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The intense pulse of high-energy neutrons generated by a neutron bomb is the principal killing mechanism, not the fallout, heat or blast. The inventor of the neutron bomb, Sam Cohen, criticized the description of the W70 as a neutron bomb since it could be configured to yield 100 kilotons: the W-70 ... is not even remotely a "neutron bomb."
The neutron bomb is a hydrogen bomb with an intentionally thin tamper, allowing as many of the fast fusion neutrons as possible to escape. Foam plasma mechanism firing sequence. Warhead before firing; primary (fission bomb) at top, secondary (fusion fuel) at bottom, all suspended in polystyrene foam.
This means that neutron bombs have a yield range of 1–10 kilotons, with fission proportion varying from 50% at 1 kiloton to 25% at 10 kilotons (all of which comes from the primary stage). The neutron output per kiloton is then 10 to 15 times greater than for a pure fission implosion weapon or for a strategic warhead like a W87 or W88. [70]
The neutron bomb purportedly conceived by Sam Cohen is a thermonuclear weapon that yields a relatively small explosion but a relatively large amount of neutron radiation. Such a weapon could, according to tacticians, be used to cause massive biological casualties while leaving inanimate infrastructure mostly intact and creating minimal fallout.
Some tactical nuclear weapons have specific features meant to enhance their battlefield characteristics, such as variable yield, which allow their explosive power to be varied over a wide range for different situations, or enhanced radiation weapons (the so-called "neutron bombs"), which are meant to maximize ionizing radiation exposure and to ...
The components of a B83 nuclear bomb used by the United States. This is a list of nuclear weapons listed according to country of origin, and then by type within the states. . The United States, Russia, China and India are known to possess a nuclear triad, being capable to deliver nuclear weapons by land, sea and
Cohen's neutron bomb is not mentioned in the unclassified manual by Glasstone and Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons 1957–1977, but is included as an "enhanced neutron weapon" in chapter 5 of the declassified (formerly secret) manual edited by Philip J. Dolan, Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense, effects manual DNA-EM-1, updated 1981 (U.S. Freedom of Information Act).
On 6 August 1945, the U.S. detonated a uranium-gun design bomb, Little Boy, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an energy of about 15 kilotons of TNT, killing approximately 70,000 people, among them 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers, and destroying nearly 50,000 buildings (including the 2nd General Army and Fifth ...