Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dghughes 3626 days ago
>the “dial-a-yield” of the B-61 bombs at Incirlik can be adjusted from 0.3 kilotons to as many as a hundred and seventy kilotons.

Wow that's quite a range. I wonder if it's the hydrogen volume adjusted to determine the yield.

1 comments

The fuel for the large majority of the fusion energy in a thermonuclear weapon is lithium deuteride, a solid. But here's some theories now how this works, one of which is changing the amount of tritium gas in the primary; but note that the primary (no pun intended) purpose of the tritium in the primary is to boost fission output through neutron release

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_yield

I'm picturing an 8 position DIP switch on the side of the bomb and a bomb tech with a small flat blade screwdriver selecting ON ON ON ON OFF ON ON ON

lol