Talk:B61 Family

A bombs and H bombs

Andy Dingley, I am older than the hydrogen bomb and back in my youth atomic bomb meant fission bomb, hydrogen bomb mean fusion. But, as turned up at the Teahouse today, we don't have an article on the fission weapon, though we do on the fusion weapon. Nuclear weapon makes clear that both A bombs and H bombs are considered to be atomic in today's vocabulary (it all does involve atoms), so I thought it was confusing for the link to end up at the top of that article. What to you suggest for a link to the fission weapon? And I am not clear if the B61 is ever assembled with just a fission component, so is second sentence even true? StarryGrandma (talk) 22:53, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Because they're not "fission weapons" in any useful sense; the unsourced sentence after this, "They can be atomic bombs (using fission) or thermonuclear (using fusion). " is wrong too (and should be fixed).

All of the B61 family (prove me wrong, but do it with sources) are two-stage fission-fusion devices. Or as commonly termed, "H bombs", "fusion weapons" or "thermonuclear devices". Now, of course, they also use fission. But the term "fission weapon" is never applied to them in that sense as a label. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:07, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I assumed that was a summary lead sentence, but nothing below in the article talks about a lower yield fission bomb. So it was probably added by mistake at some point. I was looking at modern weapon articles to see if they specified the type. It seems that today everything can be assumed to be thermonuclear unless otherwise specified. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:13, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Pretty much, yes. There are many reasons for this, from cost, long-term stability, reduced radiation, even enhanced radiation. Just about the only pure fission devices left were the nuclear artillery shells, for as long as they lasted. There was also the 'Alarm Clock' / 'Layer cake' design which is different again, but never deployed. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:00, 20 May 2019 (UTC)