched nuclear weapons may be possible using implosion, by using two point detonation. Unlike a traditional implosion bomb that has around 32+ detonators, each setting off an explosive lens, a mixture of fast explosives and a core of slow explosives (Comp B and Baratol traditionally) to shape the shockwave from a diverging into a converging (round, symmetrical) shockwave, which is one of the complexities in desiging implosion bombs, two point detonation is somewhat of a holy grail in nuclear weapons design. Instead of 30+ detonators needed to be synced within one microsecond or better you only need two, hence the name. The details remain highly classified as this substantially simplifies the design but the gist is two explosive lenses, each half an elongated hemisphere followed by air gaps and shaping plates of aluminium or such. The combination of the lenses and the shaping plates produces a near perfect symmetric round shockwave and it's still quit safe as single point detonation would not result in significant yield. So the weapon can be burnt or blown up and won't detonate. Besides the conventional explosives of course. The Swan Primary was the first American 2 point det design and was used as the primary or ignition charge for the fusion stage of many hydrogen bombs of the 50s. Leaked Swedish designs (yes Sweden had an extensive nuclear weapons program as did the Netherlands) are why we know that. It would make a cool subject too, cancelled nuclear weapons programs. Switzerland had a go at it too and finally handed over the last weapons grade plutonium to Los Alamos a few years back. But the two point design offers a smaller diamater like gun type weapons so it is suitable for artillery. Of course this would allow for substantial tritium boosting as well as a second stage. Artillery launched hydrogen bombs of virtually unlimited yield. Once the primary fits, the secondary lends itself to the long shape or an artillery shell. So it would be perfectly possible to refit say the Iowa's with 16 inch h-bombs. Since the range is about 30 km it would probably be best to keep the yield below 5 Mt or it could get really toasty on deck. Below deck is fine of course. Operation Crossroads failed to significantly damage vessels like the mighty battleship Nagato. And that was at point blank range.
Fun fact, nuclear surface to air missiles still exist. Long range low frequency radars can detect low observable aircraft but don't have the resolution for a target lock, they only tell you where it generally is. But with a nuclear surface to air missile you only need to know the general vicinity of the target.
@@atomicskull6405 I don't think they still exist. Russian sure, they have a wide variety of things like that but as far as I know the small warheads like W54 and the larger W25 have long been retired. Just yesterday I went through the list of the "enduring arsenal" and all I saw was ICBM warheads and the B61 and B83 gravity bombs but other than that it's W76, generally deployed on Minuteman (100 kt, thermonuke) and the more powerful W88 and variants of that also deployed on Trident and Minuteman. Basically many are variations on the B61 physics package, such as the W80, still deployed for nuclear tipped cruise missiles. The US mainly had nuclear Air to Air missiles such as the AIM-4 and AIR-2 Genie. Most of the SAM systems, while capable of being used against large bomber formations the primary use was to disable incoming warheads in the terminal phase of flight, with systems like SPRINT. All long retired of course unfortunately because Sprint was the only real way to make a dent in a full exchange. Still detonating hundreds of atom bombs over friendly territory is not preferred. Besides since then nukes have been hardened against neutron radiation. The neutrons would partially fission the pit and once detonated cause a low yield predetonation or fizzle.
@@221b-l3t the US would be stupid not to use nuclear SAMs. How else can you wipe out a fleet of bombers or a barrage of MIRVs re-entering the atmosphere? The US depends too much on our super sophisticated super precise high tech crap. I'm not counting on a bunch of patriot batteries or SM2s to take out incoming Russian ICBMs.
@@joshuaortiz2031 Well the systems aren't there. It's all been retired. I absolutely do not disagree with you. Even an intermediate range ballistic missiles start to get challenging for kinetic interceptors, Patriot can do it. But it's not what you would want to rely on. You need to start firing silly numbers of extremely expensive missiles at a single target and even NKs Hwasong-17 with I estimate 1-2 t payload to orbit and about 20% more as ICBM, it has MIRV capability. And countermeasure are easy. Inflatable warhead shaped and painted ballons. Dozens can fit on a big rocket like that and it is big, more like the liquid fueled Russian monsters than the rather sleek and very reliable Minuteman. And the reality is the US has exactly 44 GMD missiles, that can attack them before the terminal phase still way out in space, the coast phase where the warheads spend most of the time. But the rocket also isn't firing engines so hard to spot. Amd you need two GMD per warhead for a 99% chamce of intercept. There should be a thousand GMD.... and they're all aimed at the North Pole. The Russian rockets are big enough to go all the way around over the South Pole but that does cost a lot of payload and with 1500 or so silo based missiles they can overwhelm defenses with about 10. Really 3 would do it but no one fills up their ICBM's to the brim anymore... 3-5 H-bombs + lots of countermeasures is enough to get the point across. I mean the bombers, will all the jets the US has would just be shot down conventionally, that shouldn't be problem. Even if only 10% makes it in the air that's plenty. The land based ICBM's just nope. The number we would shoot down is so insignificant that probably three Hwasong-17 could do it and any further ones would just get through. Best estimate puts the warhead last tested to great effect (120-300 kt) at about 250 kg. So 4-8 per rocket. Now they probably only have enough to fill 3-5 rockets so thez likely are spread out over more rockets, that also gives them a better chance of making it plua some rockets might fail. But as an enthusiast of rocket technology the days where I made fun of North Korean rocketry lie in the distant past. Staged combustion engines on an ICBM? It's like using a Ferrari to deliver the job. It's almost as if... a lot of pride was involved in the Hwasong series of rockets. 17 is perfectly capable of launching satellites in the 1 t range. Well anyway long way of saying we would be really screwed if anyone with more than one or two big rockets launches. Some will just get through. Korea may have up to 60 bombs. The limiting factor is plutonium, the rest is cheap once you figured it out and they most certainly have. The last test lowered a really big mountain by about 5 cm. But why you may ask did we just g8ve up on it? Treaties. It was agreed with the USSR that anti-ballistic missile capabilty open the possibility of someone judging they can shoot down enough of the counterstrike to make a surprise first use very effective. Perhaps "worth it". That was in the aftermath of nuke powered X-ray lasers being developed to fry 50 warheads at a time (beam splitter - SDI program). So it was decided to more or less agree to not develop capability beyond what would be needed to stop a very limited attack. Of course the Russians after the USSR collapsed figured that treaty no longer concers us and happily began developing ABM capability. Yeah... it's not too late to bring SPRINT back... I love that rocket. Supersonic in 2 seconds. Mach 10 in 10 seconds. Tipped with a nuke. The neutrons begin activating the core of the incoming weapons, fissioning, so once the explosives go off the core becomes supercritical early and blows itself apart before any significant amount of energy was released (predetonation/fizzle). That way you could use relatively few nukes to just blanket a part of the sky in neutron radiation and mess up the warheads. They would still do maybe 0.1 - 1 kt or so. But that's relatively mild compared to the 800 kt bombs the Russians deploy. Modern warheads are hardened a bit and the very nature of a nuke surrounds the core with neutron reflecting material to increase the yield. So with today's nukes we might need a little... better coverage. Regardless of what you may or may not shoot down a single of several submarines are perfectly capable of delivering their own nation ending weaponry indepenant of what may or may not have happened to land or air based assets. France aptly named "Le Terrible" alone could wipe out three countries and have enough left over to declare some island as a nuclear armed microstate. It's actually a serious question in nuclear planning, what happens if you order a limited strike, but now all the nukes are unlocked and a particularily enthusiastic launch officer might add a little extra. Or fire one after a ceasefire. There are safeguards but subs are vulnerable. By their nature they must be independant and the authority of the Captain of a boomer boat is pretty big. Yes you need the other key too but I mean the system is based on everyone following the rules and being good boys. Someone could totally shoot the Captain and FO take the keys and launch away. The PAL codes are onboard and those same keys open the safe too. Now the launch codes are there to verify the order is authentic. Do they match those in a sealed card inside that red safe? But the boat doesn't actually need them if it decided to do its own thing. It's the dilemma of all zeros as PAL lock codes. They worried a strike may end the leadership and incinerate the launch codes leaving the military unable to retaliate with a bunch of locked nukes. So contrary to what you may hear Ballistic Missile Submarines have all needed codes on board. The government may not be there anymore to order a particular strike package (sets of targets) so the sub needs the capability to respond in a wide variety of strikes from limited to full and with flexible targeting as the situation on the ground can evolve fast once nukes are being fired. I recommend the airport bar. Any runway above 2km is automatically a target for both sides. So it'll be quick. Order the most expensive booze haha. Wouldn't want to be eaten by a crazed post-apocalyptic maniac over a vial of antibiotics. That's no fun.
@@221b-l3t meh I'll take my chances living like it's Cormac McCarthy's the road after the nukes go off. The fallout decays to safe levels in a few weeks and if you have everything you need for years stocked up and live in some rural homestead you might be ok. I owe it to myself to at least try and survive considering I've spent most of my life after my deployment to Iraq depressed and socially isolated. I was just starting to get my shit together when the pandemic struck.
I just absolutely love the insanity of the early Cold War era, and Atomic Annie, along with the B-36 Peacemaker and the Davey Crockett just perfectly epitomize this mentality. I still get chills down my spine every time I see the footage of Annie firing, only to then see a sudden flash give way to a slowly billowing mushroom cloud...from a freakin' gun!
As an aside, 11" and 14" were the standard size guns used for coastal defense in the late 1800s through the second world war. Not mobile, but the basic tech and operation of such a thing was well established. (Navy guns were larger but their operation is a totally different affair.)
This gun is on display at Ft. Sill in Lawton Oklahoma, and what is really remarkable about it is how unremarkable it is. It's really just a gun with a slightly better and faster transportation system.
Although I was never stationed at Ft, Sill as permanent party I spent over a year there going back various courses. So yeah I had to check out Atomic Annie. Once at the Lawton bus station I had some time to kill before boarding to Tulsa to visit my parents. Pretty close to the station was a bar by the name Atomic Annie's so I assumed it would be a place where artilleryman congregate. After ordering a pitcher of beer I started noticing a few things. All of the girls had Adams apples. The bar tender had a deep voice. She (?) Informed me that it was a gay bar and they were practicing for a drag show. I finished my beer but I never went back. A gay bar was not a good place for a SSG with a top secret clearance to be seen in the '80s.
If you are ever traveling I-70 near Junction City Kansas ( a few miles from Ft Riley) there is an atomic cannon set up on the hill above the town and Marshal Army Airfield. It is on display in Freedom Park and publicly accessible after a short hike up the hill. The gun can clearly be seen from I-70.
I was born on Okinawa and lived there 14 years. Our base church was located on the top of a hill overlooking the army motor pool parking yard and maintenance shops. Standing outside the church one evening, I looked down and saw 2 of the T72 prime movers for the "Atomic Cannon". As soon as I came home, I excitedly asked my dad when the atomic cannons had arrived on the island. My dad, who was a GS employee working at the Army headquarters, turned white and dragged me to a bedroom and shut the door. "Who told you that? That's the biggest secret we've had on this island in the past year!!!" He was furious!!!! Talk about scared!! I said - "Dad, no one told me. I saw the transporters in the motor pool from the church. That's the only thing they do" He looked at me in shock! "Are you sure?" he asked "Yes dad -You bought me the model a while back, remember?" He just shook his head and we went back out to dinner. It turned out that the transporters I saw had been sent ahead for testing. The cannons were coming to the island by LST and the Army was going to try to sneak them onto the island by unloading the cannons onto a beach in the middle of the night. They were going to lay PSP (Pierced Steel Planking) on the sand to make a temporary road to get the cannons off the beach. They had brought the extra transporters over to test the plan. I found out later that he let his boss know what I had seen and by 5 PM the entire project was declassified. They ended up bringing the cannons in a Naha Harbor and making the whole thing into a parade, driving them down the center of town 🤣🤣🤣🤣
The army guys went to Sandia and asked them for ever smaller and smaller nuclear devices, to the Sandia engineers said: - We can make a nuclear hand grenade if you want, the problem is finding someone dumb enough to throw it.
My brother was enlisted in the Belgian army in an artillery battalion stationed in Germany and they had one gun and a spare one. They were supposed to fire a nuclear grenade, provided by the US of course. They had either the M110 or M109, don't know for sure.
I was stationed at Augsburg in 71 on the 109. We were authorized 12 Narkys (Nuke arty=Narky, the Old Man's pet name for something he really didn't want.) We only had 4 though. And they were locked down so tight you had to be a bird col just to see the outside of the door. Side note: They once issued us "Starlight Scopes", which were night vision, sort of. It was like counting sheep in a snowstorm with your glasses fogged up. I really never thought that tech would make it.
First I learned of Atomic Annie was from a photo our families Compton Encyclopedia, that was printed in 1960, and I was flipping thru since the mid 1960s, as a small child.
Totally not your fault but the video I was watching before this was quiet so, when this one started and my ears contemplated bleeding from Simon's bleating, there was a mad scramble for the volume control and me crying out, "Damn you Whistler!" 😂
this one was slightly louder than any other videos I've been watching today lol, so if you had quieter-than-average previous video, this would be quite startling XD
Great and fascinating video as always Simon, but the thumbnail is unnecessary inaccurate click bait. It's nowhere near a "pocket" atomic bomb. You'd have to have some pretty massive pockets.
I have pictures of myself hanging out in front of Atomic Anne , i did basic training at Fort Sill OK and that's where it resides in the Artillery museum. It is HUGE, pictures do not do it justice
I lived in Lawton, OK in the 50's. Just outside Fort Sill. I was in school and don't remember much but I saw it many times. There is one on display at Fort Sill. Someone screwed up and landed a round in a new part of Lawton that didn't have houses yet. It was just a small charge but the joke was that the army made a basement for someones new house when they wanted to put it there. It did break widows in part of the city, and some said it did some damage to homes. Like I said I was young, in grade school so what I remember may not be facts. But you can check local newspapers for that time if you want facts.
Reminds me of the terran ghost in Starcraft going behind enemy lines and painting the target but in this case they just cary the munitions with them . That would've been awesome game play.
There were more than atomic grenades for howitzers. Atomic Demolition Munitions (ADM) are tactical nuclear weapons. It is often referred to as atomic mines or nuclear landmines. These nuclear explosives are installed at a specific point and are remotely/timed. ADM was available with an explosive power of 10 t TNT equivalent to 1 kt (Small ADM, SADM) and 500 t to 15 kt (Medium ADM, MADM). The purpose of this weapon is to block large areas of points in the terrain in order to delay an enemy attack. In the event of a possible attack by the Warsaw Pact on Western Europe, these weapons would have been used on the internal German border and in areas beyond it, such as Fulda, the so-called Fulda Gap.
I love the picture in picture at 8:06... Like... Standing behind a tree is really gonna help if something goes wrong with a NUCLEAR artillery piece 😂😂😂
Can we all take a moment to appreciate the sacrifices of those poor dudes in that tank footage at the start...one tank on fire and another literally launched into the air by massive ordnance. The amount of energy needed to launch a 30 ton lump of steel 10m into the air and flip it, is simply horrifying.....and soldiers of all nations willingly advanced into that hellstorm.
Ya'll want to hear something very ironic: in the rts game command and conquer: generals, the people's army of china has a slightly different version of the canon but using the image of this canon shooting the round if i remember correctly just in a mirrored configuration and yes it is a nuclear bomb shooting weapon...
There’s a couple of atomic cannon you can see from I-70 in Kansas by Fort Riley, sitting quietly atop a couple of hills and pointed west. It’s a bit unnerving. I always hope they’re not functional.
If this was a Nazi weapon, the music would be far more sinister and the script and Simon's delivery would be far more accusing. But instead the US made the weapon and so that makes it a fun curiosity and definitely not anything devastating to innocent people.
Typically documentaries about Nazis show stuff they actually did. The fantasy weapons and wacky developments they did are actually portrayed cheerfully.
I just like reminding people that the Iowas may (or may not :P) have had 9 of these guns on each of them. (the 16"/50's of the Iowa class ships had nuclear artillery available for them, though the USN and thus the US government have never actually confirmed that an Iowa was ever carrying the shells, but afaik that has to do with official US policy on talking about where an actual live nuke is or is not.)
No they made 5 inch nuclear shells. For comparison USS Iowa fired 16 inch shells. 5 inch is a large but not uncommon size for artillery. With a big gun you could launch a hydrogen bomb.
Pretty much. That is why current gun lobbed nuclear munitions have a rocket stage that guides them and extends range. Gun alone isn't gonna do it for kilotons. Also the radiation field is beyond the blast radius of these devices because the traditional uranium radiation case is too heavy. Scary 😨
@@christopherleubner6633 No it's perfectly safe. The gun has a range of 30 km. That was how far they observed Castle Bravo from (1000 times more powerful than this). And they where fine. It got pretty hot, Castle Bravo ended up triple the expected yield but they where fine. 15 kt at 30 km is no problem at all. Don't look at the flash and you'll be fine. Nukes are powerful but not that powerful. At 30 km the Rsar bomba might still kill you but not much else. Heck of a sunburn though. Atom bombs where commonly observed from less than 5 km away in tests and detonated within 30 km of some towns. Though long term that did have an effect. Cancer rates in Nevada are higher around the test area. But 700 bombs where detonated in Nevada. It is the most nuked place on Earth. Test site looks like Emmentaler cheese from Google Earth.
The German villagers must have been relieved to learn that those boxcar-sized projectiles being hurled over their homes and farms were only full of high explosives and not atomic bombs.
They travel so fast it's physically impossible for them to not fly many km. A Mach 3, 7 ton shell just doesn't suddenly changes course. We can extremely reliable calculate the ballistic trajectory of a shell. Even coriolis effect is in the standard equation (effect of Earth rotating, so your target moves even if it stands still because Earth moves, gotta figure that in for an accurate hit, even snipers).
From a purely constructive criticism standpoint, I found myself restarting the video several times to see if I could understand Simon. It honestly felt like he was rushing through the first sentence. Great info and production as always, though.
The yield of the 155 mm nuclear shell was pretty low--the yield was only just over 1 kT. The Soviet Red Army had similar weapon fired from the SO-152 self-propelled howitzer, which mounted a 152 mm gun.
I remember seeing a documentary about the Davy Crockett nuclear warhead that was mounted on Jeeps. A number of them were deployed to the DMZ in Korea.
They still have a couple around at certain places I can't mention, even though officially they have been long since been declared 'destroyed'.
It's a 100% analog weapon. It can not be hacked, jammed, intercepted, spoofed or decoyed.
Same reason they keep a few of the old atomic demolitions around; the final fail-safe
@@cascadianrangers728I bet they are at the Canadian border just in case they decide to finish the job from 1813.😂
Douglas MacArthur would be proud
Well, with those artillery positions across the border able to completely level Seoul, I consider it a good secret weapon to have
It would be such a rush to fire that thing in anger at enemy troops.
I feel it for the poor souls in the "no brakes" accident.
Years later:
- What's the strangest thing that happened to you during your military service?
- I've done a downhill race in front of a nuke cannon with broken brakes.
- Yeah, sure... when do fairies and dragons enter the story?
..........walking away shaking his head
Thanks for the video. In the 80s I grew up in a small town in Germany where a detachment of U.S. soldiers was stationed along with German artillery. It was an open secret that the GIs were guarding nuclear shells. Germany officially had pledged that it would not develop, build, or own nuclear weapons, but there was a sharing agreement that the German Bundeswehr would be permitted to use U.S. warheads in case of war, so these warheads were for the German artillery batteries (first howitzers, later missile artillery). Of course at the time we felt that WW3 was more a question of "when" not "if" and took some solace in the belief that due to the special munitions depot things would probably over for us quickly as it would be a key target for any nuclear strike by the USSR. Fortunately it never came to that.
Still, it was quite good growing up playing with the kids of the U.S. soldiers. 🙂
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sondermunitionslager_Kellinghusen
I grew up well within the blast radius of a B-52 (Stratofortress) airbase in the US, also under a supposed "when, not if" narrative. We watched the US duck and cover propaganda films but weren't bothered with the under-desk drills because we ALL knew there was no point. Helluvathing to learn at 7-8 years old.🤔
@@markromine5103 Duck and cover was specifically developed thanks to survival testimony from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was later proven to work when the 2013 meteor airburst over Russia, and a teacher told the students to duck and cover while she watched the incident. The students were unharmed but the teacher was blasted with glass shards.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Depending on the yield and height, we were likely within the 20psi overpressure and direct radiation radius. So, completely flattened buildings and 100% fatally cooked. Little value to duck and cover *at that range*.
NATO still has a nuclear weapons sharing program and Germany has access to US B61 thermonuclear bombs
@@ChucksSEADnDEADDuck and cover makes sense if you're far away. If you're close you spontaneously combust and the building you're in gets blown to pieces.
My dad was stationed at Okinawa and Iwo Jima not too long after WW2. To his dying day he claimed most of what he did and saw was classified, and I'm finding that seemed to have been mostly true. I wish he were alive to see most things decommissioned so he could tell me the stories again, with more detail this time!!! ❤
I saw Atomic Annie at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, USA, when I went there for BASIC training.
I remember playing on the one above Ft. Riley as a kid!
I was stationed at Sill for my A.D. days. Annie is a huge bitch, makes howitzer's look like pop guns 🤣
Yup same, I still have a few pictures of me hanging around it on Family day
"Uh sarge, what the range of this gun?"
"11 kilometers corporal"
"So what's the kill radius of a 20 kiloton shell sarge?"
"Sleep tight corporal."
even the light blast range (only lightly built structure affected) only has a radius of about 5km, 11km away is plenty.
@@MarkoDashstill a hilarious conversation to imagine
I love everything in this thread though I think since we're talking about the US military and their personnel, particularly a sergeant and a corporal in the cold war, miles should have been used over kilometers.
(5km is a little over 3 miles and 11km is a bit under 7 miles.)
@@marrqi7wini54... the military, at least Army, uses kilometers, the Navy knots. Not sure about the USAF, though knots are pretty much standard there also
You don’t have to be insane to fire this, but it sure helps! 😂
34 👍
Annie's OK. Firing the Davey Crockett required a death wish.
BTW, Oppenheimer was an advocate of battlefront nukes. He wanted nuclear development to trend away from city destruction.
Insane or filled with fear. 😮
Insane or socio-pathic.
Yeah, I'd be semi-reluctant. Cool video though, almost looks like a mad edit... 🤔
I adore whacky cold war weapons. Thanks for spreading awareness of Atomic Annie. The Russians made a wide variety of nuclear shells. As here they where typically gun type weapons (as in mechanism of critical mass assembly not launch method). While relatively inefficient and not particularily powerful (for atom bombs) gun type weapons offer one advantage besides ease of design and that's a small diameter as the device is basically a self contained gun firing 2/3 of a critical mass into the rest.
Ted Taylor, who designed many remarkably small nuclear weapons claimed he could make one that fits a 3 inch shell. 5 inch was what they had actually constructed but if one guy knew nukes it was Ted.
He also theorised that artillery launched nuclear weapons may be possible using implosion, by using two point detonation.
Unlike a traditional implosion bomb that has around 32+ detonators, each setting off an explosive lens, a mixture of fast explosives and a core of slow explosives (Comp B and Baratol traditionally) to shape the shockwave from a diverging into a converging (round, symmetrical) shockwave, which is one of the complexities in desiging implosion bombs, two point detonation is somewhat of a holy grail in nuclear weapons design.
Instead of 30+ detonators needed to be synced within one microsecond or better you only need two, hence the name. The details remain highly classified as this substantially simplifies the design but the gist is two explosive lenses, each half an elongated hemisphere followed by air gaps and shaping plates of aluminium or such. The combination of the lenses and the shaping plates produces a near perfect symmetric round shockwave and it's still quit safe as single point detonation would not result in significant yield. So the weapon can be burnt or blown up and won't detonate. Besides the conventional explosives of course.
The Swan Primary was the first American 2 point det design and was used as the primary or ignition charge for the fusion stage of many hydrogen bombs of the 50s.
Leaked Swedish designs (yes Sweden had an extensive nuclear weapons program as did the Netherlands) are why we know that. It would make a cool subject too, cancelled nuclear weapons programs. Switzerland had a go at it too and finally handed over the last weapons grade plutonium to Los Alamos a few years back.
But the two point design offers a smaller diamater like gun type weapons so it is suitable for artillery. Of course this would allow for substantial tritium boosting as well as a second stage. Artillery launched hydrogen bombs of virtually unlimited yield. Once the primary fits, the secondary lends itself to the long shape or an artillery shell. So it would be perfectly possible to refit say the Iowa's with 16 inch h-bombs. Since the range is about 30 km it would probably be best to keep the yield below 5 Mt or it could get really toasty on deck. Below deck is fine of course. Operation Crossroads failed to significantly damage vessels like the mighty battleship Nagato. And that was at point blank range.
Fun fact, nuclear surface to air missiles still exist. Long range low frequency radars can detect low observable aircraft but don't have the resolution for a target lock, they only tell you where it generally is. But with a nuclear surface to air missile you only need to know the general vicinity of the target.
@@atomicskull6405 I don't think they still exist. Russian sure, they have a wide variety of things like that but as far as I know the small warheads like W54 and the larger W25 have long been retired. Just yesterday I went through the list of the "enduring arsenal" and all I saw was ICBM warheads and the B61 and B83 gravity bombs but other than that it's W76, generally deployed on Minuteman (100 kt, thermonuke) and the more powerful W88 and variants of that also deployed on Trident and Minuteman.
Basically many are variations on the B61 physics package, such as the W80, still deployed for nuclear tipped cruise missiles. The US mainly had nuclear Air to Air missiles such as the AIM-4 and AIR-2 Genie. Most of the SAM systems, while capable of being used against large bomber formations the primary use was to disable incoming warheads in the terminal phase of flight, with systems like SPRINT. All long retired of course unfortunately because Sprint was the only real way to make a dent in a full exchange. Still detonating hundreds of atom bombs over friendly territory is not preferred. Besides since then nukes have been hardened against neutron radiation. The neutrons would partially fission the pit and once detonated cause a low yield predetonation or fizzle.
@@221b-l3t the US would be stupid not to use nuclear SAMs. How else can you wipe out a fleet of bombers or a barrage of MIRVs re-entering the atmosphere? The US depends too much on our super sophisticated super precise high tech crap. I'm not counting on a bunch of patriot batteries or SM2s to take out incoming Russian ICBMs.
@@joshuaortiz2031 Well the systems aren't there. It's all been retired.
I absolutely do not disagree with you. Even an intermediate range ballistic missiles start to get challenging for kinetic interceptors, Patriot can do it. But it's not what you would want to rely on. You need to start firing silly numbers of extremely expensive missiles at a single target and even NKs Hwasong-17 with I estimate 1-2 t payload to orbit and about 20% more as ICBM, it has MIRV capability. And countermeasure are easy. Inflatable warhead shaped and painted ballons. Dozens can fit on a big rocket like that and it is big, more like the liquid fueled Russian monsters than the rather sleek and very reliable Minuteman.
And the reality is the US has exactly 44 GMD missiles, that can attack them before the terminal phase still way out in space, the coast phase where the warheads spend most of the time. But the rocket also isn't firing engines so hard to spot. Amd you need two GMD per warhead for a 99% chamce of intercept. There should be a thousand GMD.... and they're all aimed at the North Pole. The Russian rockets are big enough to go all the way around over the South Pole but that does cost a lot of payload and with 1500 or so silo based missiles they can overwhelm defenses with about 10. Really 3 would do it but no one fills up their ICBM's to the brim anymore... 3-5 H-bombs + lots of countermeasures is enough to get the point across.
I mean the bombers, will all the jets the US has would just be shot down conventionally, that shouldn't be problem. Even if only 10% makes it in the air that's plenty.
The land based ICBM's just nope. The number we would shoot down is so insignificant that probably three Hwasong-17 could do it and any further ones would just get through. Best estimate puts the warhead last tested to great effect (120-300 kt) at about 250 kg. So 4-8 per rocket. Now they probably only have enough to fill 3-5 rockets so thez likely are spread out over more rockets, that also gives them a better chance of making it plua some rockets might fail. But as an enthusiast of rocket technology the days where I made fun of North Korean rocketry lie in the distant past. Staged combustion engines on an ICBM? It's like using a Ferrari to deliver the job. It's almost as if... a lot of pride was involved in the Hwasong series of rockets. 17 is perfectly capable of launching satellites in the 1 t range.
Well anyway long way of saying we would be really screwed if anyone with more than one or two big rockets launches. Some will just get through. Korea may have up to 60 bombs. The limiting factor is plutonium, the rest is cheap once you figured it out and they most certainly have. The last test lowered a really big mountain by about 5 cm.
But why you may ask did we just g8ve up on it? Treaties. It was agreed with the USSR that anti-ballistic missile capabilty open the possibility of someone judging they can shoot down enough of the counterstrike to make a surprise first use very effective. Perhaps "worth it". That was in the aftermath of nuke powered X-ray lasers being developed to fry 50 warheads at a time (beam splitter - SDI program).
So it was decided to more or less agree to not develop capability beyond what would be needed to stop a very limited attack.
Of course the Russians after the USSR collapsed figured that treaty no longer concers us and happily began developing ABM capability. Yeah... it's not too late to bring SPRINT back... I love that rocket. Supersonic in 2 seconds. Mach 10 in 10 seconds. Tipped with a nuke. The neutrons begin activating the core of the incoming weapons, fissioning, so once the explosives go off the core becomes supercritical early and blows itself apart before any significant amount of energy was released (predetonation/fizzle).
That way you could use relatively few nukes to just blanket a part of the sky in neutron radiation and mess up the warheads. They would still do maybe 0.1 - 1 kt or so. But that's relatively mild compared to the 800 kt bombs the Russians deploy. Modern warheads are hardened a bit and the very nature of a nuke surrounds the core with neutron reflecting material to increase the yield. So with today's nukes we might need a little... better coverage.
Regardless of what you may or may not shoot down a single of several submarines are perfectly capable of delivering their own nation ending weaponry indepenant of what may or may not have happened to land or air based assets.
France aptly named "Le Terrible" alone could wipe out three countries and have enough left over to declare some island as a nuclear armed microstate. It's actually a serious question in nuclear planning, what happens if you order a limited strike, but now all the nukes are unlocked and a particularily enthusiastic launch officer might add a little extra. Or fire one after a ceasefire. There are safeguards but subs are vulnerable. By their nature they must be independant and the authority of the Captain of a boomer boat is pretty big. Yes you need the other key too but I mean the system is based on everyone following the rules and being good boys. Someone could totally shoot the Captain and FO take the keys and launch away. The PAL codes are onboard and those same keys open the safe too. Now the launch codes are there to verify the order is authentic. Do they match those in a sealed card inside that red safe? But the boat doesn't actually need them if it decided to do its own thing. It's the dilemma of all zeros as PAL lock codes. They worried a strike may end the leadership and incinerate the launch codes leaving the military unable to retaliate with a bunch of locked nukes. So contrary to what you may hear Ballistic Missile Submarines have all needed codes on board. The government may not be there anymore to order a particular strike package (sets of targets) so the sub needs the capability to respond in a wide variety of strikes from limited to full and with flexible targeting as the situation on the ground can evolve fast once nukes are being fired.
I recommend the airport bar. Any runway above 2km is automatically a target for both sides. So it'll be quick. Order the most expensive booze haha. Wouldn't want to be eaten by a crazed post-apocalyptic maniac over a vial of antibiotics. That's no fun.
@@221b-l3t meh I'll take my chances living like it's Cormac McCarthy's the road after the nukes go off. The fallout decays to safe levels in a few weeks and if you have everything you need for years stocked up and live in some rural homestead you might be ok. I owe it to myself to at least try and survive considering I've spent most of my life after my deployment to Iraq depressed and socially isolated. I was just starting to get my shit together when the pandemic struck.
I just absolutely love the insanity of the early Cold War era, and Atomic Annie, along with the B-36 Peacemaker and the Davey Crockett just perfectly epitomize this mentality. I still get chills down my spine every time I see the footage of Annie firing, only to then see a sudden flash give way to a slowly billowing mushroom cloud...from a freakin' gun!
@divat10 it's in the video...
@@QBCPerdition oh yeah i saw it after i wrote the comment sorry for wasting your time
The Army could not bear the thought of being cut out of the nuclear game
80, not 8 cm for the Schwerer Gustav
Yup we arent talking about my wee wee
Great video Simon, have you thought of doing a video on the Genie nuclear missile you mentioned in the video?
Not lessening all the other insanities, detonating an atomic bomb only 11 kilometres away has me stunned.
Fun fact: an edited picture of the M65 with mushroom cloud was used in C&C Generals for the Nuke Cannon unit.
God I loved that game.
I did my training at Ft. Sill and have seen Atomic Annie up close. It was awesome.
As an aside, 11" and 14" were the standard size guns used for coastal defense in the late 1800s through the second world war. Not mobile, but the basic tech and operation of such a thing was well established. (Navy guns were larger but their operation is a totally different affair.)
This gun is on display at Ft. Sill in Lawton Oklahoma, and what is really remarkable about it is how unremarkable it is. It's really just a gun with a slightly better and faster transportation system.
There's also one on display at a park near Ft. Riley
It’s a great road trip stop
Although I was never stationed at Ft, Sill as permanent party I spent over a year there going back various courses. So yeah I had to check out Atomic Annie. Once at the Lawton bus station I had some time to kill before boarding to Tulsa to visit my parents. Pretty close to the station was a bar by the name Atomic Annie's so I assumed it would be a place where artilleryman congregate. After ordering a pitcher of beer I started noticing a few things. All of the girls had Adams apples. The bar tender had a deep voice. She (?) Informed me that it was a gay bar and they were practicing for a drag show. I finished my beer but I never went back. A gay bar was not a good place for a SSG with a top secret clearance to be seen in the '80s.
If you are ever traveling I-70 near Junction City Kansas ( a few miles from Ft Riley) there is an atomic cannon set up on the hill above the town and Marshal Army Airfield. It is on display in Freedom Park and publicly accessible after a short hike up the hill. The gun can clearly be seen from I-70.
Was there a single piece of military equipment that wasn’t known as “widowmaker” at some point?
Underpants?
I was born on Okinawa and lived there 14 years. Our base church was located on the top of a hill overlooking the army motor pool parking yard and maintenance shops. Standing outside the church one evening, I looked down and saw 2 of the T72 prime movers for the "Atomic Cannon".
As soon as I came home, I excitedly asked my dad when the atomic cannons had arrived on the island. My dad, who was a GS employee working at the Army headquarters, turned white and dragged me to a bedroom and shut the door. "Who told you that? That's the biggest secret we've had on this island in the past year!!!" He was furious!!!!
Talk about scared!! I said - "Dad, no one told me. I saw the transporters in the motor pool from the church. That's the only thing they do"
He looked at me in shock! "Are you sure?" he asked
"Yes dad -You bought me the model a while back, remember?"
He just shook his head and we went back out to dinner.
It turned out that the transporters I saw had been sent ahead for testing. The cannons were coming to the island by LST and the Army was going to try to sneak them onto the island by unloading the cannons onto a beach in the middle of the night. They were going to lay PSP (Pierced Steel Planking) on the sand to make a temporary road to get the cannons off the beach. They had brought the extra transporters over to test the plan.
I found out later that he let his boss know what I had seen and by 5 PM the entire project was declassified.
They ended up bringing the cannons in a Naha Harbor and making the whole thing into a parade, driving them down the center of town 🤣🤣🤣🤣
That's a great story, neighbour, thanks for sharing!
Today I found out the video started directly on point without any delay and time wasted kudos my baldy.
"Atomic Annie", "Honest John": they sure had some cool names for these horrifically deadly weapons hey
One of them sits out near exit 303 on I70 near Ft.Riley in KS. they are truly gargantuan cannons.
I believe that was 80 cm, not 8 cm on the bore of the Schwerer Gustav cannon!!!
The army guys went to Sandia and asked them for ever smaller and smaller nuclear devices, to the Sandia engineers said:
- We can make a nuclear hand grenade if you want, the problem is finding someone dumb enough to throw it.
My brother was enlisted in the Belgian army in an artillery battalion stationed in Germany and they had one gun and a spare one. They were supposed to fire a nuclear grenade, provided by the US of course. They had either the M110 or M109, don't know for sure.
I was stationed at Augsburg in 71 on the 109. We were authorized 12 Narkys (Nuke arty=Narky, the Old Man's pet name for something he really didn't want.) We only had 4 though. And they were locked down so tight you had to be a bird col just to see the outside of the door.
Side note: They once issued us "Starlight Scopes", which were night vision, sort of. It was like counting sheep in a snowstorm with your glasses fogged up. I really never thought that tech would make it.
The thumbnail makes it look like Fact Boy just shat out a nuke.
Now the M65 is a damn good field coat
First I learned of Atomic Annie was from a photo our families Compton Encyclopedia, that was printed in 1960, and I was flipping thru since the mid 1960s, as a small child.
My dad worked on that project in the late 40's-early 50's. He said something about it being a bit suicidal in nature so they sent him to Korea.
Totally not your fault but the video I was watching before this was quiet so, when this one started and my ears contemplated bleeding from Simon's bleating, there was a mad scramble for the volume control and me crying out, "Damn you Whistler!" 😂
this one was slightly louder than any other videos I've been watching today lol, so if you had quieter-than-average previous video, this would be quite startling XD
Typo or Fact Boi misspoke - ...The 8 cm Schwerer Gustav..." Should be 80 cm.
Great and fascinating video as always Simon, but the thumbnail is unnecessary inaccurate click bait. It's nowhere near a "pocket" atomic bomb.
You'd have to have some pretty massive pockets.
I have pictures of myself hanging out in front of Atomic Anne , i did basic training at Fort Sill OK and that's where it resides in the Artillery museum. It is HUGE, pictures do not do it justice
Yes and Geronimo’s grave is on the other half of fort sill.
Saw the one at Ft. Sill, they had it in the same position and elevation it was in when it fired the nuke shell
I saw this at the Field Artillery museum at Fort Sill when i was in basic training.
Production: Nice natural audio room reverb 👍
Iirc the Iowa class battleships eventually had nuclear shells available for their main guns, though I don’t think they were ever carried aboard.
Officially never confirmed, but the Wisconsin was rumored to carry "KT" nuclear shells.
Even this American can tell that that german gun was bigger than 8cm.
80, sure. But not 8.
dat 8 centimeter gun had no chance, it would have been better if they just installed 80cm guns on the german "rail guns".
How about a video on the handheld nuclear recoiless gun (aka shoukder mounted nuclear rocket kauncher)
You mean the Davy Crockett, so called "suitcase nuke"? I thought there was a video on it
I am obsessed with the idea of a gun that is just as likely to blow you up as it is the target you're aiming at.
I lived in Lawton, OK in the 50's. Just outside Fort Sill. I was in school and don't remember much but I saw it many times. There is one on display at Fort Sill. Someone screwed up and landed a round in a new part of Lawton that didn't have houses yet. It was just a small charge but the joke was that the army made a basement for someones new house when they wanted to put it there. It did break widows in part of the city, and some said it did some damage to homes. Like I said I was young, in grade school so what I remember may not be facts. But you can check local newspapers for that time if you want facts.
Simon, you should do a show on the Subroc.
That would be excellent.
Reminds me of the terran ghost in Starcraft going behind enemy lines and painting the target but in this case they just cary the munitions with them . That would've been awesome game play.
The Metal Gear? Oh my
There were more than atomic grenades for howitzers. Atomic Demolition Munitions (ADM) are tactical nuclear weapons. It is often referred to as atomic mines or nuclear landmines. These nuclear explosives are installed at a specific point and are remotely/timed. ADM was available with an explosive power of 10 t TNT equivalent to 1 kt (Small ADM, SADM) and 500 t to 15 kt (Medium ADM, MADM). The purpose of this weapon is to block large areas of points in the terrain in order to delay an enemy attack. In the event of a possible attack by the Warsaw Pact on Western Europe, these weapons would have been used on the internal German border and in areas beyond it, such as Fulda, the so-called Fulda Gap.
7:29 This video clip always felt fake to me, but figured they probably really did it. (The M65 nuclear artillery shell.)
I've played on atomic Annie in fort sill Oklahoma as a kid.
I work at a zoo in Chicago and attach sausages to strings and swing them over the Hippos heads
Doing the lord's work. Carry on..
@@221b-l3t The Sarcasm is strong in this one…….
Krupps Gustav was an 8cm gun? Maybe you meant 80cm?
[Edit: I was well ninja’d. Still, this is a pretty egregious error, even for Simon.]
10:25 how is this not a Hollywood movie yet?
Reminds me of the Nuke Canon by the China faction in the C&C Generals game
My first job in the Army was working on these munitions
When i first saw this i thought it would be about the Davey Crockett.
Whatever the "Atomic Annie" was I've never heard of that. Lol
About to watch a video about atomic weapons and what ad do I get from RUclips? Openheimer 😂
Got me all excited for the Schwerer Gustav.....
thank you
I love the picture in picture at 8:06... Like... Standing behind a tree is really gonna help if something goes wrong with a NUCLEAR artillery piece 😂😂😂
Plan to visit the fort sill oklahoma museum to see "Atomic Anne"
Fascinating!
"Ah darn, we missed the target by 20 yards. Good thing the fireball was a 1,000 yards wide at T minus 0.001"
My father, an artillery genius, worked on this at the Pentagon.
Crawl out through the fallout baby!
Can we all take a moment to appreciate the sacrifices of those poor dudes in that tank footage at the start...one tank on fire and another literally launched into the air by massive ordnance. The amount of energy needed to launch a 30 ton lump of steel 10m into the air and flip it, is simply horrifying.....and soldiers of all nations willingly advanced into that hellstorm.
6:20 wasn't Atomic Annie named after Annie Oakley?
Wasn't Stevie Wonder named after Stevie Nicks?
United States Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center, Petersburg, Virginia, with two large prime movers attached.
Fact boi
This was a bombastic video
Ya'll want to hear something very ironic: in the rts game command and conquer: generals, the people's army of china has a slightly different version of the canon but using the image of this canon shooting the round if i remember correctly just in a mirrored configuration and yes it is a nuclear bomb shooting weapon...
I would have wanted to be a davy crockett crew....thats some true insanity
A random workshop in New Jersey during the 1960’s: “NUKE GUN! NUKE GUN!”
I know that in the late ‘80s, maybe still, the IS Army had nuclear 155mm rounds that could be fired from an M109
@Today I Found Out: Could you research the atomic shells that were developed for the 16" guns on the Iowa-class battleships?
My father in law was there and spoke of it often
I've seen Atomic Annie at Ft Sill OK
Beard boy has fully entered middle aged status with his WWII obsession. :) It's all old History Channel documentaries for him from now on.
Thankfully, Atomic Annie was still a decade away when WWII ended...
There’s a couple of atomic cannon you can see from I-70 in Kansas by Fort Riley, sitting quietly atop a couple of hills and pointed west. It’s a bit unnerving. I always hope they’re not functional.
Never trust Colorado!
Hey my grandfather worked on this project!
If this was a Nazi weapon, the music would be far more sinister and the script and Simon's delivery would be far more accusing. But instead the US made the weapon and so that makes it a fun curiosity and definitely not anything devastating to innocent people.
Typically documentaries about Nazis show stuff they actually did. The fantasy weapons and wacky developments they did are actually portrayed cheerfully.
Awesome
I think they just went around the Maginot line...
"Sagely"? Considering the "truck" / "trick" typo in the previous sentence, I'm assuming that's supposed to mean "safely".
Right at the beginning you said "a monster, the 8 cm..." - I don't think so, an order of magnitude out?
Thought this was going to be about .45ACP. TWO WORLD WARS sonny
I just like reminding people that the Iowas may (or may not :P) have had 9 of these guns on each of them.
(the 16"/50's of the Iowa class ships had nuclear artillery available for them, though the USN and thus the US government have never actually confirmed that an Iowa was ever carrying the shells, but afaik that has to do with official US policy on talking about where an actual live nuke is or is not.)
Schwerer Gustav ❤
There were much bigger guns on battleships.
They could have just used those with even bigger atomic shells.
It's not a matter of making a bomb small enough, but rather of making a gun big enough
No they made 5 inch nuclear shells. For comparison USS Iowa fired 16 inch shells. 5 inch is a large but not uncommon size for artillery.
With a big gun you could launch a hydrogen bomb.
Pretty much. That is why current gun lobbed nuclear munitions have a rocket stage that guides them and extends range. Gun alone isn't gonna do it for kilotons. Also the radiation field is beyond the blast radius of these devices because the traditional uranium radiation case is too heavy. Scary 😨
@@christopherleubner6633 No it's perfectly safe. The gun has a range of 30 km. That was how far they observed Castle Bravo from (1000 times more powerful than this). And they where fine. It got pretty hot, Castle Bravo ended up triple the expected yield but they where fine. 15 kt at 30 km is no problem at all. Don't look at the flash and you'll be fine. Nukes are powerful but not that powerful. At 30 km the Rsar bomba might still kill you but not much else. Heck of a sunburn though. Atom bombs where commonly observed from less than 5 km away in tests and detonated within 30 km of some towns. Though long term that did have an effect. Cancer rates in Nevada are higher around the test area. But 700 bombs where detonated in Nevada. It is the most nuked place on Earth. Test site looks like Emmentaler cheese from Google Earth.
8cm??? Are you sure you don't mean 80cm?
Blessed are those who follow Simon Whistler.
The German villagers must have been relieved to learn that those boxcar-sized projectiles being hurled over their homes and farms were only full of high explosives and not atomic bombs.
They travel so fast it's physically impossible for them to not fly many km. A Mach 3, 7 ton shell just doesn't suddenly changes course. We can extremely reliable calculate the ballistic trajectory of a shell. Even coriolis effect is in the standard equation (effect of Earth rotating, so your target moves even if it stands still because Earth moves, gotta figure that in for an accurate hit, even snipers).
"We had to destroy Germany in order to protect it"
HA! I live near Atomic Annie! (the one in Illinois)
From a purely constructive criticism standpoint, I found myself restarting the video several times to see if I could understand Simon. It honestly felt like he was rushing through the first sentence.
Great info and production as always, though.
I don’t think I can fit that thing in my pocket.
Simon needs to do a video with The Fat Electrician. British n American with comedy and deadpan would be amazing.
Whatever happened to Gustav
Now, remember, they squeezed a nuke into a 155 shell. Now, that’s some scary shit!
The yield of the 155 mm nuclear shell was pretty low--the yield was only just over 1 kT. The Soviet Red Army had similar weapon fired from the SO-152 self-propelled howitzer, which mounted a 152 mm gun.
I have pics of these my Dad took in Germany in the 50s.
Return of the living dead was released in 88 well after the guns were retired.