Mark 12 nuclear bomb
The Mark-12 nuclear bomb was a lightweight nuclear bomb designed and manufactured by the United States which was built starting in 1954 and which saw service from then until 1962.
The Mark-12 was notable for being significantly smaller in both size and weight compared to prior implosion-type nuclear weapons. For example, the overall diameter was only, compared to the immediately prior Mark-7 which had a diameter, and the volume of the implosion assembly was only 40% the size of the Mark-7's.
There was a planned W-12 warhead variant which would have been used with the RIM-8 Talos missile, but it was cancelled prior to introduction into service.Specifications
The complete Mark-12 bomb was in diameter, long, and weighed. It had a yield of.Features
The Mark-12 has been speculated to have been the first deployed nuclear weapon to have used beryllium as a reflector-tamper inside the implosion assembly. It is believed to have used a spherical implosion assembly, levitated pit, and 92-point detonation. It used an automatic in-flight insertion system for safing, in which its nuclear material was kept inside of the weapon itself, but outside of the implosion sphere until a motor-driven mechanism activated by the plane crew signaled for it to be inserted.Though the weapon went out of service in 1962, it resurfaced in a fictional role in Tom Clancy's 1991 book The Sum of All Fears and the The [Sum of All Fears |2002 film], where the plot included an Israeli copy of the Mark-12 being lost by accident in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War in southern Syria near the Golan Heights, and then recovered by a terrorist organization.