TEXT AND SLIDER PHOTO BY M. M. ALAM

NEVADA: Steerable B61-12 gravity thermonuclear bomb. 

NEVADA: After shocking the world with first ever deployment of (GBU-43/B) Mother Of All Bombs in Afghanistan, US’s National Nuclear Security Administration has claimed to have successfully field-tested the upgraded  steerable gravity thermonuclear bomb  B61-12 here last month. 

F-16 that flew from Nellis Air Force Base dropped an inert version. The mock bomb landed in a dry lake bed at the Tonopah Test Range.

Outfitted with a nouvelle tail-kit assembly and other hardware B61-12 replaces four older versions in the nuclear arsenal of USA. 

The technicians and scientists will be analyzing the information acquired from the test. Once the bomb is authorized for use in 2020, the US will be deploying 180 of these to: Belgium (20), Germany (20), Italy (70), Netherlands (20) and Turkey (50). 

SANDIA NATIONAL LABS.:  An engineer poses with a flight test body of the new nuke.

It is pertinent to mention here that the heavy-weight Mother of All Bombs needs a bigger plane to steer and unlike B61-12 that is not designed to penetrate the surface.