In this short piece from 1953, experience the raw power of nuclear weaponry.
Watch the US government test soldiers in the unbearable heat of California’s deserts to observe the effects on men and equipments, launched from the barrel of a mobile cannon.
MILITARY SCIENCE
Tough Test for Men and Equipment
Amid temperatures averaging 120 degrees in the searing Mojave Desert, the army puts soldiers wearing special uniforms through tests to find out how equipment and men would survive in blistering desert warfare.
A pair of very durable GIs, dummies Joe and Jake, are wired for heat tests.
Soldiers are wired too to study the effects of heat on light and dark uniforms.
Off on a 12 mile hike. Destination: nowhere.
Wires connect instruments measuring reaction to heat and exertion. The GIs are carefully checked for ill effects.
As the old army ditty goes, “What do you do in the infantry? You march! You march! You march!”
This is Amazon Annie, the first atomic cannon, undergoing tough maneuverability tests.
Sharp turns aren’t any problem for the huge weapon which fires atomic or standard shells.
It can travel 35 miles an hour, and despite its ponderous 85 tons, Amazon Annie rolls smoothly along, even over bridges built for less than half its weight.
Its immense bulk is distributed on two transporters so that the cannon can negotiate standard bridges.
The gun fires an atomic shell.
A mushroom of smoke rises more than 20 miles away in the first pictures released by the Defense Department of America’s new atomic weapon in action.
Testing men and equipment, searching, probing, for new ways to bolster the nation’s defense as military research goes on.
