in November in favor of two more-advanced Minute Man warheads.

-

One is the LRL

pe

xu-56-20f

Jena the other is,

as the XW-59.

known

Both are now in Phase III.

This Quarterly Report for the first time indicates, at least in terms of numbers
of tests, a decrease in the test operations on various bombs, missiles and rockets,

and other systems.

It is not a terribly large decrease.

|

Project Buckboard is reported on. It was designed, "to provide basic information
concerning formation of craters by chemical explosives in hard rock" and is part
of the Plowshare program.

Several tentative conclusions were reached and are

reported upon here.
Sandia has also been doing some investigation with experimentation on air blast
predictions and measurements,

in part due to the need to understand this for these

explosions for Plowshare projects.

Another activity where Sendia has been working with the military for tne past
several years isin the area of determining how susceptible certain weapon components
are to EM

radiation.

January - March, 1961:
Under the specific weapons developments, the Vela Uniform program shows the
Whirlaway Mark VII device and it says, "Radiation testing has been completed at
Sandia which verifies that with proper thermal protection a Whirlaway; jf

device may be safely placed in an underground cavity fifteen days after the
detonation off] five ict]

[in the same cavity. Electrical and mechanical

dry runs have been successfully completed at Sandia on af

nated

_]mimewey

device in preparation for a compatibility test to be conducted at NTS in April."
Also mentioned in the weapons section is Sandia's participation in an Afswe/sri

vulnerability test program “to determine the effects of x-rays on warheads/reentry vehicle assemblies.

The effects are simulated by a high explosive detona-

Select target paragraph3