W70
The W70 was an American-made tactical nuclear warhead developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the early 1970s . It was designed as a nuclear warhead for the Lance short-range missile , a total of 1250 units were produced and, from 1973, also stationed in Germany together with the Lance in a total of 10 missile battalions. The W70 had an adjustable explosive force of 1 - 100 kT TNT equivalent . In 1996 the last W70 nuclear warheads were decommissioned and dismantled.
Stationed in Germany
The W70 warheads were u. a. operated by six US missile battalions together with Lance missiles in Germany. These were stationed in Wiesbaden , Gießen and Hanau ( V. US Corps ), as well as in Aschaffenburg , Crailsheim and Herzogenaurach ( VII. US Corps ). There were also four so-called rocket artillery battalions in the Bundeswehr , which were equipped with Lance missiles and W70 warheads as part of nuclear participation : battalions 150 ( Wesel ), 250 ( Großengstingen ), 350 ( Montabaur ) and 650 ( Flensburg-Weiche ) . Assuming several dozen nuclear warheads per battalion as ammunition, the total number of nuclear warheads in all ten battalions was several hundred - for the Lance weapon system in Germany alone.
W70-3 (ER)
The W70-3 (ER = Enhanced Radiation) was a further developed version of the W70 and one of the first warheads with "increased radiation", which was then known as the neutron bomb . It had an explosive power of "only" about 1 kT and was produced and stored in a number of 380 from 1981 to 1983. From 1991 to 1992 it was decommissioned after a few years.
The W70-3 for the Lance missile was together with the W79 for the howitzer M110 the first nuclear battlefield weapon with increased radiation (ER). It had a significantly higher proportion of neutron radiation than a normal atomic bomb, hence the name neutron bomb . This technology had already been developed in Livermore in the early 1960s and went into series production for the first time in 1974 with the W66 as the warhead of the ABM Sprint missile .
ER weapons were also developed for the NATO armed forces. They should be much more effective than the previous nuclear battlefield weapons and thus also increase deterrence . Now, with a smaller warhead, which caused less widespread destruction, the higher radiation that penetrated armored vehicles could inflict greater losses on the potential attacker, while at the same time protecting the surrounding cities, villages and civilians, as it was supposedly assumed.
When the W70-3 and W79 were to be introduced into the NATO armed forces from 1981 onwards, a fierce international controversy arose. It was argued that a lower explosive power and more diverse uses would significantly lower the threshold for nuclear war . It is now assumed that W70-3 warheads were not officially stationed in Germany as part of nuclear participation , but were probably secretly stored in the six special ammunition dumps with adjacent Lance missile positions, which were solely under US supervision . As in special ammunition depot casting . From 1991 they were finally decommissioned along with all other battlefield nuclear weapons by order of President Bush senior .
See also
- Nuclear weapons in Germany
- List of nuclear warheads
- Lance short-range missile
- Giessen special ammunition depot
- W31 nuclear warhead