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 it´s 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 couldn´t 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.

Looks like fun.  The bigger question is where can I get me one of those.

I´m sorry. I meant that "tsar" is the nickname of things in russia that are to big to be used. Tsar in it´s original
term of course means emperor !

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Which became a "useless" symbol/form of authority in their bloody revolution.

Too big for my taste

Probably the man whose job it is to protect his citizens, like, say, the president or the premier...  Go figure!

Having lived through this time (I was 18 years old in 1961) I find it as appalling now as I did then what Man can do to his own environment without knowing or apparently caring about the effects. I'm still uncovering some of the terrible things that happend while testing these terrifying weapons. An old friend's sister died an awful death in 1962 after becoming exposed to radiation from a test that went wrong. She was just 20 years old & had never been anywhere near where the test actually took place. The doctors were stumped & they only found out what caused it many years afterwards. He told me about it only a few weeks ago. Goodness knows how many others suffered a similar fate that was covered up by the authorities.  I assure you there's nothing romantic about it.

I agree Nuclear Weapons are one of the most terrible
things mankind ever created. And for shure
I do not see anything romantic in nuclear testing !

But I also think it´s a very
complex thematic you cannot simple answer with good or bad. I think it´s all about "man does what man can do"
Nuclear Energy is not a special formula or some secret
receipe. It´s like electricity, it´s allready there. It just needs to be used.
(There was an interresting experiment conducted by the US called "The Nth Country Experiment"
to test how easy it is to build a bomb.. take a look on google)
And as usual man uses it in good and bad ways.
It is our nature to always go on, discover new things...
beeing better than another one.. competition.
So no matter what would have been done to prevent
the creation of a nuclear bomb.. Earlier or later someone
would just have build one. And that guy would be able
to dictate whatever he wants.

So I find the way (the history) how mankind discovered and dealt with the bomb very interresting. It could have
been much worse ! I think the cold war only was a cold
one because nuclear weapons existed. Without nuclear
weapons I´m a 100% shure a World War 3 would allready have taken place .. and it would have been much worse than
anything we can imagine. But nukes were that scarry not even dangerous man like
Stalin or Khrushev were willing to use them. Thank god Hitler
didn´t build them !! Of course one can now say
a nuclear world war 3 would have been even worse
than a ww3 without nukes. True.. but the difference is..
a nuclear ww3 has never taken place just because
nukes existed. Somehow mankind showed that it has not
(yet) the last will to destroy itself. (somehow I get the
feeling that some minds changed since that time)
At the moment a full scale nuclear war is fortunately very
unlikely. At least not in a way like during the cold war times. But the danger is still present and will never again
leave cause now that we discovered nuclear energy
there is no way back !

I also think the nuclear testing era somehow was.. strange. Just think
about that.. both parties were verbally "fighting" each
other.. and to show who´s got "the bigger one" they went back home (Nevada, Semipalatinsk) and bombed
themselfes with the most deadly weapon man every created. somehow... ironic.

Those people that died
through nuclear testing (approximated 6-10000 US Citizens just from the nevada testing aftermath) were the victims of the cold war (wich of course doesn´t make it better). Friendly fire rate was at 100% at that war.
And it´s necessary and important to rember those
time, those victims, and those events from the cold war
(we really should call it a war).
People like Hagar´s old friends sister, nuclear veterans,
scientists and all the other people that were involved.
A lot of shocking, dangerous, unnecessary things happend during these tests. But I think I´ll make
an extra topic, soon.

But here a little list to show the dimensions of these tests

USA (1039 Events)
Soviet Union (718 Events)
France (198 Events)
China (45 Events)
Great Britain (45 Events)
India(3 Events)
Pakistan (2 Events)
Unknown (1 Event) (The Vela incident, speculations range from israel to south afrika.. or even both together)

http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/bsv/nuclear_explosions-closed.html

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Sure, China's breadbasket doesn't count.

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That's not extravagancy.  It's man not doing his job and being an idiot.

Quite a tone shift for one post as well.

Capitalist and communist nations were at ends long before any single event of World War II (much less during post-conflict negotiations).  The white and red armies of the Russian Revolution come to mind.

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That's because he's confused his job with what he foolishly has made a hobby.
The USAF had a slogan: "Peace is Our Profession"
Someone rewrote: "Peace is Our Profession -- War is Just Our Hobby"

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No doubt about it. This applies to the armed services of all nations. RAF Bomber Command in WWII is a good example.

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I can understand both of your points of view.  It depends on the perspective of the author.  The Vet who wrote that could have written it tongue-in-cheek, as in occupational humor, or it could have been written by an anti-military activist to disparage the military.  It could go either way, depending on the author.

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I'm quite certain it was a " tongue-in-cheek" intent  .

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That's what I assume as well, but when you have some Viet Nam vets calling the war "the biggest nothing in history" and accusing military personnel of behaving like Gengis Kahn, you can't just assume anything anymore.