Pumpkin bomb

Pumpkin bombs were conventional aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. It was a close replication of the Fat Man plutonium bomb with the same ballistic and handling characteristics, but it used non-nuclear conventional high explosives. It was mainly used for testing and training purposes, which included combat missions flown with pumpkin bombs by the 509th Composite Group. The name "pumpkin bomb" was the term used in official documents from the large, fat ellipsoidal shape of the munition casing instead of the more usual cylindrical shape of other bombs, intended to enclose the Fat Man's spherical "physics package" (the plutonium implosion nuclear weapon core). Pumpkin bombs were a means of providing realistic training with non-nuclear bombs for the 509th Composite Group's Boeing B-29 Superfortress crews assigned to drop the atomic bomb. The pumpkin bomb had a similar size and weight distribution as a Fat Man plutonium bomb, giving it the same ballistic and handling characteristics. Specifications for the bomb required that it be carried in the forward bomb bay of a Silverplate B-29 bomber and be fuzed to be effective against actual targets. Pumpkin bombs were produced in both inert and high-explosive variants. The inert versions were filled with a cement-plaster-sand mixture that was combined with water to , the density of the Composition B high-explosive versions. The filler of both variants had the same weight and weight distribution as the inner spherical "physics package" of the Fat Man plutonium bomb. The concept for the high-explosive pumpkin bomb was originated in December 1944 by United States Navy Captain William S. Parsons, the head of the Ordnance Division at Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, and United States Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, commander of the 509th Composite Group. Prior testing was carried out with an inert version. The name "pumpkin bomb" originated with Parsons and Dr.