On October 30, 1961 11:32AM (Moscow Time)
the Soviet Union broke the nuclear weapon test
moratorium that existed between the USA,UK, and USSR
since 1958 with the explosion of the largest H-Bomb ever.
The bomb was named "Ivan","The Monster",
"King of Bombs" or later just "Tsar Bomba".
The name Tsar stands for things build in
Russia that were to big to be used. Like the "Tsar Kolokol"
a bell to big to be carried by any spire or the
"Tsar Pushka" an extraordinarily large howitzer
(never used). "Tsar Bomba" got itīs name because it
was useless, too. Actually it could
be carried by an airplane, but there was no city big enough that it would make sense to drop that bomb
.
The explosion of the bomb came as a surprise to the
western nations cause Khrushchev had
assured President Kennedy in June 1961 that the Soviet Union would not test nuclear devices if the United States didn't. It was meant to explode with maxiumum political impact. Massive political propoganda was poured into this test. The careers, and possibly lives, of the design team rested underneath the bomber.
The "Tsar Bomba" was a 50 megaton 3 stage H-Bomb.
That is more than all ammunition and bombs used in WW2.
Actually it was a scaled down clean (most energy comes from fusion) version of a dirty (most energy comes from fission) 100 megaton bomb, by replacing an uranium
tamper with a lead tamper. If it would have been
exploded at full yield the total world fallout would have
been increased by 25% since the explosion
of the Hiroshima Bomb.
By replacing one tamper the explosion was also the "cleanest" H-Bomb exploded.
97% of the energy came from fusion reactions.
The bomb itself had a weight of 27tons.
The bomb was carried by a modified Tu-95. Huge parts of
the fuselage had to be removed to fit the bomb into the
bomb bay. The Bomber got a special white paint to protect it from the heat of the bomb.
The Bear was flown by A. E. Durnovtsev who became hero
after the drop.
The test method was a Parachute Retarded Airburst.
It was dropped from 10500m and adjusted to exploded
at a height of 4000. The bomb had a failsafe system
not to explode if the bomber couldnīt get into safe
distance.
The Bear made it into safe distance and the bomb
exploded at 4000m over the island of "Novaya Zemlya".
The closest of several remote camera station is 70 miles away.
The sun is rising... in the north !?
The leg (not the foot) of the mushroom cloud had a diameter of 6 miles
The blast pressure below the burst point was 300 PSI.
The fireball and mushroom cloud reached an altitude of
64km.
The light could be seen 1600 miles away.
The thermal heat pulse of the blast was felt 500 miles from the epicenter. Radio communications were knocked out for an hour. Through atmospheric focusing the blast destroyed windows and roofes hundreds of kilometers away even in finnland and norway.
The atmospheric disturbance generated by the explosion orbited the earth three times.
Tsar caused massive devastation. Complete destruction extended to a radius of 40 miles surrounding the blast and severe damage as far as 60 miles. Ground zero after the test was described as: "The ground surface of the island has been levelled, swept and licked so that it looks like a skating rink ... The same goes for rocks. The snow has melted and their sides and edges are shiny. There is not a trace of unevenness in the ground.... Everything in this area has been swept clean, scoured, melted and blown away."
The United states answered the test with about 100
nuclear tests in Nevada and the Pacific Proving grounds.
Today, the 1961 Tsar Bomba test is remembered as a relic of the most dangerous period in history this world has ever seen. Footage of the blast reminds us of the force humanity can yield. A replica of the bomb is on display in the Russian Atomic Museum. The Novaya Zemlya test site was closed in 1990, but experiments are still carried out. Sub-critical tests have been conducted there in recent years, and the island is now used as a dump for radioactive waste.