Talk:Mark 17 nuclear bomb

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Classification[edit]

I have not learned yet how to classify an article.

This is an article about a family of US thermonuclear weapons. I chose to do it because it was something that you guys said needed to be done.

I would guess this should be classified as something like Nuclear Weapons, US Nuclear Weapons, or Humongus Bombs.

How about a hand here?

Would you like me to do more bomb histories? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark Lincoln (talk • contribs) 23:07, 16 July 2007

Merge proposal[edit]

I'm not sure how it happened, but we appear to have two nearly identical articles:

Mark-17 hydrogen bomb (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Mark 17 nuclear bomb (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

All I know is that one should be a redirect to the other, and since this one has an active discussion page and the other one does not, I suggest that we keep this one and redirect the other one here ... Happy Editing! —72.75.74.236 11:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at Category:American Cold War nuclear bombs, the standard naming convention appears to be the non-hyphenated form. Suggest we redirect this article to that. Jakew 11:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good Call ... I withdraw my suggestion in favor of Jakew's ... I have edited the other article so that both should now be "identical" for content, links, etc. ... I discovered through "What links here" that the Mark 24 nuclear bomb has its own article, so it's linked on the unhyphenated version, but I didn't change the one that's going to evaporate. —72.75.74.236 20:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The preceding was copied from Talk:Mark-17 hydrogen bomb. —72.75.74.236 01:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If no hyphen is the standard nomenclature, someone should probably edit this article accordingly. Right now it has a mix of hyphenated and non-hyphenated labels. Jmdeur (talk) 13:31, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, good catch. Did that. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:41, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Broken Arrow incident[edit]

Though a chain reaction was impossible because the plutonium pits were stored separately on the plane as a safety measure, the incident spread radioactive contamination and debris over a mile-wide area.

If the plutionium pit was stored somewhere else on the plane and only coreless bomb fell to the ground, where did the contamination come from? These details on the origin of the radioactive contaminations needs to be added. --Gunnar (talk) 17:23, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't. That's lousy wording.

The idea of in-flight insertion had been around for a while. It's an obvious way to avoid a nuclear yield, because disrupting the compression of the pit would avoid the full yield (i.e. giving a fizzle) and having the pit outside the explosive lens assembly will dismantle the whole lot, avoiding any nuclear yield.

Hiroshima was carried out with Little Boy, which had completely manual in-flight insertion (and awkwardly ad hoc). Later on the Mk 4 and Mk 5 (thuis is offhand, I haven't checked my references) had an improved system, which was still extremely complicated.[1] A device like a ventouse on a little raliway carriage allowed the explosive segments and the central pit to be loaded into the weapon in flight. Still a complex and time-consuming process though. With the Mk 7 (external carriage by a single-seater aircraft) there was no longer a bombardier to do this, so a fully-automated system was developed. This was also entirely internal to the bomb's outer casing. The Mk 7 mechanism was re-used for the primary of the Mk 17. This avoided the risk of a nuclear yield after an accident, but it's a long way from 'the pits were stored separately on the plane'. After an accident such as this, anything within the armoured bomb casing (3.5 inches of steel armour!) would be damaged by the conventional explosion and spread over a crash site. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:06, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Likely error vs. the Mark 24[edit]

This article currently says the Mk 17 differed from the Mk 24 in its primary, whereas Mark 24 nuclear bomb says they differed in their secondaries. The latter says the difference was in the Lithium-6 enrichment. I think the latter is probably correct, as it would be a simple change to substitute a higher enrichment level in the lithium material without affecting other aspects of the design. Since the lithium is used in the secondary (thermonuclear) component, but not in the primary, this indicates the two used different secondaries. I couldn't find authoritative material online so haven't updated the article. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 07:25, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

List of All Nuclear Weapons on Nuclear Weapons Archive agrees. Okto8 (talk) 23:04, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mentions of Mk 24 as if it is part of this article should be removed[edit]

Though the Mk17 and Mk24 bombs are very similar, they are distinct weapons and the Mk24 already has its own article. I propose phrasing which mentions the Mk24 as part of the same subject be removed. The mention of their similarity is relevant, that should be left in, but insofar as the subject of the article is concerned, it should be focused on the Mk17. Okto8 (talk) 23:02, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]