I thought that since the nuclear bomb was invented in the forties test bombs had been detonated maybe 20 time or something. I was very very wrong. The correct number of nuclear tests from 1945 to 1996 is 2046. Thats a fucking lot, I'm really disappointed. How many fucking times do they need to check to see their nukes work? God damn!
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab15.asp

First off, they were first BUILT in the 40's, they were actually thought up or "invented" sometime in the 1920's I believe.

Quite a bit of the testing was done because they kept trying to make the bomb more powerful (increase the yield). The first one was measured in Kilo-tons (approx. 20,000 tons of TNT), they are now measured in Mega-tons (1,000,000 tons of TNT). I'm not sure just how high they go but I do know there are 100 Mega-ton weapons sitting on the launch pad, but these are fitted with multiple re-entry warheads (MRV's) so its not like all that comes down in one place.

Anytime there was a significant change in the make-up of the weapon, there would be a corresponding test to see if the change worked, now they have computers that can simulate a nuclear blast so we don't have to actually test any more, but the number of simulated tests dwarfs the actual test number by many thousands.

Is the Atomic and Nuclear bomb the same thing. I think a Nuclear Bomb is different from an Atomic Bomb so it would have came later as did the Hydrogen Bomb. But it could be the same thing.


anyways the reason they test it over and over is partly because those figure refelect 10 different countries and not just the USA and second because they tested them at different altitudes, different explosive rates and different ways of deployment. My favorite is the Giant Canon that they blasted one out of nearly 10 miles before it goes off.

Go rent Atomic Cafe or Tinity and Beyond. I think Trinity and Beyond was one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen in my life. and the visuals were as equally beautiful as it was horrific.


Oh by the way. go to trinitys home page.. scroll down and you can see the photo of the canon that shot the atomic bomb

http://www.vce.com/trinity.html

Alot of those tests were low yield, only slightly more powerful then a conventional explosion. Some were fucking enormous, such as the 50 megaton weapon that the USSR detonated over Novya Zemlya Island in 1961. Khruschev wanted it's yield to be 100 megatons, but I don't think they could have built one that big enough to be dropped by air. My favorite site for all of that is www.fas.org The bomb was called "Tsar Bomba" (King of Bombs) and is a result of the Russian habit of building grand weapons for show that are pretty worthless militarily.

On an interesting side note, our last nuclear test was in 1992, it was underground, and from what i remember was pretty small. Compare that with France lighting off nukes in the South Pacific, and India and Pakistan setting them off like a fireworks show from hell.

Atomic and Nuclear are the same, they just called them Atomic in the beginning, Nuclear later on.

The Giant Cannon was "Atomic Annie", and she could throw a shell 20 miles.

The stupidest weapon by far was the Atomic Bazooka (I shit you not). It fired a tactical nuke, I don't remember the yield, but it wasn't much on the scale. It could take out a town, or the downtown area of a bigger city. You loaded it up on the launch tube and directly after you fired it you jumped into the hole you dug right next to it and hunkered down, the delay wasn't long, something on the range of 10 seconds. They only tested it a few times. Go figure.

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Originally posted by Global Dominator:
Atomic and Nuclear are the same, they just called them Atomic in the beginning, Nuclear later on.

The Giant Cannon was "Atomic Annie", and she could throw a shell 20 miles.

The stupidest weapon by far was the Atomic Bazooka (I shit you not). It fired a tactical nuke, I don't remember the yield, but it wasn't much on the scale. It could take out a town, or the downtown area of a bigger city. You loaded it up on the launch tube and directly after you fired it you jumped into the hole you dug right next to it and hunkered down, the delay wasn't long, something on the range of 10 seconds. They only tested it a few times. Go figure.

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My favorite is the MADM, or Medium Atomic Demolition Munition, and the Small Atomic Demolition Munition. Basically a backpack nuke, and SEAls and Green Berets would parachute behind enemy lines and employ them, or they would get them from POMCUS caches in the German countryside.

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Originally posted by tr0g:
Is the Atomic and Nuclear bomb the same thing

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[HOMER]it�s nu-ku-lar, just nukular[/HOMER]