The nuclear weapons of the united states navy 1945 – 2013 Don G. Boyer Haleiwa, Hawaii March 2013
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- Part 4: More Bombs 15 Part 5: The Beginning of the Megaton Era 17 Part 6: Still More Bombs 20 Part 7: Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapons 27
- Part 1: The Early Days
- Part 2: The Beginning of the Navys Nuclear Weapons Program
| THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY
1945 – 2013 Don G. Boyer Haleiwa, Hawaii March 2013 SECTION PAGE Part 1: The Early Days 2 Part 2: The Beginning of the Navy's Nuclear Weapons Program 7 Part 3: The First "New" Bomb 12 Part 4: More Bombs 15 Part 5: The Beginning of the Megaton Era 17 Part 6: Still More Bombs 20 Part 7: Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapons 27 Part 8: Rockets and Missiles 32 Part 9: Ballistic Missiles 39 THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY 1945 – 2012 Part 1: The Early Days This article is a general history with some operational details on all the nuclear weapons that have appeared in the inventories and aboard the ships of the US Navy since the end of WWII. While there is much material on shipboard weapons from the days of sail to yesterday, little is covered concerning the feared (and often overlooked) arena of the nuclear arsenal that came to be after 1945. The fact that not much is known about the nuclear weapons program because of deep security classifications doesn't help matters either. (Attached to this article is a table for a quick reference on the entire nuclear arsenal of the United States for those who may be interested. I make no claims that it is all-inclusive and comprehensive. For those with an interest in how the navy trained itself up for the nuclear weapons role, there are some good articles on the subject on the Navy Nuclear Weapons Association website. For weapons in general, the prime source is Chuck Hansen's “Swords of Armageddon” publication available on a very expensive CD.) Since the incredible shock delivered to the world in the skies over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no weapon has been so historically significant, reviled, and generally the subject of so much hysteria and myth over the potential fate of mankind than have nuclear weapons, and this includes chemical and biological threats that have the potential to create similar death tolls. The looming presence of potential total nuclear destruction has colored the politics of the late 20th century to an incalculable degree and has significantly altered history even with the weapons never having actually been used again. The potential of nuclear weapons by the thousands deployed or locked away in secret bunkers around the world thousands of miles from any actual conflict has touched all our lives in many ways. Before July of 1945, only the Good Lord had held the keys to the potential destruction of mankind. While saying a lot about God's obvious forbearance, not much thought was given to the possibility of something like that actually happening, except by the extreme religious zealots who pointed (futilely) at every portent such as rock and roll and short skirts as the preamble to human dissolution. With the early morning flash of light in the New Mexico desert in July of 1945, suddenly the Good Lord, in what some would consider a Promethean gesture of considerable humor and insight, handed one of the keys to humanity, possibility with a view to seeing how well mankind handled such power, considering the endless propensity of humans for declaring their intent to reach god-like levels of benign and enlightened consciousness toward their fellow man on the one hand, while on the other hand continuously slaughtering each other by the tens of thousands on the flimsiest of pretexts, and for thousands of years to boot. Sort of like the adage of putting your money where your mouth is. Some wake-up call, what? This article sticks strictly to published source material now in the public domain. This first section discusses the four initial weapons available to the military following the end of the Second World War and is less about the Navy than it is about the Air Force and the weapons themselves, but that's just the way the history of these weapons unfolded. The Navy will enter, stage left, in the next section. While the initial delivery capability for nuclear weapons rested entirely with the U.S. Army Air Forces (to become the U.S. Air Force in 1947) from the end of WWII to the early 1950s, early weapons were capable of delivery by two naval aircraft, neither of which were ideal for the situation – The P2V Neptune and the slightly later AJ Savage, of which only the latter (with great difficulty) could be accommodated on the Midway and Essex class aircraft carriers. Both these aircraft were twin engine propeller aircraft (the AJ also had a small turbojet for burst speed) and neither was particularly suitable to the role, particularly (in my opinion) in the area of being able to survive the delivery of a weapon, but that would quickly change as the Navy gained a larger role as part of America's nuclear deterrence capability, against the constant initial resistance of the U.S. Air Force. Navy experiments with the P2 and AJ and weapons casings were conducted in the early 1950s, but no weapons deployed from naval carriers at this time. The United States' (and potentially the US Navy's, should the ultimate emergency arise) first deliverable atomic weapons were the two initial derivatives of the Fat Man (Model 1561) weapon used on Nagasaki on August 6, 1945. The Model 1561 was the deliverable weapon version of the implosion "Gadget" first tested at the Trinity site in New Mexico in July of 1945. The bomb was 10' 8" long, 5' in diameter and weighed 10,300 lbs. Based on the Nagasaki blast, the yield was officially calculated at 23 kilotons (kt – equivalent to 23,000 tons of TNT). This first implosion weapon utilized about 13.5 lbs of plutonium surrounded by a complex array of layered high explosive "lenses" that burned at different speeds in order to create a spherical implosion shock wave that would compress the plutonium into a critical mass. The implosion would also crush a small polonium/beryllium initiator, creating the flux of neutrons necessary to begin the chain reaction. About 5000 lbs of the weapon was devoted to the high explosives and the extremely complex wiring harness and detonators needed to create an even implosion shock wave. The detonators and wiring harness were specifically designed as a safety factor against accidental detonation. The high explosives package more than anything else was what made the Fat Man "fat." (To backtrack a little, a word or two on the other bomb of the first nuclear weapons era, the "Little Boy." The Little Boy was a gun-type nuclear device weighing in at 9,700 lbs. and measuring 10' long by 2' 4" in diameter. The gun principle was a very simple and straightforward way of creating a nuclear detonation (by comparison to implosion): a section of fissile material was fired from one end of a tube (thus "gun") into another section of fissile material at a speed sufficient to create a critical mass and also crush an initiator. Smaller than the Fat Man, it also had a smaller yield, the Hiroshima detonation being calculated at 13 – 15 kt. Little Boy used almost ten times as much fissile material (approximately 141 lbs. of enriched uranium) for less yield than the Fat Man and was thus considered from a pure physics standpoint highly inefficient as a bomb compared to the implosion device. As a result, although some five weapons assemblies were made of this type of weapon, it was never put into production or stockpiled; it would be the Fat Man derivatives that led the way to the enormous nuclear arsenal eventually produced by the United States (some 72 deployed weapon types and around 64,000 weapons – see the attached table. Note that the Little Boy was never officially designated “MK 1”, the term was applied retroactively when the military began numbering weapons.) About nine "Fat Man" type weapons (designated MK 2) were hand-manufactured at Los Alamos, two of which were expended in the 1946 Bikini Atoll tests, but the design was almost immediately replaced by its two production derivatives, the Mk 3 and Mk 4. At first, these two weapons were only deliverable by the Air Force's B-29 Superfortress and its upgraded sister, the B-50. (Weapons were not then under the direct control of the military, however; the newly created civilian Atomic Energy Commission had all the early weapons under their control.) Since the Air Force had the only delivery capability, they used this fact to the nth degree in the bitter and divisive internecine post-war squabbling between the American armed services over primacy and budgets, with the Air Force politically maneuvering to control nuclear weapons strategic delivery systems, existing and potential (realizing, of course, that this was impractical – it was all part of the post war re-adjustment of the American military to the realities of the post-war political necessity of having to face off against communism). This squabble resulted in the infamous B-36/super-carrier tiff between the navy and air force that saw the funding committed to the B-36 very long range bomber and the first super-carrier design (the abortive USS United States) cancelled by President Truman. It also led to the creation of the Department of Defense and the separate United States Air Force. The new Department of Defense and the political leadership were quick to recognize that the exclusive use of nuclear weapons by the Air Force was unrealistic, strategically or tactically, and soon developed programs for the development of weapons suited to the roles of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, a policy that paid huge dividends in the Cold War and also resulted in trillions of dollars spent on a multiplicity of weapons systems, many of them fairly short-lived, as scientific progress rapidly advanced during the latter half of the 20th century. Whether the expense was worth the results is still under hot debate today. Fortunately, world leaders have to date shown no real propensity for suicide by employing any of these weapons in combat since 1945 when they were most justifiably used to convince the most obdurately stupid military junta known to man to quit the war they had started despite the resulting loss of face that would accrue – a loss of face they considered of more consequence than the destruction of their entire nation and its people. The first of the Fat Man-derived weapons was the almost identical Mk 3 bomb. One of the major differences was a re-designed tail assembly on the bomb, which was apparently prone to failure. The Bikini Atoll test Able bomb in 1946, dropped from the B-29 Dave's Dream, missed the target ship (the former USS Nevada) by 2,130 feet – a significant error with such a low-yield weapon. This was officially blamed on tail fin failure, although Colonel Paul Tibbets (still with the 509th Bomb Group) and his crew made statements to the effect that the crew of Dave's Dream were at least partially responsible for the wide miss due to miscalculating the drop mathematics and navigation parameters, which Tibbets' staff had double-checked themselves and disagreed with, but were ignored. Regardless, the Mk 3 was an improvement on the Model 1561 in several areas, including improved fusing and other internal features. The major difficulties with these early weapons were related to the time and manpower it took to get one assembled and ready to go (ten hours and up to 19 personnel) and the "shelf-life" of the weapon once assembled. The early type of batteries used in the weapons (necessary to provide the electrical firing of the weapons HE detonators) could only last nine days, and had to be recharged twice during that period, requiring partial disassembly of the weapon to replace old batteries with fresh, and thus "downing" the weapon for a period. Additionally, alpha particle decay of the plutonium core would eventually damage bomb components due to radiated heat, so the fully assembled bomb could not remain so for extended periods. The Mk 3 bomb was in the inventory until about 1950, and about 120 weapons were manufactured in three "Mods" (modifications) 0, 1 and 2. Its successor was the Mk 4 bomb, the first nuclear weapon to be built on the "assembly line" principle and the first to be stockpiled in significant numbers. With the deployment of the Mk 4 beginning in 1949, the Air Force began operating its first truly functional and readily available nuclear bomb. In addition to having the improvements of the Mk 3, the Mk 4 benefited from an improved aerodynamic shape and more efficient and compact fusing. The Mk 4 also had the first composite core using both uranium and plutonium, increasing fissile efficiency and additionally had a variety of cores available that would change the yield of the weapon (uranium, plutonium and composite). The Mk 4 also utilized the first really secure safety device on these weapons in the form of "in-flight insertion" (IFI). This kept the nuclear core of the weapon separate from the weapon and its explosives until the bomb was in flight and ready to deliver. Inserting the core into the weapon was not a simple procedure, requiring opening the weapon up, removing some of the explosive lenses, inserting the core and closing the weapon back up and then testing the weapon to ensure all was correctly done and electrically viable. The reverse procedure could be used prior to landing if the weapon was returned. Ground preparation time for the weapon was still lengthy at about 8 hours for assembly and 2 for testing before the weapon was loaded on an aircraft. The Mk 4 was of the same basic dimensions as its predecessors as it was based on the Mk 3 Mod 1, but was some 500 lbs heavier at 10,800 lbs. due to the differing cores and the IFI assemblies. The most significant feature of the weapon was the variable yield at 1, 3.5, 8, 14, 21 and 31 kt, the latter yield due to the composite core with its more efficient nuclear burning. Operational tests of the Mk 4 core were conducted at Eniwetok Atoll in April and May of 1948 (Operation Sandstone) and the first weapons themselves were in the AEC inventory by late 1948. A total of about 550 MK 4s were produced between 1948 and its withdrawal from service in 1953. The Mk 4 was the first nuclear weapon deployed outside the United States when nine Mk 4 assemblies were forward deployed to Guam, presumably along with their nuclear cores, during the Korean War. The plan was to deploy ten, but the tenth weapon was lost when the B-29 carrying the weapon crashed at Fairfield-Suisan Air Force Base outside San Francisco on 5 August 1950. The plane suffered an engine failure during takeoff, a second engine failure while attempting to return to the runway and an electrical failure as well. The plane's pilot, Captain Eugene Steffes through a magnificent effort got the plane on the ground in a more or less controlled crash and the plane broke apart and burned. Captain Steffes escaped the forward section of the aircraft and survived; Brigadier General Robert F. Travis, commander of the 5th Strategic Reconnaissance and 9th Bombardment Wings was badly injured in the crash; he was removed from the cockpit area but died en route to the hospital. Eighteen other men, both crew and rescue personnel, were killed when the Mk 4's high explosives detonated in the fire. Fairfield-Suisan was renamed Travis Air Force base later that same year. Four other Mk3/4 incidents involving the loss of the weapon occurred, all in 1950, resulting in much practice and training on the part of the Air Force in handling and flying with nuclear weapons, since much bad PR within the military had occurred. None of the incidents resulted in any radiation hazards to personnel or the public although the weapons were lost or destroyed. With the retirement of the last Mk 4 in 1953, the legacy of the Fat Man ended and newer, smaller, more efficient weapons began to enter the inventory. It was at this point that the US Navy was able to really begin developing its role in nuclear deterrence. Part 2: The Beginning of the Navy's Nuclear Weapons Program When the Second World War ended in September of 1945, the United States navy was the largest and most powerful sea-going fighting force in human history, a force that – caught unprepared at Pearl Harbor – had stopped cold a tenacious and vicious enemy's plans for imperial expansion within a year, mostly with the equipment they had on hand at the time, and then had built itself up to the point where it could successfully fight a two-ocean war against two evil empires and, with the support of the US Army and especially the Marine Corps, wrest any piece of turf away from the enemy without fail. In the case of the actions in the Pacific, the US fleet had almost destroyed the enemy's entire fighting and merchant navy in the process. (Had it not been for the two atomic bombs stopping the process, it would not have been “almost” as far as the fighting fleet would have been concerned.) The navy learned the lessons of sea battle, amphibious assault, air attack and at-sea logistics and applied them as no fighting force ever had before. At the dawn of the nuclear age, the US Navy reigned supreme at sea all over the world. But once the surrender documents and peace treaties had been signed and the warriors and ships returned home, the navy faced huge problems concerning its future, and not just the reductions in force and personnel faced by all the services. Probably the most worrisome as far as the future of the navy was concerned was nuclear weapons. The navy had no capacity to handle them or deliver them yet, no policy as to their integration into naval matters and no real idea as to their potential future roles in naval matters. Hand in hand with nuclear weapons was the advent of jet aircraft. Compounding these two problems were the ones related to post-war military politics alluded to earlier, with the brash and aggressive Army Air Force's push for independence and their lock on the use of nuclear weapons, which at that time existed only in the form of large, heavy and complex bombs that could only be delivered by the B-29 and the newer B-50 just entering service. Without a nuclear role, the navy could find itself taking a back seat in military affairs, something it was in no way willing to do. The messy in-fighting over control and use of nuclear weapons is well documented and doesn't need much coverage here. Despite the bitterness of the political in-fighting, resulting in B-36s but no new “super-carrier” for the navy (which could have easily handled both jets and nuclear weapons, having been designed from the start for just that), and despite “the revolt of the admirals” which resulted in several charred careers and resignations, in the end it was obvious that all America's military forces would be involved in the development and use of nuclear weapons carried by a variety of weapons systems. The Air Force achieved its most important goal – independence from the US Army – becoming the United States Air Force in September of 1947, but could not remain as the sole arbiter of nuclear delivery in wartime or the sole arbiter of the military aspects of nuclear policy in peace and war (even the Air Force recognized that, their position having been mostly political show in the first place). The navy was able to recover their poise, and got their super-carriers in the end as well. The military also entered a new era under the umbrella of the new Department of Defense, a creation that did much to solve the inter-service bickering over nuclear weapons, if nothing else. With the next mortal enemy – the Soviet Union and its much-oppressed lackeys – already in focus for the US military, the navy took the first steps toward nuclear capability by using what it had available that could be used to evaluate how they could plan future ships and systems to incorporate the nuclear option. The navy's entry into the nuclear age was greatly aided by three ships that the navy also almost didn't get – the new Midway-class aircraft carriers – none of which were completed in time for WW II but all of which had entered the fleet in the two years following the end of the war despite serious consideration during the war to cancelling them in favor of more Essex-class ships. The USS Midway, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Coral Sea (CVB – later CVA – 41, 42 and 43) were far larger than the Essex class carriers that had been the backbone of the wartime fast carrier task forces, and had an armored flight deck, making them ideal candidates for experiments with both the new jets and atomic weapons. The Midways were not perfect ships – the heavy flight deck reduced their freeboard and they were messily wet on the flight deck and hanger bay in a seaway for example, and they had other operational problems, resolved, as usual, by experience and modifications. At 968' long, with a 136' beam and weighing in at around 64,000 tons, with a capacity for carrying about 130 modern aircraft, the Midways, once considered by many naval experts to be “too big” and unnecessary, turned out to be exactly what was needed to push the navy into the nuclear age, particularly as it was going to be the mid 1950s before the first of the Forrestal class “super-carriers” would sail the seas. As it turned out their size worked in their favor, making them easier to modify to meet the space and weight requirements of the new jet and nuclear age. Originally equipped with a massive anti-aircraft battery of 18 of the new 5” 54-caliber guns and 21 quad 40mm (soon replaced by twin 3”/50 cal. weapons) and having an armored hull, these ships could, and did, sacrifice these features, no longer considered primary items in the defense of the ships, to modernizations that made them fully capable of jet operations and the carrying of nuclear weapons at relatively little cost in comparison to new construction. The Midway class aircraft carriers would serve as the test beds for operational experiments in handling jet aircraft and nuclear weapons for several years while the navy awaited the first of their super-carriers, the Forrestal class, which were the follow on to the abortive USS United States, cancelled in favor of the Air Force's huge B-36 bomber (that, despite the Air Force's faith in the weapon, would be quickly overcome by the jet age and consigned to the scrap heap without ever becoming the super-bomber the Air Force had thought it would be). The lessons of the Midways would be passed directly to the Essex class carriers which would benefit in turn from the new jets being developed and from the reduction in size of nuclear weapons to dimensions easily handled by carrier-based aircraft. Following the Korean war, the Essex class ships that remained in first line attack carrier and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) roles after extensive reconstruction would all be nuclear capable and would remain in front line service and nuclear-capable well into the 1970s until gradually replaced by the Forrestals and later classes. The big new carriers began the process of evolving into the jet-age nuclear capable world on 21 July 1946 when a McDonnell FD-1 Phantom jet landed aboard the Franklin D. Roosevelt, showing that carriers could handle jet aircraft. The transition was not going to be that easy however. As Norman Friedman pointed out regarding jet aircraft in “United States Aircraft Carriers: A Design History”, p. 287: “They accelerated far too slowly and had too little low-speed lift for conventional rolling takeoffs. They would have to be catapulted, and their catapults would have to be substantially more powerful, and therefore much longer and heavier than the H-4s of the Essex and Midway classes. Landing speeds would also rise, requiring heavier and more powerful arresting gear.” The problem of higher landing speeds and bigger and heavier aircraft also made for serious problems with the potential for disastrous deck crashes on a straight deck carrier, a problem only solvable by the angled deck, which the British were soon so kind as to develop in a practical form. (I doubt the United States navy ever adapted an idea from a foreign navy so quickly as the angled deck. It was the perfect solution to the problem.) Jets also burned fuel at a higher rate than propeller driven aircraft, and this made for a need for much more fuel storage on already crowded vessels. All of these problems would be solved in the interim on both the Midway and Essex class ships as they were modernized and the new carriers were easily adapted to these new circumstances because of their enormous size. While the problems of handling jet aircraft were considered, the navy began experimenting with nuclear capability with the only aircraft they had that could carry the existing nuclear weapons (by this time, the Mk 3 and slightly later MK 4 bomb), the P2V Neptune, a 70,000 lb. twin-engine propeller aircraft originally designed for long-range patrol and ASW work. Its exceptional range made it the only possible candidate for a nuclear mission by the navy until the advent of the AJ-1 Savage, also a twin engine propeller aircraft (augmented by a turbojet in the fuselage) designed specifically as a strategic navy bomber. 12 P2Vs were modified by the navy to carry the early Mk 3 and Mk 4 bombs. On 27 April 1948 two P2V Neptune aircraft were launched from the USS Coral Sea off Norfolk Virginia using jet-assisted takeoffs (JATO). (These aircraft had been loaded on the carrier while in port as they were far too large and heavy to land on the carrier.) Shore-based P2V exercises were also conducted with simulated nuclear delivery missions. During January-March of 1949, a P2V-3 Neptune launched from the USS Midway off Norfolk, flew to the Panama Canal, over Corpus Christi, Texas and on to San Diego, California, a 4,800 mile non-stop flight completed in just under 26 hours, demonstrating at least an embryonic nuclear-strike capability on the part of the navy. Of course, this was done with an aircraft that could not be permanently deployed aboard the carrier. In the event of war, they would have to be loaded aboard ship and taken to the scene of the action and after launch could not return to the carrier for follow-on missions. Still, the navy could deliver and atomic bomb in extreme circumstances. (The records do not show that either of these early flights included carrying a nuclear “shape” as part of the exercise. “Shape” was a euphemism for a training weapon of the right size and weight without nuclear or high explosive components.) However, on 7 March 1949 a P2V-3C launched from the USS Coral Sea and flew across the United States carrying “a 10,000 lb. load of dummy bombs” (probably a Mk 3/4 shape) making a simulated nuclear drop probably at China Lake and returned non-stop, landing at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. This was probably the first full “take it out and drop it test” of a training nuclear bomb from a carrier, although the records are a bit hazy on exactly what occurred. Since the plane returned non-stop, the 10,000 lb load must have been dropped. The navy made a huge step in nuclear capability on 21 April 1950 with the first take-off of an AJ-1 Savage attack bomber from the USS Coral Sea. The first AJ squadron completed carrier qualifications aboard this ship by August of that year, marking the introduction of a true carrier-based long-range attack bomber to carrier operations. The AJ was a huge aircraft by comparison to the modern fighters and attack aircraft carried aboard aircraft carriers at this time (F-4s, F-8s and the less than satisfactory SB2C, soon being replaced by their jet equivalents) and even with folding wings and tail was very difficult to man-handle aboard ship. This and the fact that carrying them requiring deleting up to 30 other aircraft from the ship in order to accommodate three or four Savages made them extremely unpopular in the fleet. The fact that the aircraft had props and a jet made for complex handling issues as well. During this period the three Midway class carriers were also docked for ship upgrades designed to accommodate nuclear weapons, including creation of forward and aft magazine spaces specifically for nuclear weapons, strengthening of the flight decks to take the much heavier aircraft such as the AJ and the new jets coming on line, and rebuilding the forward bomb elevator to accommodate “a package 15 feet long weighing 16,000 lbs.” (Friedman, p. 291). The decks of the nuclear weapons magazines were drilled and tapped so that the bomb dollies carrying the weapons could be lifted, their wheels removed, and then set on the deck and bolted down. Because these dollies would have to be man-handled aboard a pitching and rolling ship, they were modified from their shore-based brethren in being beefed-up with heavier brakes of the “dead man” variety – if the weapon was not under positive human control in its dolly, the brakes would immediately lock up. Magazine handling equipment such as the overhead cranes were operated by high-pressure air instead of electricity or hydraulics, another very important safety factor. Nuclear weapons spaces also included air-conditioning systems completely isolated from the other ship's systems and vented overboard, a safety factor in case of incidents within a magazine involving release of radiation. These spaces had enhanced fire-fighting capability built in as well rather than depend on external damage control assets being able to arrive on time during a fire. And of course dividing the nuclear weapons storage into two widely-separated areas was a big safety factor in handling these weapons both from the standpoint of internal accidents and battle damage. The shipboard nuclear magazines and their contents required very high security in the form of specialized locks, alarm systems and access controls and rules, backed up by a continuous US Marine guard with bad attitudes towards those not possessing the proper access credentials. Lethal force in protecting the nuclear weapons spaces was authorized. The navy had not neglected the training of personnel, developing a training program primarily at Sandia Base, New Mexico to train and qualify officers and men in the assembly, test, and preparation of nuclear weapons for strike operations, and of course all the emergency and safety training that went with such responsibility, particularly as the early weapons, with their huge amounts of sensitive high explosives did not have the safety factors built in to them that exist today. Nuclear weapons “teams” were developed who would ship out and deploy with their equipment to a ship that would be loaded with nuclear weapons prior to deployment to the fleet. The crews would return when the deployment was completed and the weapons returned to storage. This was a very time-consuming and expensive venture to deploy a large team of men and the necessary test and other equipment to the fleet and return, and this process was soon replaced by the simple expedient of attaching the nuclear weapons qualified personnel permanently to the ship, along with all the necessary equipment. By the early 1950s, with ships equipped to store and deploy nuclear weapons, an aircraft that could carry them, and trained personnel to get the job done, the U.S. Navy had fully entered the nuclear age, although with only a limited strike role available. Strategic long-range penetration of enemy territory would remain the province of the Air Force for another few years. And on the horizon were ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and other delivery systems that would eventually result in all the American services having “strategic and tactical” nuclear capabilities almost beyond comprehension. 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