page_title: Tactical nuclear weapon
hierarchical_section_title: Tactical nuclear weapon
caption_attribution_description: English: US Govt scientists with a full-scale cut-away model of the W48 155-millimeter nuclear artillery shell', a very small tactical nuclear weapon with an explosive yield equivalent to 72 tons of TNT (0.072 kiloton). Around a thousand of these shells were produced during the Cold War.
context_page_description: A tactical nuclear weapon or non-strategic nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons: which are designed to be mostly targeted in the enemy interior away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war.
  Tactical nuclear weapons include gravity bombs, short-range missiles, artillery shells, land mines, depth charges, and torpedoes which are equipped with nuclear warheads. Also in this category are nuclear armed ground-based or shipborne surface-to-air missiles and air-to-air missiles. Small, two-man portable, or truck-portable, tactical weapons, such as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition and the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle, have been developed, but the difficulty of combining sufficient yield with portability could limit their military utility.
context_section_description: A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon  is a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in  explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons: which are designed to be mostly targeted in the enemy interior away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war. 
  Tactical nuclear weapons include gravity bombs,  short-range missiles, artillery shells, land mines, depth charges, and torpedoes which are equipped with nuclear warheads. Also in this category are nuclear armed ground-based or shipborne surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and air-to-air missiles. Small, two-man portable, or truck-portable, tactical weapons (sometimes misleadingly referred to as suitcase nukes), such as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition and the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle (recoilless smoothbore gun), have been developed, but the difficulty of combining sufficient yield with portability could limit their military utility. In wartime, such explosives could be used for demolishing "chokepoints" to enemy offensives, such as at tunnels, narrow mountain passes, and long viaducts.
  There is no exact definition of the "tactical" category on range or yield of the nuclear weapon. The yield of tactical nuclear weapons is generally lower than that of strategic nuclear weapons, but larger ones are still very powerful, and some variable-yield warheads serve in both roles. For example, the W89 200 kiloton warhead was intended to arm both the tactical Sea Lance anti-submarine rocket propelled depth charge and the strategic bomber launched SRAM II stand off missile. Modern tactical nuclear warheads have yields up to the tens of kilotons, or potentially hundreds, several times that of the weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Specifically on the Korean Peninsula, with a nuclear North Korea facing off against a NPT-compliant South Korea, there have been calls to request a return of US-owned and -operated short range low yield nuclear weapons, called tactical by the US military, to provide a local strategic deterrent to the North's growing domestically produced nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.
  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 minimize blast effects.
  Strategic missiles and bombers are assigned preplanned targets including enemy airfields, radars, and surface to air defenses, not only counterforce strikes on hardened or wide area bomber, submarine, and missile bases.  The strategic mission is to eliminate the enemy nation's national defenses to enable following bombers and missiles to threaten the enemy nation's strategic forces, command, and economy more realistically, rather than targeting mobile military assets in nearly real time by using tactical weapons that are optimized for time sensitive strike missions that are often close to friendly forces.
  
  Tactical nuclear weapons were a large part of the peak nuclear weapons stockpile levels during the Cold War.
  The risk that use of tactical nuclear weapons could unexpectedly lead to a rapid escalation of a war to full use of strategic weapons has led to proposals being made within NATO and other organizations to place limitations on - and make more transparent - the stockpiling and use of tactical weapons.
  No tactical nuclear weapon has ever been used in a combat situation.
caption: US scientists with a full-scale cut-away model of the W48, a very small tactical nuclear weapon with an explosive yield equivalent to 72 tons of TNT (0.072 kiloton). Around 100 of such shells were produced during the Cold War.
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