Mini Nuke (Fallout 3)

The Mini Nuke is a tactical nuclear warhead designed for use in a nuclear catapult. A nuclear catapult is a device made to launch small nuclear payloads that are not self-propulsive. The Mini Nuke used as ammunition for the Fat Man and the Experimental MIRV.

Mini-Nukes are the single most expensive piece of ammunition, ranging from 250 to 400 caps apiece to buy, depending on your Barter level. They are also ammunition for the single most powerful weapon in the game, doing many times more damage than any other weapon even at low Big Guns levels. These are also great decoration for your house or Tenpenny Tower Suite. This is clearly another reference to the Nagasaki Fat Man because it closely resembles the look of it, but smaller.

It is based on the W54, a nuclear warhead made by the US Army which can be fired from a recoilless rifle. Although the real life W54 is quite a bit bigger than the warhead used by the Fat Man and Experimental MIRV, it still looks alike.

Weapons using this ammunition

 * Fat Man
 * Experimental MIRV
 * Liberty Prime (a larger version, but less effective compared to its relative size)
 * VB-02 Vertibird

Locations
There is a total of 59 free Mini Nukes in Fallout 3. Another one can be found in Operation: Anchorage, 5 in Broken Steel, 6 in Point Lookout and two in Mothership Zeta, making for 73 in total with all add-ons.

Available in other ways

 * One way of obtaining Mini Nukes is to kill Super Mutant Overlords which are found through out the Capital Wasteland. Super Mutant Overlords can only be found with Broken Steel installed.
 * One can be obtained by investing twice in Lucky Harith (see Canterbury Commons).
 * One is given to you by Donovan if you experience the random encounter with him in the Wasteland.
 * Flak and Shrapnel in Rivet City frequently restock with Mini Nukes, to the extent that one can add up to four of them with every visit but they must have at least 50 caps before they restock.
 * Moira Brown will give you one upon completion of the The Wasteland Survival Guide. She tells upon giving you it that she was going to try to make a well with it, but that the Mini Nuke only made her nervous.
 * One can be obtained along with a Fat Man during a random encounter during which a dead scavenger has them on his corpse.

Hand grenade
A hand grenade version of Mini Nuke also exists, although it can be even more dangerous to the user than the Fat Man version, due to the user's inability to escape the blast and radiation generated by their own weapon.