suitcase nuke

plural suitcase nukes

1. A portable tactical nuclear weapon.

   1 more example

   Tactical nuclear weapons, known as “suitcase nukes”, are smaller than strategic ones and can be deployed at short range for battlefield use, though Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus's strongman leader, said this week that the warheads were three times more powerful than the bombs the US dropped on Japan during the second world war.

   [2023 June 17, Max Seddon, “Nuclear arms sent to Belarus, says Putin”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2

   Synonyms: backpack nuke, snuke, mini-nuke, pocket nuke