A One Megaton Bomb
“At ground zero, the explosion creates a crater 300 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter. Within one second, the atmosphere itself ignites into a fireball more than a half-mile in diameter. The surface of the fireball radiates nearly three times the light and heat of a comparable area of the surface of the sun, extinguishing in seconds all life below and radiating outward at the speed of light, causing instan-taneous severe burns to people within one to three miles. A blast wave of compressed air reaches a distance of three miles in about 12 seconds, flattening factories and commercial buildings. ...At least 50 % of the people in the area die immediately, prior to any injuries from radiation or the developing firestorm...” --Former Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, in Foreign Policy, May/June 2005.

In his introduction he says, ”I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.”

To read the whole article see www.ForeignPolicy.com.

W76-1/Mk4
“The W76/MK4 Reentry body deployed on the TRIDENT Strategic Weapon System comprises the bulk of the Nation’s Strategic Deterrent and is now reaching its original design life...W76 refurbishment, scheduled to begin in FY’07, will include re-qualifying the pit, replacing the primary high-explosive, secondary refurbishment, a new arming, fusing and firing(AF&F) system, and a new gas transfer system.”-- Global Security.org, Weapons of Mass Destruction.

“Y12 is manufacturing thermonuclear secondaries for the W76 warhead. The secondary is the highly explosive part that turns an atomic bomb into a thermonuclear bomb... Under the “Life Extension” program, Y12 is producing new bomb secondaries that will effectively make the W76-1 the first new nuclear weapon built in the United States in 20 years.” --[Nuc-News] April 4, 2009 - Non-Violent Action for Peace and Disarmament.

Due to existing agreements, each of our nuclear submarines now carry 8 or fewer warheads on their trips. There are  over 3,000 W76 warheads now in service. Each one has an explosive power of 1000 kilotons.