Nuclear Test program Operation Tumbler-Snapper
air dropped Nuclear Test Blasts
Operation Tumbler/Snapper - 1952 - 47 minutes - Nevada, Color
Operation Tumbler-Snapper consisted of eight nuclear shots in two
phases. The Tumbler phase was of primary concern to the Department
of Defense, which called for air dropped nuclear weapons tests.
The Snapper second phase was a set of experiments conducted by the
Atomic Energy Commission and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
to help improve effects of nuclear weapons.
Able, an airdrop event on April 1, 1952, produced a yield of one
kiloton. One of the experiments involved an analysis of the shock
waves produced by the detonation. The Baker blast on April 15, 1952,
with a one kiloton yield, also produced weapons effects data.
The news media was invited to view the Charlie nuclear detonation,
a first at the Nevada Proving Ground. They watched from "News
Nob," about seven miles away. Also, approximately 2,000 Army
personnel, including paratroopers, conducted maneuvers beneath the
mushroom cloud. The 31-kiloton explosion on April 22, 1952, was
one of the largest ever conducted in Nevada to that date.
With the 19-kiloton Dog shot on May 1, 1952, the Marines got their
turn at a nuclear exercise.
They loaded into their trucks and drove toward ground zero until
intolerable radiation levels forced them to abort the mission.
The Easy shot of 12 kilotons on May 7, 1952, provided scientists
the opportunity to record photographically the birth of the blast
measured in milliseconds. That is all the time scientists had before
entire top of the tower was consumed by the fireball.
The sixth shot, Fox, was an 11-kiloton weapons development related
test watched on May 25, 1952, by about 1,000 military observers
from a distance of 7,000 yards. The soldiers were conducting radiation
monitor training. A military display area filled by jeeps, tanks,
machine guns, and artillery pieces was established almost under
the shot tower, and all of the hardware was demolished.
The last two shots in Tumbler-Snapper, both weapons development
related, were George, 15 kilotons on June 1, 1952; and How, 14 kilotons,
on June 5, 1952
Here are some sample clips from the DVD
 
 
 
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