Lance
The last US nuclear artillery rocket
Weapon Specifications
Note that the relationship between explosive power and destruction is not linear—a weapon’s destructive effects grow far more slowly than its explosive power.
Explosive Power
1 to 100 kt.
Hiroshima Equivalent Factor
Up to 6.7x
Dimensions
20 ft. x 22 inches
Weight
2850 lbs.
Range
75 miles, Mach 3
Year(s)
1972–1992
Purpose
An “enhanced radiation” artillery rocket
Nukemap
NUKEMAP is a web-based mapping program that attempts to give the user a sense of the destructive power of nuclear weapons. It was created by Alex Wellerstein, a historian specializing in nuclear weapons (see his book on nuclear secrecy and his blog on nuclear weapons). The screenshot below shows the NUKEMAP output for this particular weapon. Click on the map to customize settings.
Videos
These curated videos provide additional context for this weapon — showing test footage, deployment scenes, technical explanations, interviews, or other historical material, allowing viewers to go deeper into the weapon’s design, use, and place in nuclear history.
Further Reading
- Wikipedia, Designation Systems
- The Lance development history, at AMCOM.
- The Army Field Manual for the Lance rocket.
- The Lance and its associated equipment are described at Missilery.info.
- B.R. Howard restored a Lance for the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center and has a page on the project.
- One of the last Lance rockets to be launched was shot down in 2015.
- There’s a paywall to read “An Orphen Weapon System: One Battalion’s Saga of Operationalizing the Lance Missile in US Army Europe,” but you get 100 articles free.
- The Firing Team Leader’s Lance Handbook, from the US Army Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.