Talk:B61 nuclear bomb

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Is this the same thing as the Matador missile? •→Iñgólemo←• 17:44, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

Contents 1 Matador 2 Damage 3 Where did the Mod11 warheads originate from? 4 Location and number of bombs

[edit] Matador

No, it's not. The MGM-1 Matador, as it was designated after 1962, was originally developed under the bomber designation B-61 (later TM-61), but it was an entirely different item. The Matador was a pilotless cruise missile with a 50-kiloton W-5 nuclear warhead. The B61 bomb (originally Mk 61) is a free-fall nuclear gravity bomb.

-- ArgentLA 19 Nov 2004

[edit] Damage

How much damage does on of these bombs cause? --Abdull 19:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

A lot! The maximum yield of the Mod 7 was 340 kt, which is approximately 16 times the yield of Fat Man, which was used on Nagasaki, Japan. That doesn't mean it would cause 16 times the damage, however, due to the energy dissipation inverse square law, which states that at twice the distance from ground zero, the concusion is 1/4 the amount. Thus, since the effective building destruction radius for Nagasak was 1 mile, the effective building destruction radius for a 340 kt yield would be about 4 miles. That's enough to level most of Washington DC. The largest yield weapon in the US inventory was the B53, which had a yield of around 9 MT. It's destruction radius was about 20 miles, which would obliterate Washington DC, everything in the Beltway, and all outlying communities out to Manassas, VA, Germantown, MD, and would scorch Baltimore, MD. Mugaliens 20:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where did the Mod11 warheads originate from?

In the article is stated that 'About 50 Mod 11 bombs have been produced, their warheads converted from Mod 7 bombs.'

But...the article on the w85 warhead states 'After the Pershing missiles were scrapped the W85 warheads were modified back into B61 bombs, in this case the B61-11 penetrating free-fall weapon.'

Which story is the correct version?

Side note: you should sign your postings on talk pages with ~~~~ (four tilde ~ characters) - that gives the name/date stamp you see around.

The W85 warhead article is in error; the W85s nuclear assemblies were recycled into B61-10 bombs, not B61-11. I am going to correct that. Georgewilliamherbert 17:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Location and number of bombs

The exact whereabouts and numbers of weapons is difficult to establish for sure, so I'm doing some rewording to note that these numbers should be taken as an educated guess, not fact. BabyNuke (talk) 13:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)