We're fortunate to have President Trump and Secretary of Defense (I still prefer Secretary of War) Hegseth setting our nation's armed forces back in the groove. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and now the Space Force will be once more finely-tuned military machines, dedicated to finding bad guys and revoking their birth certificates.
Some of us older, grayer types served during the Cold War, when weapons development took some pretty odd turns. Most of the more... interesting innovations were before my time, like the "Atomic Annie" nuclear howitzer, or the "Davy Crockett" nuclear bazooka. The Brits may have had those two nuclear innovations beat with a chicken-powered nuclear land mine, but not even the Brits envisioned this: Green Berets with atomic bombs strapped to them, jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.
But we did. The device was called the M54 SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition), and it was put into production in 1964. We learn about this from one George Hand, who speaks from first-hand experience.
My tour with the Green Berets began in 1983. In those years, the Green Berets, among many other missions, were blessed with the task of operation and delivery of a small nuclear “suitcase bomb” munition. The allure of such a magnificent task gave way to many rumors and speculations – but the facts are more alluring still.
The development of the small nuclear device began in June 1960 with the M54 SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition). The M54 was put into production in August 1964. The weapon was 12 inches in diameter, 18 inches long, and weighed approximately 59 pounds. The transport configuration added many more pounds to the weight of the device, and demanded specialized skills to operate.
SADM had a variable yield estimated to range from the equivalent of 10 to 1,000 tons of TNT!
The detachments who specialized in the employment of the weapon system were known as Green Light teams. There was a measure of awe and prestige in the men who undertook the mission. It was no easy task to be accepted in one such team if you did not positively glow at your current Green Beret function. All the Green Light men were also SCUBA/Combat Diver qualified, as SADM target sets included harbors and other waterborne targets such as dams and bridges.
OK, leave it to the snake-eaters to literally strap nukes to their bodies and jump out of an airplane. But, as you might note from the device's name, this crowd-pleaser of an atomic munition wasn't for use against enemy soldiers. Granted, that would make a great action movie scene: A Green Beret, coming out of a flawless PLF, rushing towards a group of attacking Red Army soldiers, shouting "Eat this, Ivan," and detonating. Substitute "Achmed" for "Ivan" and it would work in the Middle East, too.
This device, though, was aimed not at making enemy soldiers glow in the dark, but for blowing up bridges and other infrastructure, while also making it glow in the dark. For most bridges, even the Golden Gate or the Brooklyn Bridge, though, a 1-kiloton nuke seems like a bit of overkill.
But then, no war was ever lost by making the enemy too dead. The weapons programs of the Cold War sure seem to support that assertion, too.
See Also: Blue Peacock: That Time the Brits Developed a Chicken-Powered Nuclear Land Mine
The Bad, the Badder, and the Outrageous: Five Amazing Weapons Developed for the U.S. Armed Forces
Fortunately for the Special Forces types who were trained to use these things, there was a safety device: a 20-foot rope.
The thought of landing a parachute with this monstrous device may initially be alarming, but there was a simple provision for cushioning the combined impact of man and device: The SADM case was attached to an approximately 15-20 foot lowering line connecting the SADM to the parachute harness. Once a jumper was approximately 500 feet from the ground, he cut loose the SADM which fell to the end of the lowering line. The SADM would then make its own impact with the ground separate from the delivery man.
20 feet seems an awfully small margin of safety for a freaking nuclear weapon. Granted, nukes, even man-portable backpack nukes, have better safety precautions than that; these things wouldn't have been armed during the drop, which means that the primary danger here would be landing with the thing, which had the potential to cause injury.
Then, one could proceed to plant the nuke on the objectionable item and set a timer. George Hand indicates that some interesting stories came out of this exercise:
As far as bragging rights, well, they definitely came along with jump experience with the SADM.
“Hi, hon… what did you do at work today?”
“Me? Oh, I practiced planting an atomic bomb on a bridge.”
Although I'm pretty sure that was classified.
An old Airborne Ranger friend of mine was fond of demanding of other soldiers, "What falls from the sky?" Usually, before anyone could reply "Knuckleheads and bird s***," he would shout "Trouble!" He was right, of course, all kidding aside. The Rangers and the Special Forces are tough dudes, remaining so to this day, and in a fight, when a bunch of bad guys are headed your way and you need all the help you can get changing their pronouns to "was" and "were," they are people you want at your side.
But jumping out of an airplane with a nuke strapped to your body? That's a whole new level of badass. And, it proves, once again, that there is no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.
