Im interested in any sort of missile tests where a nuclear warhead has flown on a missile before detonation. abm, surface to air, air to air, slbm, icbm, cruise or any other I havent mentioned. Thanks
The US tested a live ("mated") SLBM only once — Shot Frigate Bird of Operation Dominic, 1962. They never tested an ICBM this way. There was a single test of the Genie air-to-air system (Plumbbob John); I'm not sure of others in this category but I wouldn't be surprised if there was another test. There was a single test of a Nike ABM system with its nuclear warhead (Dominic Tightrope), and a test of the Thor missile system (Bluegill Triple Prime). I don't know about cruise missiles but I doubt any were "live" tested.
In general the US as you can see was pretty cautious about this kind of "live fire" testing — they tested plenty of missile systems on their own and plenty of warhead on their own but only very rarely "mated" them together for a combined test. This was because such tests are of course inherently dangerous and have a lot of uncontrolled variables. As you might imagine this did of course provoke some worries that US systems were overly "untested" and that there was significant uncertainty in how they might actually perform. On this see Douglas MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy, in which he talks about Frigate Bird's role in trying to lessen this uncertainty but the ways in which it didn't quite do that (because it turns out it was not exactly a "stockpile" test).
I haven't looked into the other nuclear powers' equivalents of these. The most stunning incident I have heard of regarding a "live test" of a nuclear weapon comes from China:
In October 1966, the newly created Second Artillery Corps (the Chinese strategic missiles force)—inspired by calls from radicals to accelerate the nuclear weapons program—conducted a dangerous test of a nuclear-tipped missile, which flew over population centers, to demonstrate revolutionary spirit. This was seen by some as an unauthorized test.
This comes from Henry D. Sokolski and Bruno Tertrais, eds., Nuclear weapons security crises: What does history teach? (Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, 2013)
(Note: The PRC event it may not have been as unauthorized as the above account indicates! But the test did happen, and it was risky.)
Wow. I would think there would be more. Do you have any knowledge of nuclear torpedo tests?
Thanks a lot for all the research and writing you do on this topic. I find it very interesting and have spent so much time reading your posts, blog, and nukemap