US to retire B83-1 thermonuclear bomb

a reply to: chr0naut

At a cost of 62.5 trillion dollars per gram chr0naut Antimatter makes the Manhattan Project pale by comparison.

No need for antimatter weaponry down to the prohibitive cost of producing the stuff never mind the storage concerns involved.

a reply to: Potlatch

Smashing and i canny wait to see the new B-21 Raider enter service at some point in the not to distant future but i still don't get how this predicament is only a Biden problem as opposed to it being an issues of concern for past administrations also.

From like 1989 to 1994 I flew most of those nukes around the world. They were fun missions... I spent like 7 months cleaning tactical nukes out of Germany back then. Use to fly the full B-52 clips too, and one time we had a nuke that looked like a Fat Man level nuke. I think we had some serious old stuff in our inventory. I wonder if they will reprocess the cores into more modern nukes.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
From like 1989 to 1994 I flew most of those nukes around the world. They were fun missions... I spent like 7 months cleaning tactical nukes out of Germany back then. Use to fly the full B-52 clips too, and one time we had a nuke that looked like a Fat Man level nuke. I think we had some serious old stuff in our inventory. I wonder if they will reprocess the cores into more modern nukes.

The US could be fine reprocessing the cores of any retired B83-1s into B61-12s and also the future B61-13 in order to save money, since the B61-12 is now the only free-fall nuclear bomb certified for carriage by a strategic bomber (the B-2 and the upcoming B-21 are now the only strategic bombers left to carry a strategic free-fall bomb).

a reply to: RickyD

the got rid of it because out nukes now have JDAM kits and can hit the target within feet so there is no need for city killers