ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the battlefield implications of tactical nuclear weapons and focuses on some of their broader ramifications. Nuclear explosions interfere with the operation of other systems, such as communications or aircraft that might be flying in the areas of the explosions. They can create blindness and cause fallout on friendly troops. Use of enhanced-radiation weapons would increase the area of military effect of each weapon by shifting much of the burden of that effect from the blast of the nuclear explosion to its emitted radiation. The essential fact influencing the configuration of a nuclear battlefield conceived according to the various theories is the extreme vulnerability or large concentrations of men and materiel to small numbers of weapons. A nuclear weapon dropped on concentrated forces in the open is certain to cause a sudden surge of casualties much greater than that expected from even heavy combat with conventional weapons.
