A team of enthusiasts restored the film with which the test of the M65 was shot, the only atomic cannon tested in history, also known as Atomic Annie (‘Atomic Annie’, in English).
With the help of machine learning, the tape, which until now was only available in medium quality, was cleaned of noise and scaled up to 4K. The restorers also doubled the number of images per second, which was initially 24.
The missile was tested by the US Army on May 25, 1953, at its Nevada test site. The 280 mm caliber gun launched a projectile containing 50 kilograms of enriched uranium at a distance of 11 kilometers. The power of the explosion was 15 kilotons, equivalent to that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Although the barrel was tested several times, the filmed test shows the only time it was used to fire a nuclear projectile. No other country has carried out similar operations, but the Soviet Union created two analogous guns in the 1950s.
After successful tests, in 1956 the M65 was adopted by the US Armed Forces. However, by the mid-1960s it was withdrawn from service as more mobile missiles were developed at that time.
In total, 20 units of these guns were produced. Currently, only eight remain, of which only one is complete, and is on display at the Aberdeen Proving Ground museum in Maryland, the oldest military installation in the US.
