What Nuclear Weapons Look Like
I’ve crisscrossed the country and have driven over 25,000 miles to thirty-five states to make photographs of nuclear weapons. I wanted to see what they looked like, to learn about them, to try to understand the perils they present.
Click below to see my photographs and to learn about the weapons—or make plans to visit them yourself.
A New Kind of Weapon
Trinity, Little Boy, Fat Man, and the post-WWII years.
The Buildup Begins
Early Cold War nuclear weapons, in a variety of forms.
Mark 8 • Mark 7 • Atomic Annie • Matador • Corporal • Honest John • Regulus • Genie • Nike-Hercules • Bomarc
Rockets and Missiles, Oh My
Unmanned weapons for every need.
Rascal • Bullpup • Talos • LaCrosse • Hound Dog • Snark • Mace • Davy Crockett • Little John • Sergeant • Cruise Missiles • Lance • Spartan • Terrier • Misc • Subroc
This section in-process. Underlined weapons have linked pages.
Globe-spanning Doom
Nuclear war, over in minutes.
Redstone • Thor • Atlas • Titan • Polaris • Jupiter • Pershing • Minuteman • Poisidon • Trident • Peacekeeper
Links in this section coming soon.
Your Nuclear Weapons
The arsenal today.
B61 bomb • B83 Bomb • Minuteman III • Trident II • AGM-86 Cruise Missile
Links in this section coming soon.
What’s New
American Nukes is updated “live,” with new pages added every few days. Recent updates are listed below or you can subscribe to our mailing list to be notified of new content.
Added B57 weapons page (without essay or captions).
Change of strategy. Instead of waiting until a weapons page is complete before I post it, I’m going to try posting weapons pages when they are all done except for the essays and the image captions. I’ve been working on this more or less full time since the beginning of the year and I’m still not quite halfway through the weapons. My thinking is I can give the viewer all of the photographs and links to learn more soon, and then circle around and add the essays and captions throughout the rest of the first half of the year.
Added the Mark 53/B53 weapons page.
Added Mark 43 weapons page.
Added Mark 41 weapons page.