<-- Mark 12 "Brock" atomic weaponSeveral newspapers had this or a similar story in it yesterday:
That's strange. Did someone at the airbase from which they were shipped, look at a packing list that said "helicopter battery" and accidentally pack 4 nuclear bomb triggers? I imagine they have a label on the box that reads "WARNING! NUCLEAR BOMB TRIGGER INSIDE. DO NOT USE HOOKS" or something like that. Still I guess mistakes happen.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military mistakenly shipped four nuclear-missile detonators to Taiwan in 2006, then failed to detect the error for more than a year, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.
Pentagon officials said they didn't know how the detonators had been sent when Taiwan had ordered helicopter batteries or who was responsible. Michael Wynne, the secretary of the Air Force, said the cone-shaped fuses didn't resemble the power batteries that Taiwan had requested.
Wynne said that the misdirected detonators, used to ignite the trigger of a Mark-12 nuclear weapon, didn't pose a security threat. The triggers couldn't be used to detonate other weapons, officials said.
But here's what I really don't understand. The triggers were for Mark -12 nuclear weapons. The Mark 12, nicknamed "Brock" by those who have pet names for atomic bombs, hasn't been part of the nuclear arsenal since 1962. These things have been outdated for 46 years. I think (this is no joke) that a Mark-12 trigger uses vacuum tubes.
So, my question is, why are we keeping so much junk in our nuclear attics? Even my mom finally cleared out her basement (throwing away my collection of vintage Archie comics, but that's another issue.)
No doubt there are still a thousand crates of horse liniment for the cavalry or a million sticks of slowmatch for flintlock rifles piled next to the Mark-12 triggers as well.
Flintlocks don't use slow match. They use flint. Matchlocks use match. Match for guns also is a woven cord, rather than a stick. Mind you, I can see where this might not stop the army from buying Halliburton's special flintlock slowmatch sticks at $750 a stick.
ReplyDeleteThese detonators are for the MK-12 reentry system on the Minuteman III Ballistic Missile, not for the MK-12 Gravity Bomb. Details here http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/lgm-30_3.htm
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea what the DOD has in its warehouses. The DRMO agency used to have more than 20 million vacuum tubes in stock, they were finally surplused out in the late 1990s. I have heard that some other agencies, such as the Army and Air Force, are still surplussing out more old stocks of tubes occasionally. Uncle Sam always buys too much of everything, because if they don't use the funding this year, it'll be reduced next year....
ReplyDeleteAren't matchlocks 18th century technology anyway?
ReplyDeleteAside from that, where exactly would you dispose of vintage nuclear equipment? You'd need a special department just to disassemble it and grind it up for scrap. It may very well cost less to just store it. Besides, vacuum tubes are very good against EMP! :)
Anyone that has worked supply in the military has a story along these lines, but the best was from a buddy of mine in the 80s. He enlisted in the Navy and wound up in a ship's supply section. One day they were brought a real head-scratcher: a replacement part for a deck crew came in on a supply run...only it wasn't their part. Instead, it was a honest-to-God harpoon gun, with ivory and gold inlay...and had come in a very nice, very old crate that was inside a much newer, much more beat-up crate.
ReplyDeleteAfter a quick investigation it got carefully crated up and taken away to who-knows-where. The official conclusion was that someone over the years came across this crate they didn't have a record for and decided to make their life easier by sticking it inside another crate and making it someone else's problem. Which of course begs the question as to what the Navy was doing with a hand-crafted harpoon gun in the first place...which was a question no one really wanted to ask because of the paperwork involved.
As a side note he did spend the rest of his naval career wondering just what the requisition code for the Ark of the Covenant was....
I was stationed at FE Warren as a Nuclear Weapons Technician in the 1970’s. There is a lot of misinformation out there concerning these fuses…
ReplyDeleteIn the case of these fuses… the MARK-12 (or 12A) refers to the reentry vehicle (RV), not the missile. The RV is essentially the warhead and other components designed to reenter the atmosphere after being hoisted up by the missile. In this case the missile in question appears to the Minuteman III ICBMs which were based at FE Warren before being replaced with the so called Peacekeepers in the early 1980s. The missile carries the RVs and delivers them to target. The Minuteman III carried three RVs. The ‘fuse’ in question is part of the RV and positioned at the nosecone of the RV
See here with photo…
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/W62.html
http://www.missilethreat.com/missilesoftheworld/id.79/missile_detail.asp
and here…
http://www.aero.org/publications/crosslink/winter2003/02.html
Paragraph 26
Well we were still using punched paper tape at the dawn of the 21st century so anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteI had friend who was a supply petty officer in the Navy who ordered a fuel oil pump field repair kit. When we were about to get underway the fuel oil pump kit was being hoisted onto our ships flight deck. . .actually F16 cock pit replacement kit.
ReplyDeleteSomeone had penciled it in to our "COSAL" (I believe it was called) book which was basically a parts catalog for Navy equipment.