Category: Nuclear Weapon

Cold War, Deterrence, Nuclear WeaponBy E.Fermi

Dropshot: The American Plan for World War III

War plan “Dropshot” arose from the military planners’ conviction that World War III was inevitable and that the only deterrent available to the U.S. was superiority in nuclear stockpiles. Dropshot led to requests by the military to increase the production of nuclear weapons, which the president approved. Thus, the decision to build a facility to increase production of nuclear weapon components was approved, and that facility would be the Rocky Flats Plant. The world changed in late August 1949 when the Soviet Union detonated an exact duplicate of the Trinity device several years before some had estimated that it was possible (not knowing the efficiency of their spy networks). A “WB-29 weather reconnaissance plane on routine patrol from Japan to […]

Nuclear Weapon, Plutonium, Rocky Flats PlantBy E.Fermi

Colorado’s Nuclear Weapons Factory

In late 1948 massive forces of Soviet tanks and armed forces lined up in Eastern Europe facing a diminished and war-wearied Allied defenses. Stalin continued to amass combat forces and materiel that the Soviet military had prepared for a World War III. Stalin had been planning this offensive as he fought alongside Allied Forces during World War II. He was waiting for the moment that his increasingly powerful armies could sweep through Western Europe and initiate his visionary communist world domination. All Stalin needed to do was to give the order for his armored divisions to begin their rapid advance through Western Europe. There was only one thing deterring Stalin: the U.S. had a nuclear arsenal. And they had proven […]