Book ID: CBB731548652

Tsar Bomba: Live Testing of Soviet Nuclear Bombs, 1949-1962 (2021)

unapi

Krzysztof Dabrowski (Author)


Helion and Company


Publication Date: 2021
Physical Details: 64
Language: English

On 30 October 1961, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR/Soviet Union) conducted a live test of the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created. Codenamed ‘Ivan’, and known in the West as the ‘Tsar Bomba’, the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb was detonated at the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemla archipelago, in the Barents Sea. The Tsar Bomba unleashed about 58 megatons of TNT, creating an 8-kilometer/5-mile-wide fireball and then a mushroom that peaked at an altitude of 95 kilometers (59 miles). The shockwave created by the RDS-202 eradicated a village 55 kilometers (34 miles) from ground zero, caused widespread damage to nature to a radius of dozens of kilometers further away, and created a heat wave felt as far as 270 kilometers (170 miles) distant. And still, this was just one of 45 tests of nuclear weapons conducted in the USSR in October 1961 alone. Between 1949 and 1962, the Soviets set off 214 nuclear bombs in the open air. Dozens of these were released from aircraft operated by specialized test units. Equipped with the full range of bombers – from the Tupolev Tu-4, Tupolev Tu-16, to the gigantic Tu-95 – the units in question were staffed by men colloquially known as the ‘deaf-and-dumb’: people sworn to utmost secrecy, living and serving in isolation from the rest of the world. Frequently operating at the edge of the envelope of their specially modified machines while test-releasing weapons with unimaginable destructive potential, several of them only narrowly avoided catastrophe. Richly illustrated with authentic photographs and custom-drawn color profiles, Tsar Bomba is the story of the aircrews involved and their aircraft, all of which were carefully hidden not only by the Iron Curtain, but by a thick veil of secrecy for more than half a century.

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Reviewed By

Review Scott A. Willey (2021) Review of "Tsar Bomba: Live Testing of Soviet Nuclear Bombs, 1949-1962". Air Power History (p. 57). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB731548652/

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Authors & Contributors
Leo Marriott
Gordin, Michael D.
Barth, Kai-Henrik
Lehman, Michael R.
Edward Kaplan
Jim Laurier
Concepts
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Cold War
Science and war; science and the military
Technology and war; technology and the military
Nuclear testing
Aircraft; airplanes
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Great Britain
Marshall Islands
France
Europe
Institutions
United States Air Force (USAF)
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Partial Test Ban Treaty; Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)
International Geophysical Year (IGY)
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