What Nuclear Weapons Look Like
There are big bombs and little ones. Some float down on parachutes, some lie on the ground, some burrow into the Earth, some shoot up out of the ocean, while some arc through outer space. There are nuclear bombs and missiles but there are also artillery shells, depth charges, torpedoes, rockets, and a demolition explosive worn as a backpack.
I’ve crisscrossed the country for over two years, driving over 25,000 miles to thirty-five states, to make photographs of nuclear weapons, to see what they look 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
From the first atomic explosion, to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the post-WWII years.
The Buildup
The Cold War begins and nuclear weapons appear in more diverse forms.
Mark 8 • Mark 7 • Atomic Annie • Matador • Corporal • Honest John • Regulus • Genie • Nike-Hercules • Bomarc
What’s New
American Nukes is an ongoing project and is updated “live,” with new pages added every few days. Click here for a complete list of updates.
The page for the Mark 36 bomb is published.
Fixed an embarrassing spelling typo on the Home page that has ben there for weeks, ugh.
Added Travis AFB Aviation Museum to “Where to See Nuclear Weapons” page.
Added captions to Travis AFB Aviation Museum images that were added yesterday.
Updated the Regulus page (in the Further Reading section and the photo captions) to remove language that said or suggested that there was a designated “Regulus class” of submarines. There was not. (Thanks to Reddit user Derick1963 for pointing this out to me.)
I visited the Travis AFB Aviation Museum over the weekend and have added images to the following galleries from that trip: Fat Man, Mark 7, Genie, and Nike-Hercules. Captions to follow.
Removed the decorative border around the “What’s New” section on the Home page.
Mark 17 thermonuclear bomb added.
• Published the weapons page on Bomarc, a continental defense anti-aircraft missile.