Written By: Matthew Seelinger
During the Cold War, as the U.S. Navy and Air Force maintained America’s strategic nuclear arsenal of long-range bombers and submarine and land-based ballistic missiles, the Army focused on the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons for possible use on the battlefield. Beginning in the early 1950s, the Army introduced a wide range of unguided rockets, guided missiles, artillery shells, demolition charges, and other systems capable of carrying nuclear warheads, with yields ranging from a fraction of a kiloton to a few megatons. Among the smallest of the weapons in the Army’s nuclear arsenal was the M28/M29 Davy Crockett, a recoilless rifle system operated by a three-man crew and entering service in the early 1960s.The development of nuclear weapons during World War II, and their use against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ushered in a new, and potentially cataclysmic, age of warfare. Whole cities could now be destroyed in a matter of seconds by a single weapon. Some military planners believed that expensive, large-scale ground armies were now all but obsolete, as nuclear bombs provided “more bang for the buck.” However, the early versions of these weapons were primarily for strategic use. The two devices dropped on Japan, the “Little Boy” and the “Fat Man,” were large, cumbersome weapons, each with a weight of over 10,000 pounds and a length of approximately ten feet. Only the B-29 Superfortress had the capability of carrying and dropping these bombs, and they had little tactical use on the battlefield.
https://armyhistory.org/the-m28m29-davy-crockett-nuclear-weapon-system/
