Python (nuclear primary)
According to researcher Chuck Hansen, the Python was the common design nuclear fission bomb core for a number of Cold War designs for American nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.
Primary is the technical term for the fission bomb component of a thermonuclear or fusion bomb, which is used to start the reactions going and implode and detonate the second, fusion stage.
Hansen's research indicates that the Python primary was used in the US B28 nuclear bomb, W28 nuclear warhead, W40 nuclear warhead, and W49 nuclear warhead.
Historical evidence indicates that these weapons shared a reliability problem, which Hansen attributes to miscalculation of the reaction cross section of Tritium in fusion reactions. The weapons were not tested as extensively as some prior models due to a mid-1960s nuclear test moratorium, and the reliability problem was discovered and fixed after the moratorium ended. The flaw was apparently common with the Tsetse primary design.
Characteristics of these weapons are:
| Python primary based nuclear weapons | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Max Yield (kt) | Diameter (in) | Length (in) | Weight (lb) |
| B28 | 1,450 | 22 | 170 | 2,300 |
| W28 | 1,450 | 20 | 60 | 1,725 |
| W40 | 10 | 18 | 32 | 385 |
| W49 | 1,440 | 20 | 58 | 1,610 |
See also
External links
- Beware the old story by Chuck Hansen, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2001 pp. 52-55 (vol. 57, no. 02)