It is essentially a modification of the widely deployed B61 weapon, which forms the basis of most of the current US stockpile of nuclear gravity bombs.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory began development on the W80 in June 1976, with the brief of producing a custom weapon for the cruise missiles then under construction.

To everyone's surprise the test delivered a much lower yield than was expected, apparently due to problems in the TATB based insensitive high explosives used to fire the primary.

The W80 mod 0 (W80-0) used "supergrade" fission fuel, which has less radioactivity, in the primary in place of the conventional plutonium used in the Air Force's version.

Submarine crew members routinely operate in proximity to stored weapons in torpedo rooms, in contrast to the air force where exposure to warheads is relatively brief.

[7][8] In FY2022, the National Nuclear Security Administration requested funding for the W80-4 ALT-SLCM variant of the warhead, for use on a new US Navy sea-launched cruise missile to be deployed in the late 2020s.