Existing comment:
Fat Man Atomic Bomb:
The Fat Man atomic bomb was the weapon that ended World War II. Delivered by the B-29 Bockscar over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, the 10,000 pound weapon was detonated at an altitude of about 1,800 feet above the city. It yielded an explosive force of 20,000 tons of TNT, about the same as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Because of Nagasaki's hilly terrain, however, the damage was less than at the relatively flat city of Hiroshima.
Fat Man was an implosion type weapon using a sphere of plutonium placed in the center of a hollow sphere of high explosive (HE). Numerous detonators located on the surface of the HE were fired simultaneously to produce a powerful inward pressure on the plutonium, squeezing it, and increasing its density. This implosion created a chain reaction condition and an atomic explosion.
A demilitarize, postwar Mk III bomb, the weapon on display is painted and configured to represent the Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki. The yellow color allowed observers to easily track the bomb after it was dropped. During assembly at Tinian, all of the openings and cracks in the bomb casing were sealed to protect the delicate parts inside from atmospheric changes when the B-29 reached high altitude. |