[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] America's newest weapon of mass destruction is going into production seven months ahead of schedule as fears of a war with China continue to grow.
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico are kickstarting development of the B61-13, a nuclear 'gravity bomb' that was originally slated to go into production for the US Air Force in 2026.
Gravity bombs are literally what they sound like, a bomb dropped from a military plane which lets gravity do all the work.
The timeline was moved up due to the 'critical challenge and urgent need' for a new nuclear deterrent - a threat that's hopefully big enough to discourage America's enemies from attacking first.
The B61-13 is 24 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. That first atom bomb, called 'Little Boy,' had a yield of about 15 kilotons - the explosive equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT.
The B61-13, on the other hand, is designed to have a yield of around 360 kilotons, or 360,000 tons of TNT.
This particular weapon was scheduled to become the full-time replacement for older nuclear bombs carried by US stealth bombers and dropped over targets without warning by 2028.
However, with growing economic and military tensions between the US and major powers like China and Russia, the dramatically updated timeline could put a terrifying new weapon on the battlefield by the end of this year. 
|
