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This is an overview article, listing content appearing in multiple games. |
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The Fat Man, officially designated the M-42 Tactical Nuclear Catapult, is a weapon which appears in Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, and Fallout Shelter.
Background
According to terminals found inside the Fort Strong armory in Boston, the Fat Man was conceived, developed and tested at the location. Several houses have been constructed around the fort, to provide a testing area to ascertain how much damage the weapon would cause in an urban environment.
Variants
Fat Man
The M42 Fat Man is an effective mortar/artillery weapon, allowing a person to bombard a large area with good precision and deadly force. It uses a mini nuke for ammunition which when fired, results in a small nuclear blast.
Experimental MIRV
Although highly similar to the Fat Man, the experimental MIRV fires 8 mini nukes at once instead of 1, making it more powerful and with a bigger blast radius, at the cost of losing 8 mini nukes at once.
Esther
Esther is a unique Fat Man with a different rear mechanism, a blast shield, a light-blue body, and a thick glass or plastic bed holding the mini nukes. It weighs 10 pounds more than a standard Fat Man, but does not jam, and is more powerful.
Behind the scenes
The Fat Man was named after the atomic bomb which the United States dropped over Nagasaki in 1945. To avoid controversy, it was renamed Nuka Launcher in the game's Japanese version.