About: Operation Blowdown   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : dbkwik:resource/krD_GSPHhNL2IejCI7diCQ==, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

A device containing 50 tons of TNT was detonated to partially simulate a ten kiloton air burst in the Iron Range jungle of the Cape York Peninsula. The explosives were sourced from obsolete artillery shells and placed in a tower above ground level and the rainforest canopy. After the explosion, troops were moved through the area (which was now covered in up to a metre of leaf litter), to test their ability to transit across the debris. In addition, obsolete vehicles and equipment left near the centre of the explosion were destroyed.

AttributesValues
rdf:type
rdfs:label
  • Operation Blowdown
rdfs:comment
  • A device containing 50 tons of TNT was detonated to partially simulate a ten kiloton air burst in the Iron Range jungle of the Cape York Peninsula. The explosives were sourced from obsolete artillery shells and placed in a tower above ground level and the rainforest canopy. After the explosion, troops were moved through the area (which was now covered in up to a metre of leaf litter), to test their ability to transit across the debris. In addition, obsolete vehicles and equipment left near the centre of the explosion were destroyed.
sameAs
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:military/pr...iPageUsesTemplate
Date
  • 1963-07-18(xsd:date)
Result
  • Tested effect of nuclear blast on rain forest
Place
Conflict
  • Operation Blowdown
abstract
  • A device containing 50 tons of TNT was detonated to partially simulate a ten kiloton air burst in the Iron Range jungle of the Cape York Peninsula. The explosives were sourced from obsolete artillery shells and placed in a tower above ground level and the rainforest canopy. After the explosion, troops were moved through the area (which was now covered in up to a metre of leaf litter), to test their ability to transit across the debris. In addition, obsolete vehicles and equipment left near the centre of the explosion were destroyed. The explosion was intended by the Robert Menzies government to test and examine the feasibility of air burst nuclear weapons for clearing forests and the use of mangled forests to slow troop movement in South East Asia, primarily Indonesia and Malaysia in the escalation of the time against Sukarno and the Konfrontasi Malayan Emergency. There was also a view to use such techniques in the later Myanmar conflict and Vietnam War, which were simmering at the time. United States participation included the establishment of pressure measurement equipment and the loan of photographic and instrumentation equipment.
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