Terrorists, rogue states, and bad guys would really sell their souls to get their dirty hands on this weapon.
During the tensions-filled Cold War days of the late 1950's to the early 1960's, the United States Military thought that arming their battlefield units with small tactical nuclear weapons was a great and cool idea. The M-28/29 "Davy Crockett" tactical nuke mounted on a recoiless rifle, was the result of this really shocking idea.
The fear of NATO defense forces being unable to stop the numerically superior Soviet tank and infantry forces surging across the divided German border was in the minds of U.S. war planners so a hundred of these small tactical nukes were assigned to squad-sized units.
The objective of the "Davy Crockett" was to stop the advance of Soviet forces by blasting them with a small nuclear explosion. It was calculated that it would stop the enemy and give the NATO forces 2 days to repel the Soviet invasion with a conventional response.
The "Davy Crockett" was a W54 nuclear warhead attached to a recoilless rifle. Even an ordinary jeep can make it transportable anywhere. Its range was just 1/2 to 2 and a half miles with an explosive power equivalent to somewhere between 10 and 20 tons of TNT. The kill zone radius was 1/4 mile or a quarter mile from the blast site. Unfavorable wind conditions could mean the operators would also be affected by the radiation and fallout outside the kill zone and thus making them as expendable assets.
Because of these dangers plus there is also the fear of this terrible weapon falling into the wrong hands, they were phased out since 1971. They were replaced by nuclear-tipped artillery shells.
The world was lucky it was never really used in any real action.Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DavyCrockett
http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.asp?smallarms_id=570
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