The Little Big Ones

The H-bomb explosions in mid-Pacific last year were awesome proof of how big the atom can blow. The 14 test shots at Yucca Flat, Nev., programmed between Feb. 1 and this week, are equally sensational proof of how small the weapon can get--small enough to fit the conventional artillery pieces, bomb racks, torpedo tubes and antiaircraft rifles of the U.S. armed forces and provide them with a jump in firepower as revolutionary as the introduction of gunpowder.

Armed with a baby atomic bomb, the pilot whose fighter bomber used to pack a 1,000-lb. bomb under each wing for an attack on a troublesome artillery battery could now devastate an army's reserve-supply area. The artillery commander who might have aimed an 8-in. howitzer at a crossroads could now aim a similar weapon, fire an atomic shell and wipe out the heart of a whole infantry division. A Navy torpedo plane could launch an atomic torpedo that could lift a ship out of the water; a destroyer could fire an atomic depth charge that would crush submarines like eggshells.

Suitcase Size. During the Yucca Flat tests, one baby bomb was parachuted out of a B-36, exploded at 30,000 ft. amid a cluster of other parachutes carrying little metal canisters. Probable purpose: to estimate the effect of an atomic aerial explosion, such as an antiaircraft shell or missile, on the metal parts of bombers. Another blast was exploded underground (TIME, April 4), gouging a mammoth crater and tossing a column of dirt hundreds of feet into the sky. Reportedly, the bomb was no bigger than a suitcase.

During one of the aboveground blasts, 2,000 marines crouched in 6-ft. trenches within sight of ground zero. In a matter of minutes after the fireball disappeared, some 1,400 were being helicoptered in to seize the atomized battlefield, theoretically blasted clean of enemy troops. For the 13th shot, the Army's Task Force Razor this week was poised to ride out the explosion in the most exposed surface position to date: in Patton tanks, spread 50 yds. apart, some 3,100 yds. from ground zero, and in new M59 armored personnel carriers 3,900 yds. from ground zero. Just as soon as monitor teams reported a safe level of radiation, the armored column would roll forward to exploit the atomic attack, ready to pin down whatever remnants of enemy power were left.

Division Down. During the period when the pundits could see nothing in their tea leaves except intercontinental bombers, the Army plugged hard for its giant 280-mm. atomic cannon, with its 20-mile range. Now, as the Joint Chiefs accept the possibility of a stalemate in strategic airpower and the need for powerful battle forces (TIME, Jan. 10), the Army also has in sight atomic shells for its conventional big artillery pieces, 20 howitzers, rocket launchers and atomic heads for its guided missiles.

The new U.S. Army will be reorganized around this firepower, beginning late this year. The basic problem is to keep its own battalions strung out so that they will not be vulnerable to enemy atomic attack and at the same time use every conceivable device of terrain and trickery to lure the enemy into concentration worth an atomic shell. A general who has always searched for the weak spot in the enemy's line to make his breakthrough will now search for the point where the enemy has the greatest concentration of troops and weapons. There he will drop his atomic shell to make a hole in the line and destroy a large block of enemy power in the process.

So confident are the Joint Chiefs of the new tactical atomic doctrine that General Alfred Gruenther's SHAPE staff has plunged the NATO forces into a five-year reorganization around the little big bomb (TIME, Dec. 27). Up until last December, SHAPE'S battle plan called for a defense at the Rhine. Armed with the tactical atom, NATO now intends to make a stand in West Germany, 200 miles farther east, right at the edge of the Iron Curtain. (But thus far the U.S. has stored no atomic warheads in continental Europe.)

Speedup. After a meeting of 250 top NATO commanders in Paris last week, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, SHAPE deputy commander in Europe, pointed up another dimension of tactical atomic war--a factor that SHAPE planners call "time compression." This recognizes that in the first hours of war atomic weapons will deal out destruction that would have taken whole fleets of airplanes whole weeks in "conventional" war. Hence, forces in being are more essential than ever before, to counter the rapid thrusts--no matter how rapid the mobilization of reserves.

"In the next year," said Monty, "it will be possible in the first few hours to attack the enemy with more explosive energy than has been used in the whole history of warfare. Decisive operations will start almost at once, and some of them may be complete in a very short time, although the final decision may only come after a considerable period."

Battalion Spread. The Marines expect the tactical atom to erase the word beachhead from their vocabulary. In place of the massed World War II debarkation from troop transports into landing craft, Marines could climb into helicopters some 50 miles offshore. Under the tactics tested last March, the attack begins with a close-in atomic bombardment by fighter bomber. Then the troops drop down by helicopter in vertical envelopment.

But of all the standard weapons, none is transformed so dramatically in magnitude by the baby atom bomb as the fighter bomber. With modification in wiring and bomb rack, a single plane like the Air Force's F-84F Thunderstreak, the Navy's AD Skyraider or F3D Sky-knight can carry a bomb as powerful as Hiroshima's. Reportedly, a baby hydrogen bomb may soon fit.

The Air Force already has planned to reorganize its Tactical Air Force into powerful self-supporting strike squadrons, each equipped with tankers, cargo planes and communication ships so that a TAC squadron can operate from any base in the world. A Navy carrier today can send atom-armed jets over any point within an 800-mile radius of blue water. Such fighter bombers will be at their best if they can sweep in at treetop altitude to escape radar detection.

Conventional Edge. In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released last week, SHAPE'S General Gruenther reported that "the Soviets are not in the same league with us" in delivery of atomic weapons. "If they went to war today they would lose because of our overwhelming air capability,"said he. U.S. Intelligence believes that the Russians have not caught up with the tactical atom, although they are known to be working out defensive maneuvers to counter its use. Within a few years they may have baby bombs, and U.S. tactics already takes this into account. For example, because even a small atom bomb could virtually sink an airfield as well as a carrier, Air Force and Navy are developing the vertical take-off airplane to operate from small fields or small ships.

As of today, however, the successful tests at Yucca Flat have enormous implication for U.S. policy planners. Not only does the U.S. have the edge in strategic air, but it now has a family of weapons that renders U.S. conventional forces more powerful than those of any enemy.

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