Davy Crockett Portable Nuclear Weapon | Hacker News Reader

Davy Crockett Portable Nuclear Weapon

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19 pointstejohnso10 comments

Micro nukes have a tactical purpose, though nobody will ever talk about it, and they can have very big consequences.

For example: the 'end' of the Korean war.

When the Americans/UN pushed back invading North Koreans all the way to the Chinese border, the Chinese got fidgety and decided to join the fight. With overwhelming numbers, mass casualties - no problem. The used bodies or bullets - no matter, and pushed the Americans back.

It was Eisenhower who basically did a 'tactical nuke' demonstration (mind you these were artillery based nukes) - as an indication that this is what he would do if the Chinese pushed further.

Thus creating a kind of stalemate ... both sides weary of more war, there was a 'ceasefire' put in place that exists to this day.

Yes, it's scary, but it's also a reality.

Eisenhower was not elected president until after well Ridgway had stabilized the front and returned it to about where the current border is.

I've heard at the rumor level that credible threats of nuclear bombing were used to bring the PRC and DPRK to the negotiating table, or at least negotiate seriously, one at the level of planes with armed nukes in the air on their way to plastering a PRC marshaling area.

Yes, regular nukes were in the area, at Guam I think ready to go.

But I think the tactical nuke demonstration is 'what done it'.

The Davy Crockett’s timer allowed a minimum shot distance of about 1,000 feet, but such inept use of the weapon would certainly result in the deaths of the firing team.

Just like how standard US style defensive fragmentation hand grenades are very hard to throw beyond the distance they delivers lethal fragments? (That's what defines a defensive hand grenade, vs. e.g. the famous German "potato masher" offensive concussion grenades).

The author ought to do a little research into the concept of cover, like for this case foxholes and slit trenches.

Does a foxhole protect from the overpressure blast of a nuclear explosion? With fragmentation grades, you're getting behind cover that will absorb the shards before they hit you--cover can't do anything about a wave of pressure.

It might if it had overhead cover, which became much more important in the WWII era when proximity fuzes were released to the US Army during the Battle of the Bulge, and you could add some extra dooring, but that would get in the way of a quick entry.

On the other hand, we're only taking about 10-20 tons, not kilo-tons, of yield, so in pressure it's more like a Daisy Cutter or MOAB, or something smaller that hit close, and there's lots of experience of that. It might well be preferable to being overrun by a unit of the Red Army in the next few minutes, but, obviously, selecting a target at > 1,000 meters would be a good idea.

My general point, though, it that this weapon is held to be axiomatically "crazy", when it's not in the context for which it was designed and fielded.

Well, I'm most of the way through the latest Jack Reacher novel, "Night School". And now I know how it must end...

when people act as if the world is crazy today they have no idea what the military and politicians were doing a scant fifty years ago.

people need to understand that the crazy they see today has been around for a long time and those in power need to be kept in constant check

What was "crazy" about the US making very concrete preparations like this one for the threat of the Red Army pouring through the Fulda Gap into western Europe? (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)...)

Now, Stalin and Khrushchev, you could well say they're crazy (the latter's peers judged him so after the Cuban Missile Crisis), but one thing seared into the minds of the Westerners fighting the Cold War in this period was the price of ignoring people like them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II).

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