A mainstay of the air leg of the United States’ nuclear Triad, the B61 is the longest-serving and most versatile weapon in the U.S. nuclear stockpile. While the B61 family can be delivered by a broad range of fighter and bomber aircraft, the B61-13 will only be certified for delivery by strategic bomber aircraft and deployed from bases in the continental United States.

The B61-13 modification involved the use of proven production capabilities that supported the B61-12 The B61-13 incorporates the same modern safety, security and accuracy features as the B61-12 but features a yield oriented to the defeat of certain harder and large-area military targets.      

The nuclear security enterprise completed the first unit of the B61-13 on a greatly accelerated schedule in May 2025. Decades of B61 design and qualification data gave the Air Force's and National Nuclear Security Agency's program managers and engineers from the national laboratories and production plants confidence that they could accept calculated risks to speed production. By streamlining or in some cases combining “design gates” — the rigorous reviews conducted at each step of a weapon design process — engineers were able to commence production far sooner than a standard schedule would allow. These efficiencies allowed B61-13 hardware “test builds” to be manufactured just three months after the program received authorization and appropriation from Congress.