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Nagasaki
/ Main Archive / USA /
Date: 01:58 UTC 09/08/1945 |
Type: Airburst @503m |
Yield: 21 Kt
Codename "Fat-Man", dropped over Nagasaki by the B-29 Bockscar, it was the 2nd and last nuclear weapon to be used in combat. "Fat Man" was an implosion type weapon using plutonium, a design tested 24 days previously in the New Mexico desert. A subcritical sphere of plutonium was placed in the center of a hollow sphere of high explosive with numerous detonators located on the surface of the high explosive, firing simultaneously to produce a powerful implosion resulting in a supercritical condition of the pit and a nuclear explosion. The bomb case was fitted with a huge 230kg aluminum high-drag box fin assembly to slow it's decent and increase stability. A by-product of the "California Parachute", was that a falling Fatman made high-pitched whistle, due to air being forced through the small annular opening around the tail cone of the bomb. By comparison, a falling Little Boy with its more- conventional reinforced box fin tail sounded like a "passing freight train". An estimated 40,000 people we re killed outright by the bombing at Nagasaki, with about 25,000 injured.
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Published on: 2005-10-03 (51257 reads) [ Go Back ] |
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