Everyone is hopefully quite pleased that the United States—and all other nuclear powers, for that matter—have not used nuclear weapons in a conflict since 1945. We should obviously all fear those five-megaton warheads and planet-spanning ICBMs. But there are also other weapons in the U.S. arsenal that we should be afraid of. Very, afraid of. Thank goodness most are no longer deployed and none were ever used.
Gun-Launched Battlefield Nukes
About the size of a very large watermelon, the nuclear warhead atop of the M-28/29 “Davy Crockett” recoilless weapon system had a low yield of somewhere between 10 and 20 tons of TNT (less than 1% the Hiroshima “Little Boy” bomb). That said, it was still a powerful radiological explosive that a three-man team could station, aim, and launch with no assistance (the gunners would no doubt be in the fallout zone). The U.S. Army produced 2,100 of the little buggers, ultimately deploying some of them in West Germany during the height of the Cold War. Gladly, not one was fired in anger and they were deactivated in 1968.
Bat Bombs
Bat bombs are even more literal than you might imagine—bomb casings filled with bats, each of which had a small incendiary device strapped to it. The idea, developed and tested during World War II, was to drop them over Japanese cities, many of which consisted of primarily wood, paper, and bamboo structures. Contemporary estimates suggested the damage and death toll of a large-scale bat bomb attack could have exceeded that of the atomic weapons used at the time or the fire bombings of Tokyo that claimed up to 200,000 lives. Of course, the bat bomb test went horribly, predictably wrong and the whole notion was shelved.
Cat Bombs
Even more theoretical and unwieldy than the bat bomb, the cat bomb was just a cat rigged with a bomb. Really. A brainstorm gone awry from the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, the idea hinged on the connected, dubious notions that cats are wily and unpredictable, always land safely, and hate water. Strap a timed explosive to a cat, drop it in water near an opposing ship or dock, and — the theory goes — the cat would figure its way onto the dry enemy target, wriggle into an unreachable crevice, and… boom! Cat bombs never made it past the testing stage. The poor guys all passed out in the planes.
Fallout Spewing Low-Altitude Missiles
Perhaps the weirdest nuclear device ever proposed, the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (or “SLAM”) missile was designed to fly under radar during a nuclear war using a nuclear-powered jet engine. Not only could it deliver high-yield warheads quickly and stealthily, it also had the added benefit of raining a miles-wide wake of radioactive fallout upon anything it flew over. While the Air Force developed a reactor and an engine for the death drone, higher ups scrapped the program in 1964 because it was untestable, expensive, and absolutely batshit crazy.
“Salted”/Cobalt Bombs
The worst of the worst, a “salted” or “cobalt” bomb is, simply, a nuclear device whose normal metal casement has been replaced by one made out of an element that will transform into a massive cloud of radioactive isotope after the fusion or fission detonation. Cobalt-60, Zinc-65, and Sodium-24 (hence “salted”) were among the typically proposed elements. This lowers the explosive power of the warhead, but turns it into a fallout-making engine capable of not only irradiating exponentially larger areas but keeping those areas irradiated for exponentially longer periods. Used in large quantities, it’s a potential Doomsday Machine—one that had a starring role in Doctor Strangelove.
Yes, the U.S. seriously researched developing these devices and, yes, both the British and the Russians tested variations on the idea. But the salted/cobalt nuke was originally intended as a completely intellectual exercise (and a warning) by physicist Leó Szilárd. Luckily, U.S. defense experts realized that developing them for deployment was “insane”.
Alas, there are reports that the Russians are again toying with the idea, which could put “salted” or “cobalt” devices back on the table over here.
