Posted on 2005-06-18 14:56:00
Nukes (NA 14) The Davy Crockett The other day I met with a former Army buddy of 1966 a retired Master SF Sergeant John Hathcock ‘MSG’. He was telling me that when I was 18 serving in the Army in Bad Hersfeld, Germany (during the Cold War along the East-West German border). The ammo dump (NA 14) where we pulled guard duty contained a nuclear weapon called the "Davy Crockett". This was surprising news to me. At that time 1966-1969 this information was classified. He went on to say that the person firing this weapon would be in the Nuclear Fallout zone due to its short range (AKA the kill zone). We also had a nuclear warhead that could be fired from our 155 mm Howitzer. "The Davy Crockett was developed in the late 1950s for use against Soviet troops in West Germany. It used a version of the W54 warhead, a very small sub-kiloton fission device, and weighed only about 51 lbs. with a selectable yield of 10 or 20 tons (very close to the minimum practical size and yield for a fission warhead) The Davy Crockett, was the smallest nuclear warhead ever developed by the United States that could be mounted to a recoilless rifle on a tripod, at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, in March, 1961. Production of the Davy Crockett began in 1956, and 2,100 were produced. The weapon was deployed with U.S. Army forces from 1961 to 1971, very rare." Thursday 18th 2008 December 2008