Upshot-Knothole Grable

Upshot-Knothole "Grable" was a nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States as part of Operation Upshot-Knothole. Detonation of the associated nuclear weapon occurred shortly after its deployment at 8:30am PDT (1530 UTC) on May 25, 1953, in Area 5 of the Nevada Test Site. The codename "Grable" was chosen because the letter "Grable" is phonetic for, G, stands for "gun", since the warhead was a gun-type fission weapon. It was in the form of a shell, or artillery-fired atomic projectile (AFAP), the first of its kind.

"Grable" was only the second gun-type warhead ever detonated (the first was Little Boy, the weapon used against Hiroshima; all other atomic weapons were and are implosion-type weapons). The shell, designated a Mark 9 nuclear weapon, had a diameter of 280 mm (11.02 in), was 138 cm (54.4 in) long and weighed 364 kg (803 lb). The M65 Atomic Cannon from which it was fired had a muzzle velocity of 625 m/s (2,060 ft/s), for a nominal range of 32 km (20 miles), and weighed 77 metric tons (85 t).

The detonation of "Grable" occurred 19 seconds after its firing. [http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/films/film.aspx?ID=1 "Operation Upshot-Knothole."] Department of Energy, 1953.] It detonated over 11,000 yards (over 10 km, 6.25 mi) away from the gun it was fired from, over a part of the Nevada Test Site known as Frenchman Flat. The explosion was an air burst of 160 m (524 ft) above the ground (7 m (24 ft) above its designated burst altitude), 26 m (87 ft) west and 41 m (136 ft) south of its target (slightly uprange). Its yield was estimated at 15 kilotons, around the same level as Little Boy. An anomalous feature of the blast was the formation of a precursor, a second shock front ahead of the incident wave. This precursor was formed when the shock wave reflected off the ground and surpassed the incident wave and Mach stem due to a heated ground air layer and the low burst height. It resulted in a lower overpressure, but higher overall dynamic pressure, which inflicted much more damage on drag sensitive targets such as jeeps and personnel carriers. This led strategists to rethink the importance of low air bursts in tactical nuclear warfare. [Kuran, Pete. "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie." Visual Concept Entertainment, 1995.]

Some images from Upshot-Knothole "Grable" were accidentally relabeled as belonging to the "Priscilla" shot from Operation Plumbbob in 1957. As a consequence many publications, even U.S. government ones, have the photo mislabeled. [Carey Sublette, "Operation Plumbbob," Nuclear Weapon Archive, [http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html] . (accessed December 27, 2006).]

Adm. Arthur W. Radford, at the time the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson were present for the test.

Use in popular culture

*In the video game "" and its expansion, the image of the Upshot-Knothole "Grable" explosion is used for the unit cameo for the Chinese "nuke cannon".

*A video clip of the explosion was used in the video for System of a Down's Sugar.

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.vce.com/grable.html The Atomic Cannon] from VCE.com's Atomic Central, including video.