M65 Recoiless Nuclear Rifle.

Is that weapon Overkill? Yes.

But is it Useless? I don't think so.

reply to post by whatukno

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that is funny. wouldnt it be easier to call in air support?

The lack of success with this weapon is painfully obvious.

It has no precision sight attached.

reply to post by dooper

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Dooper:

It was intended for members of the 'Ray Charles Gun Club'.

How precise would you have to be?? The bomb gets launched from this end there fore everything that side of the weapon goes away... Everything on the other side, well dies slowly...

reply to post by Now_Then

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'Everything' is an overstatement by several orders of magnitude. The DC was a very low-yield weapon, adjustable yield, with the max yield sub-kiloton. It was meant to destroy an approaching column/deny terrain (at least in the short term).

Stupid, stupid idea, here's why:

British Army planning staffs studied several alternative warheads available to them before concluding that a copy of the US W-54 warhead, built in the UK was the best option, although an unresolved concern was the HE composition used in the American warhead that was too shock-sensitive to meet with the approval of the UK Ordnance Board. (2)(2)

Hand grenade or mortar round goes off in or around the trench/foxhole... a whole lot of dead and vapourized Americans

reply to post by Now_Then

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You gotta lighten up.

It was a joke.

One of those wry observations that is counter to logic.

Look at the video again, and then read my response again.

Repeat until you 'get it.'

wow amazing i didn't know they had a weapon like this.

The key is 'had'. DC was a 1950's-1960's weapon. The warheads were converted to alternative applications.

...They make a civilian model?

Yeah, but they had to take the bayonet lug off of it.

reply to post by spartan002

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Oh yeah, they've had weapons like this for a while.

Got mine on Ebay.

Downside: it's just a single shot.

reply to post by dooper

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So I assume that your waiting for Atomic Annie?

YouTube Link

Source:www.olive-drab.com...





Or perhaps you want to pack a nuke into a M32 Grenade Launcher?

YouTube Link

We have the technology...
To produce weapons...
No sane person would ever deploy in battle...
We can make them stronger, faster, more brutal...
little take on the 6 million dollar man


[edit on 7/8/2009 by whatukno]

Oh my god what a beautiful piece of weaponry.... well except for the nuclear fallout. BUT DAMN

Typically warheads need to be armed before a nuclear reaction can take place. What would be expected would be an essentially, a fissle, HE going off only, no nuclear reaction, dirty bomb, and some very irradiated troops, but not vapourised.

I'd rather nuke an advancing column and take my chances with fallout rather than be ran over by some tanks and my country falling.

[edit on 8/7/2009 by C0bzz]

The "Davie Crockett" was used in the video game MGS3 from a helicopter shortly after the game begins. Now, do you think that firing this weapon from the air in an aircraft would drastically increase the range and allow the troops using it to escape? But I guess that really depends on the speed of the aircraft and the height fired from, and is it even posible to fire it from a helicopter? Sorry for the nerdyness.

Well, although that would look really cool to snipe Bin Laden with a Big Nuke, you have to think, if we were to blast the Bejesus out of key targets in a war, or big forces in a battle, well, you have to consider the half-life effects on that terrain.. farming or any civil use of that area would be non-existant, and any wild life would be messed up... i'd prefer a .50 cal shot or air strike any day to a mininuke.... but hey, to each his own eh?

I would say that you could actually fire it, but in 99% of circumstances it would be more suicidal than launching it from the ground - when your up in the air in a chopper the blast wave would be impossible to continue flying through... And then any EMP could fry any electronics. And up there everyone on the chopper could be blinded, you can't fly very well blind!

On the ground the blast would be bad, but easier to shield your self from, electronics can be fried too... That wont kill you.

Something faster than a chopper could be different, say fired backwards from a fast jet? Or from very high up?

edit: what's up with the BBcode?
It's defiantly a last ditch weapon, I wouldn't make any long term plans if I was firing it... You could survive, but it's like 50/50 at the best I think.

[edit on 14/7/2009 by Now_Then] That should get it

[edit on 14/7/2009 by Now_Then]

Thats what the F105 thunder chief was designed for, a low level supersonic nuclear strike

All it takes is a several second delay to allow the aircraft to eacape.

Also the DC was a fire cracker in the world of nuclear weapons,
from the wiki

It would have been a scary assignment but as a soldier it is your duty to kill the enemy or die trying.
But with the range 1 to 2 1/2 miles you would survive the blast, blast radius of only 200 or so yards, and could skeedaddle before the fallout started to come back down. And they would have been positioned to take advantage of the prevailing winds, by blowing most of the fallout back onto an enemy column.
It would have been used to close routes of advance into west germany, such as the Fulda Gap and the danube river valley.

The navy seal version of the W54 warhead was intended to be parachuted into an enemy harbor with 2 seals, who would place the warhead and manually arm and detonate it. talk about a suicide mission.

Actually being a "Dragon gunner" later on in the cold war was also a real suicide mission.
A high school freind of mine was a dragon gunner station in germany in the eighties, and they were told that they would have a 90% casualty rating in the opening minutes of any large scale invasion.
Being a dragon gunner was a voluntary assignment.

M-74 dragon

The missle is wire guided with a range of 1/2 mile.
Once launched, which produced a LARGE smoke cloud, the gunner had to remain stationary and guide the missle to its target for the 10 seconds it would take to reach the target. Plenty of time for counter fire to be directed at the launch sites.