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Minor Scale

Explosives detonation test in 1985

Summary

Explosives detonation test in 1985

Field	Value
name	Minor Scale
image	Minor Scale test explosion.jpg
image_size	300px
caption	Minor Scale fireball immediately after detonation. The F-4 Phantom aircraft in the foreground is 63 feet (19 m) long.
country	United States
test_site	White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico
coordinates
date	June 27, 1985
agency	Defense Nuclear Agency
number_of_tests	1
explosive	ANFO
configuration	Segmented hemisphere
yield	4 ktonTNT
previous_test	Direct Course
next_test	Misty Picture

Minor Scale was a test conducted on June 27, 1985, by the United States Defense Nuclear Agency (now part of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency) involving the detonation of several thousand tons of conventional explosives to simulate the explosion of a small nuclear bomb.

Test

The purpose of the test was to evaluate the effect of nuclear blasts on various pieces of military hardware, particularly new, blast-hardened launchers for the MGM-134 Midgetman ballistic missile.

The test took place at the Permanent High Explosive Testing Grounds of the White Sands Missile Range in the state of New Mexico, for which 4,744 tons of ANFO explosive (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil), equivalent to 4 kilotons of TNT, were used to roughly simulate the effect of an eight kiloton air-burst nuclear device. With a total energy release of about 17 TJ (or 4.2 kilotons of TNT equivalent), Minor Scale was reported as "the largest planned conventional explosion in the history of the free world", surpassing another large conventional explosion, the "British Bang" disposal of ordnance on Heligoland in 1947, reported to have released 13 TJ of energy (about 3.2 kilotons of TNT equivalent).

The Q&A released as part of the effort states: "Future tests are not expected to get bigger than Minor Scale", and in particular, "There are no plans for a test called Major Scale".

References

[http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/media-gallery/image/tredici/34.htm Summary of Minor Scale] from nuclearfiles.org
(1986). "Minor Scale Event, Test Execution Report". Tech Reps.
J. Fitzgerald. (1986). "Technical Report LA-10657-MS: Bistatic Phase Sounding in the Ionosphere above the Minor Scale Explosion". Los Alamos National Labs.
Minor Scale Event Test Execution Report, p. 135
"Test Blast: Official Portrait".
Willmore, PL. (1949). "Seismic Experiments on the North German Explosions, 1946 to 1947". JSTOR.
"Minor Scale Event, Test Execution Report".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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