Minor scale

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Fireball of the minor scale test immediately after detonation. As a size comparison, an F-4 Phantom in the foreground

The minor-scale test was one of the largest conventional explosions carried out to date . The 27. June 1985 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the United States conducted the test served to the pressure and heat impact of a small nuclear weapon to simulate.

In the test carried out at ground level, 4250 tons of ANFO detonated , which is comparable to a ground explosion of a nuclear weapon with approx. 4 kt TNT equivalent or an air detonation of a nuclear weapon with approx. 8 kt TNT equivalent.

According to the Defense Nuclear Agency (former military US atomic agency, one of the forerunners of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency ), Minor Scale was the "largest planned conventional explosion in the free world" (the 6,700 tons of explosives on Heligoland in 1947 were spread over a larger area) . The aim of the experiment was the effect of heat and pressure effects of the explosion to test for various military equipment, and in particular the armored mobile launchers of time in development Midgetman - intercontinental ballistic missile .

Conventional explosions of similar size were the Misty Picture Test of 1987 (4685 t ANFO), also carried out at White Sands, and the Port Chicago disaster of 1944 (5000 t of explosives).

A much smaller test for a similar purpose had already been carried out on May 7, 1945, a good month before Trinity . Engineers and scientists used 100 tons of TNT as a dress rehearsal for observing the first nuclear explosion.

500 tons of TNT were also used in tests in Hawaii in 1965 to simulate the effects of nuclear weapons.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Defense Technical Information Center: Minor Scale Event, Test Execution Report, November 30, 1987, p.1 (PDF; 15.7 MB)
  2. ↑ Los Alamos National Laboratory: Joseph Fitzgerald: Bistatic Phase Sounding in the Ionosphere above the Minor Scale Explcsion , 1986 (PDF; 1.7 MB)
  3. ↑ nuclearfiles.org: Test Blast: Official Portrait
  4. ↑ Global Security: Nuclear Effects Testing
  5. ↑ Wikipedia: Operation Sailor Hat (English)