From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: alt.war.nuclear,sci.space.tech,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Anti Matter Triggered Fusion?
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 18:37:20 GMT

I wrote:
>> I don't recall right now what they did to "safe" Little Boy, if anything.
>
>Easy:  the propellant charge for the gun was inserted after takeoff.
>There was no straightforward equivalent for an implosion bomb, and
>Fat Man was fully assembled at takeoff, except for arming plugs in
>the electrical system.

Incidentally, this was all long before the days of crashworthy nuclear
weapons.  In fact, it was deemed unsafe to jettison even an unarmed Little
Boy -- a land impact might slam the bullet forward hard enough to cause
detonation, while in water the target assembly would probably go critical
due to moderation by the water -- so the emergency procedure was to land
with it no matter what happened.
--
The good old days                   |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
weren't.                            |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)