Nuclear weapons engineers Sandia National Laboratories have shown off assembly of the B61-13 unit and cited putting "an aggressive set of plans in motion" to expedite the project.
“Responding to a critical challenge and urgent need, the B61-13 program used innovative program planning that resulted in projected delivery seven months earlier than expected, a more than 25 percent decrease in overall time to first production unit,” Sandia said in a statement.
This particular weapon was scheduled to become the full-time replacement for older nuclear bombs carried by US stealth bombers and dropped over targets without warning by 2028.