The 76th Hiroshima Day will be observed on August 6, 2021, to mark the day of the dropping of nuclear bombs on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the United States, followed by the bombing of Nagasaki a few days after. The US dropped atomic bombs on the two cities during World War II in 1945 and this incident effectively ended the war as well as opened new conversations about the armed war in general. Hiroshima Day not only commemorates the estimated 200,000 lives lost due to the attack but also spread awareness about the power and devastating impact of nuclear weapons.
Also Read: Victory over Japan Day: The day World War II ended
Since the 1945 nuclear bomb attacks, the world has refrained from using anything of such kind. However, countries have continued the nuclear race. So, how much powerful are the new age bombs compared to the ones used against Japan? Let’s have a look.
Then:
Little Boy
A first of its kind, Little Boy was deployed in Hiroshima and weighed approximately 4,400 kilograms and was 10 feet in length. With a diameter of 28 inches, it had a uranium filling weighting around 63 kilograms.
Fat Man
The Fat Man on the other hand was a plutonium filled bomb with plutonium 239 as its core component. The bomb’s core was surrounded by high explosives of around 2404 kilograms and it had the explosive force of 21,000 tons of TNT.
Now:
United States
The US developed this large yield-bomb for its military and at the time of its production, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast was the largest non-nuclear conventional weapon in existence. Tested first on March 11, 2003 at the Eglin Air Force Armament Center, the MOAB, also known as the ‘Mother of All Bombs’. It is a precision-guided ammunition weighing 21,500 pounds dropped from a C-130 Hercules aircraft for the test. The main effect of an MOAB is a massive blast wave which can stretch up to almost two kilometers. It was first deployed in combat in the 13 April, 2017 on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan.
Also Read: Hiroshima bombing anniversary: Trail of devastation triggered by ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’
Russia
Also known as the ‘Father of All Bombs’, the Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (ATBIP) is a Russian designed, bomber-delivered thermobaric weapon first tested in 2007. Russian military forces claim it to be four times more powerful than its US counterpart MOAB. A thermobaric bomb’s payload explodes at much higher temperatures, making the ATBIP the most powerful non-nuclear conventional weapon surpassing the MOAB. According to Alexander Rukshin, Russian deputy armed forces chief of staff, the test results of the non-nuclear bomb showed that its power can commensurate with a nuclear weapon. A report by news agency Reuters said, “All that is alive merely evaporates,” when the bomb detonates.
France
As of January 2019, France maintains the third largest nuclear weapons force in the world and possesses approximately 300 nuclear warheads. Most of the warheads can be launched by submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with the remainder affixed to air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) carried by strategic bombers, according to armscontrol.org. France has three types of SLBMs in its arsenal. It has 32 M51.1 missiles which can carry a total of 160 TN75 warheads. The 16 M51.2 can carry 80 TNO warheads which are more efficient than TN75s. Each of the missiles can carry up to six new 150 kt TN MIRVs. Both M51.1 and M51.2 have missiles with a range of 6000+ kilometers. The M51.3 is scheduled to be completed by 2025.
