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Operation Blowdown was a military operation that took place on 18 July 1963. Conducted in northern Queensland, Australia by a joint Australian-American-British team, it was designed to simulate the effects of a nuclear weapon on tropical rainforest, using 50 tons of conventional explosive (TNT). 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 above 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.〔''The Military Engineer'', Society of American Military Engineers, v. 59-60: 1967〕〔''Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences'' New York Academy of Sciences: HighWire Press: 1968 v. 152, pp. 1-913〕 United States participation included the establishment of pressure measurement equipment and the loan of photographic and instrumentation equipment.〔''The Military Engineer'', Society of American Military Engineers, v. 59-60: 1967〕 ==Units== * 24th Construction Squadron, Royal Australian Engineers 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation Blowdown」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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