M65 atomkanon – Foton &; Video

Den M65 atomkanon, ofta kallad "Atomic Annie", var en bogserad artilleripjäs byggd av USA och kapabel att skjuta en kärnladdning. Det utvecklades i början av 1950-talet, i början av det kalla kriget, och fältades 1953 i Europa och Sydkorea.

Källkod: M65 atomkanon på Wikipedia

The M65 atomic cannon was a remarkable feat of engineering that demonstrated the United States’ ability to deliver nuclear weapons with conventional artillery. Developed in the early 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, the M65 was capable of firing a 280mm shell with a W9 or W19 nuclear warhead, with a yield of up to 15 kilotons. The M65 was also known as Atomic Annie, a nickname derived from a pair of German K5 railroad guns that bombarded Allied forces in Italy during World War II.
The M65 was a massive weapon, weighing 85 tons and measuring 85 feet in length. It required two heavy tractors to tow it and a crew of five to seven men to operate it. The M65 had a range of about 20 miles and could elevate up to 55 degrees for firing. The M65 was the only conventional cannon to fire a nuclear shell in a live test, which took place on May 25, 1953, at the Nevada Test Site. The test, codenamed Grable, was part of Operation Upshot-Knothole and produced a mushroom cloud that rose to 10,000 feet. Twenty M65 cannons were produced and deployed in West Germany, South Korea and Okinawa until 1963, when they were retired and replaced by more advanced nuclear delivery systems.