nomad_556 OP t1_jee1uha wrote on March 31, 2023 at 10:22 AM

Reply to comment by nullcharstring in TIL that, during the Cold War, every infantry and armor battalion in the U.S Army had one officer trained to deploy the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), commonly known as the backpack nuke by nomad_556

Source for that claim is a history of the military art textbook written by a West Point professor that is a leading authority in Cold War history. It’s a pretty damned reliable source

Just a note that “trained to deploy” doesn’t mean actually issued the device. Very likely that the training was a precaution but very few devices were actually issued.

nullcharstring t1_jefxwxu wrote on March 31, 2023 at 6:52 PM

Believe it or not, I agree with you. That said, there are still inconsistencies that ought to be cleared up. There's no doubt that the device exists and that there were units deployed. There's also no doubt that there were 3 American battalions and 2 German battalions of Pershing 1a missiles deployed and their mission was to deny the Red Army access to Western Europe. It would be very interesting to see some actual battle plans rather than reading the somewhat contradictory oral history of this device.