Evening star., 1951-10-30
RevoIutionizinq Warfare

detonation" in Nevada differ markedly in many
important respects. The reason for this is the
understandable secrecy surrounding the whole
operation Besides being far removed from the
testing site, the reporters out there must deal
with what may we'll be called the Nom -Informa-
ton Bureau OF the Atomic Energy Commission.
Hence, their coverage is largely a matter of each
man for himself in the field of speculation, and
their accounts vary accordingly.
Yet, despite this the stories are unanimous
In describing the new explosion as having been
bigger than last weeks, but still much smaller
than those set off in the same place several
months ago. So there is every reason to assume
especially because our Acc and military authori-
ties have indicated as much-that what is being
tested are baby" A-weapons quite different from
the ones officially reported to be several times"
more powerful than the deStroyers of Hiroshima
and NagaSaki. In other words, all of us can be
fairly sure that the things involved are nuclear
armamentS OF sort that can be delivered by
relatively light planes, or by special field guns
or by guided missiles, for tactical use against
targets of limited nature-as distinct from
strategical targets like cities.
The fact that such weapons apparently are
being developed suggests that a way has been
found to reduce the So-called critical size of the
explosive content of the A-bomb Based on the
celebrated Smyth report of 1945, the general
assumption has been that it is impossible to set
OF detonation OF uranium 235 or of man made
plutonium until one or another of these fuels is
brought together in a quantity amounting to the
critical size Although still a top secret, this
quantity-the essential minimum and maximum
needed for an explosion of the kind that wrecked
Hiroshima with the destructive force of 10000
tons of TNT-haS been estimated by unofficial
but expert gueSSerS to be as little as 80 pounds
or less. In the postwar years, with the same
minimum and maximum of fashionable material
our scientists have succeeded in achieving much
more eficient-meaning deadler-blaSts than
the two that rocked Japan. What the current
Nevada program indicates is that they also have
succeeded in figuring out how to produce limited
scale atomic armaments with fashionable material
Of Subcritical size.
Stated another way, the smaller explosions in
Nevada suggest that If something like 80 pounds
of pure nuclear fuel were heretofore regarded as
the rock-bottom minimum needed for any kind of
atomic detonation, 1t may now be possible to get
such detonation, on lesser SCALE with con-
siderably fewer pounds. OF course since the
whole subject is behind an iron curtain, one can
only speculate about It, The question may be
asked, however, whether our precious fashionable
material would be expended for relatively weak
blasts if the same amount of material could pro-
duce blasts many times greater. The answer
would seem to be no-unless the weak blasts
would be more effective militarily or unless our
scientists have learned how to reduce the critical
size.
In any case. speculation to one side, what is
happening in Nevada constitutes clear evidence
that our atomic arsenal is being stocked with
weapons of varying types and dimensions-tre-
mendously explosive ones for strategical uses and
ones with differing degrees of power for tactical
employment IN the form of artillery Shells"
guided missiles, "baby" A-bombs, etc. The Rus
slams undoubtedly are doing their best to catch
up with us. 1t is not for nothing that Air Secre-
tary Thomas Einletter has just declared that the
situation requires a revolution in all our past
basic concepts of warfare on land, at sea and
in the sky