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Mk11

  • Designer
    • Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
  • Service
    • 1956 – 1960
  • Type
    • Gun
  • Dimension(s)
    • 147″ x 14″
  • Weight(s)
    • 3,500lbs
  • Yield(s)
    • ?
  • Bomb
    • B11

A Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) gun-type weapon, in service from 1956 to 1960. The primary service to use this weapon was the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy.3.1

The Mk11 was 147″ long, 14″ in diameter, and weighed 3,500lbs.4.1

With a request from the Division of Military Application of an Mk8-type weapon2 to be externally carried bomb on high-performance aircraft to the Bureau of Ordinance, the official nomenclature of TX-11 was given to the weapon system November 29th 1950. With production of the TX-11 started mid-1954 it was renamed to the Mk91 Mod 0.1.1

Production units of the Mk91 Mod 0 became available January 1956 and eventually entering the stockpile July.1.2

  • Mk11 warhead in Mk91 Mod 0 bomb assembly
  • Mk11 warhead in Mk91 Mod 0 bomb assembly
  • Mk8 (foreground) and Mk91 (background) penetrating gravity bombs at National Atomic Museum. Mk91 used W11 warhead. Bomb sizes and weights were similar; both used gun-type assembly of critical mass. Mk91 included automatic in-flight arming.
  • Vought F7U-3 “Cutlass” releasing Mk91 Bomb near Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, California April 1955. NWC conducted extensive Mk91 drop test program.
  1. Information Research Division 3434. (1967). History of Gun-Type Bombs and Warheads Mks 8, 10, and 11 (RS 3434/7). Los Alamos National Laboratory. https://osf.io/46sfd/
    1. p.7
    2. p.8
  2. With the Mk 8 being a high-speed air-dropped weapon for hardened or underwater targets, these are the parameters I have assumed the Division of Military Application were asking for when they spoke of a “Mk 8-type weapon“.
  3. Cochran, T. B., Arkin, W. M., & Hoenig, M. M. (1984). Nuclear Weapons Databook Volume 1: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (Vol. 1). Ballinger Publishing Company. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/566100883
    1. p.29 (PDF Page)
  4. Hansen, C. (1988). US Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History. Crown Publishers Inc. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/16404602
    1. p.148 (PDF Page)