Too Close

The USAF developed two air to air weapons with nuclear warheads.

The AIR-2A Genie and AIM-26A Falcon.

The use of a nuke makes sense when it was assumed they'd be firing at massed formations of bombers.

What is a gut check is the ranges.

The Genie's max firing range is about nine nautical miles.  The Falcon is about six.

Admittedly they are teeny nukes.  The Genie is a 1.5 kT and the Falcon a mere 0.25 kT.

Still, considering they are fired in a head on shot at very high closure rates...  You're much closer than those maximum ranges at detonation.

Even more fun is you have to keep the radar, and thus the nose, pointed at the bombers until detonation with the AIM-26A.  That's kind of the reason it's got a smaller warhead, the greater accuracy makes it as effective as the Genie when they detonate.

We'd planned on using them over northern Canada against Soviet bombers coming over the north pole; but someone finally asked, "what happens if you fired one of these things over a population center?"

That ended a lot of development of AtA nukes.

But we'd made a LOT of Genies and the associated W25 warheads since it began service from the F-89J in 1957, so it stayed service with the USAF until the last F-106A was pulled from service in 1988 and with Canada until they retired their CF-101Bs in 1984.

The AIM-26A had a much shorter life, entering service in 1961 and being retired in 1972.