Medium Atomic Demolition Munition (MADM) was a tactical nuclear weapon

Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

 developed by the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 during the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

. They were designed to be used as nuclear land mines and for other tactical purposes, with a relatively low explosive yield

Nuclear weapon yield

The explosive yield of a nuclear weapon is the amount of energy discharged when a nuclear weapon is detonated, expressed usually in the equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene , either in kilotons or megatons , but sometimes also in terajoules...

 from a W45

W45

The W45 was a multipurpose American nuclear warhead developed in the early 1960s, first built in 1962 and fielded in some applications until 1988. It had a diameter of 11.5 inches , a length of 27 inches and weighed 150 pounds . The yields of different W45 versions were 0.5, 1, 5, 8, 10, and 15...

 warhead, between 1 and 15 kilotons. Each MADM weighed around 400 lb (181 kg) total. They were produced between 1965 and 1986.

External links

• "Atomic Demolition Munitions"