Date

Jul 31, 1962

Description

The Defense Atomic Support Agency (formerly the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project) prepared the first study in response to the Seaborg proposal, although the spirit of the report diverged from the AEC’s intent. DASA estimated the results of nuclear strikes on the Soviet Union caused by attacks with three different total megatonnages: in the range of 1000, 3000, and 10,000.[2] For each weight, DASA estimated the results of using standard or clean weapons, air bursts or surface bursts, and combined military/urban-industrial targets or military targets only. For a 1000-megaton attack DASA found that the surface bursting of clean weapons caused the same level of casualties as air bursts of standard weapons. Not surprisingly, the high attack, around 10,000 megatons, involving surface bursts of standard weapons striking combined military and urban-industrial targets produced the highest level and percentage of fatalities: 166 million, 79 percent. Surface bursts of clean weapons produced highly lethal effects “as the weight of attack increases owing to the small but accumulating contributions of radio activity.”

One of the conclusions was that it was "quite feasible, in attempting almost any military strategy to inflict simultaneously almost any desired level of population destruction ranging from a few percent to almost complete obliteration." Lower percentages of fatalities could be reached by excluding from the target list "the several dozen military headquarters located in cities." Casualties could also be minimized by surface bursts against hard targets using clean weapons. Nevertheless, according to DASA, surface bursting of clean weapons "tend ... to become more lethal as weight of attack increases owing to the small but accumulating contributions of radioactivity."

Source

Record Group 330, Records of the Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), Accession 69-A-2243, "AW- Ecological Study, Volumes I and II"

Document published in following posting(s):

"Clean" Nukes and the Ecology of Nuclear War

Aug 30, 2017

Memo from Major General Robert Booth, Chief, Defense Atomic Support Agency, to Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), "AEC/DOD Study," 31 July 1962, with attached report, "The Effects of Clean Nuclear Weapons," Secret, excised copy