Operation Sailor Hat was a series of three non-nuclear explosions designed to test the responses of US Navy ships and equipment to nuclear-level explosions. Since these tests were carried out in 1965, above-ground nuclear tests were banned, so half-kilotons bursts were simulated with 500 tons of TNT. Goes to show that you don’t need nuclear explosives to have fun.
A number of “Sailor Hat” videos are on YouTube, but most have been mangled with craptacular editing or irritating watermarks. Here are a few.
A brief clip from an official briefing film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeFAhbzlF2Q
A longer clip with an annoying watermark and music spliced in from “Trinity and Beyond::”
[youtube tXeXvp4YaI0]
Here Stacey Keach narrates several minutes worth of clips, but with a *really* annoying watermark:
The same video, but without the massive watermark… but with a smaller one, and Keach over-dubbed in Russian (I think):
And because why not… a “music video” of atomic bomb tests (including the non-nuclear Sailor Hat vids) set to White Zombie:
Using chemical explosives as stand-ins for nukes of course has definite limitations. For starters and most obviously… not neutron or gamma ray radiation. Second, chemical explosives don’t get anywhere near a hot as nuclear explosions… thousands of degrees vs. millions. Third, the fireball from a nuke is caused by the air around the nuke absorbing the prompt X-rays and such and being heated to a bagrillion degrees; the fireball of a non-nuke is generally the mass of the bomb itself converted into an incandescent cloud.
And if you’ve an interest in nukes buy haven’t seen “Trinity and Beyond…” sheesh, why not? It is indisputably awesome. A-bomb footage cleaned up and restored by a Hollywood special effects expert. Result = awesome.
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