Nuclear Weapons Databook; Volume I: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities

Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1984. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. Good. Quarto. xix, [1], 342 ,[6] pages. VOLUME I ONLY. Wraps. Illustrations. Maps. Figures. Tables. Footnotes. Glossary. Index. Cover has some wear, soiling, small tears at top and bottom of spine, and a crease at the lower front cover.. Foreword by Frank von Hippel. Overview and history of nuclear weapons developments, descriptions of the 25 warheads in the U.S. weapons stockpile, and details on each delivery system (missile, submarine, aircraft, and artillery gun). Also discusses future warheads being planned and developed. Contains over 200 illustrations and tables. This Nuclear Weapons Databook is for those who want to understand the nuclear arms race and are not frightened by numbers. This first volume is the most authoritative and complete reference work available on U.S. forces and capabilities. Thomas B. Cochran was a Senior Staff Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. This book is published in association with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The first of a planned eight volumes on nuclear matters, this encyclopedic reference work details the US atomic arsenal of a staggering 26,000 warheads. Described in technical detail are the two dozen types of weapons currently deployed, their fusing, arming safeguards, yields, weights. etc., plus a basic primer on how and why they work. There is also an excellent survey of air, land, and sea delivery systems. There is a useful glossary and excellent footnotes, graphs, and charts. The comprehensive material on U.S. nuclear weapons and weapons-development programs presented in this Volume I will be used by professionals in Congress, academia, public interest groups, and the media in assessing nuclear weapons policy alternatives. The Databook will also be extremely helpful to the increasingly large group of citizen-activists who wish to challenge, on a technical level, the arguments which are used to advocate for the continuation of the nuclear armed deterrence. Volume I of the Databook teaches one some important facts about the arms race. In addition to the relatively familiar strategic nuclear weapons systems which give the U.S. the capability to destroy the Soviet Union-or any other nation for that matter-from thousands of miles away, virtually every unit of the U.S. Armed Forces has the capability to deliver nuclear destruction at shorter ranges. Perhaps the most important message of the Databook is implicit in the fact that it could be written. When a large fraction of the public has concluded that the nuclear arms race is too important to be left to unsupervised experts, the availability of the information in the Databook will make a significant difference.