Word: kiloton
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Major Advance? What, precisely, had Peking wrought? Nothing more than Western intelligence sources had predicted all along: the Chinese have built a short-range nuclear missile. The Chinese bomb last week was a 20-kiloton device, about the same size as the Hiroshima bomb and considerably less powerful than the third Chinese A-bomb (130 kilotons) detonated last May. There was conflicting opinion among Western scientists as to whether or not the bomb had been reduced by its builders to the tiny, rugged component parts needed to carry a big bang in a small warhead. If the bomb was "miniaturized...
...Luftwaffe's problems have been compounded by its NATO-assigned mission: to fly under the Soviet radar net and toss 100-kiloton U.S.-owned A-bombs on tactical targets. Such a mission calls for great skill in low-level flying, the most dangerous altitude for speedy jets. Germany's poor weather has made learning the art especially hazardous...
...explosion marked the start of a new and crucial phase in the development of France's atomic arsenal. From the four explosions in the Sahara in 1960-61 and subsequent tests, the French developed a 60-kiloton Abomb, but it is so bulky that France's 40 or 50 force de frappe Mirage IV jet bombers are able to carry only one apiece. What the French hope to achieve in the new tests is a smaller, powerful warhead to ride atop the intermediate-range missile for which silos are already being dug in France's Haute-Provence...
...major ground war against the U.S. at this time. Said one Asia expert: "The benefits to China would be nil; they are now getting all of the advantages [from Viet Nam] with no real risks." And, since it will be at least five years before even the primitive 20-kiloton package exploded at Lop Nor can be delivered onto global targets, it seemed likely that the current Chinese thunder is being generated by nothing more than a swarm of anxious mosquitoes...
...probably deliver a bomb a lot sooner than the five to ten years that U.S. officials first believed it would take. The U.S. moved from "explosion" at Alamogordo to bomb over Hiroshima in less than three weeks. If the Chinese are thinking in terms of a clumsy, 20-kiloton blockbuster like Hiroshima's (10 ft. long, 28 in. wide, and weighing 9,000 Ibs.), they could probably deliver it along their periphery within six months. Peking's 275 Russian-built IL-28 bombers are capacious enough to carry such bombs to targets up to 600 miles away...