Film of largest nuclear bomb declassified

[mickjoebill]

Plenty of aviation, film and radio nostalgia in this very detailed film.

Was it their choice to detonate on a cloudy day?



Shared from Sky News: Largest-ever hydrogen bomb blast shown in declassified Russian video

https://news.sky.com/story/largest-ever-hydrogen-bomb-blast-shown-in-declassified-russian-video-12056911

mjb

[lomapaseo]

I liked the introduction where they spoke of critical timing in the millionth of a second and then cut to guy holding a stop watch in his hand

[Mallan]

I like the soothing music. :)

[VP959]

Probably the ultimate example of the daft spate of willy waving that had been going on between the US and the Soviet Union for the decade or so earlier, each trying to out do the other with the size of their thermonuclear capability. Pretty pointless, really, when a 50MT bomb was not exactly a practical weapon to deploy, had the world descended into nuclear armageddon. Probably 90% of the reason for producing this bomb was propaganda, I suspect.

[SOPS]

I don’t understand why they describe it as a ‘clean bomb’. WTF is ‘clean’ about it? It was polished before the exploded it?

[VP959]

I don’t understand why they describe it as a ‘clean bomb’. WTF is ‘clean’ about it? It was polished before the exploded it?

It was a very low fallout design, as they didn't include a U238 tamper. Pretty much all the fissile material in the trigger was consumed, and the vast majority of the output was thermonuclear, so didn't produce any significant nuclides, at least at ground level. One of the advantages of thermonuclear (fusion) devices over earlier fission devices was the very much reduced fallout, as well as the massively greater yield.

There's still some fallout, because the fusion reaction requires a fission reaction to trigger it, but nothing like the sort of contamination created by a relatively large fission device, such as the ones detonated over Japan, as the fission trigger within a fusion device is only used as a source of X rays to trigger the fusion reaction in the main fuel. There were probably three stages in the Tsar Bomba, a conventional explosive initiator, which compressed the fission trigger, much the same as a small conventional fission bomb, and the focussed X rays from that fission reaction initiated the fusion reaction that produced almost all the power of the device. The nature of a fusion reaction consumes pretty much all the fuel, leaving little in the way of material that could contaminate the area.

[ORAC]

Probably the ultimate example of the daft spate of willy waving that had been going on between the US and the Soviet Union for the decade or so earlier, each trying to out do the other with the size of their thermonuclear capability. Pretty pointless, really, when a 50MT bomb was not exactly a practical weapon to deploy, had the world descended into nuclear armageddon. Probably 90% of the reason for producing this bomb was propaganda, I suspect.

https://youtu.be/2yfXgu37iyI

I don’t understand why they describe it as a ‘clean bomb’. WTF is ‘clean’ about it? Its not a cobalt bomb.......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb

https://slate.com/human-interest/2007/08/did-the-soviets-really-build-a-doomsday-machine.html#page_start

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/6/30/1397658/-The-Real-Doomsday-Machine

[SOPS]

Thanks for the answers 👍

[Dont Hang Up]

It was a very low fallout design, as they didn't include a U238 tamper. Pretty much all the fissile material in the trigger was consumed, and the vast majority of the output was thermonuclear, so didn't produce any significant nuclides, at least at ground level. One of the advantages of thermonuclear (fusion) devices over earlier fission devices was the very much reduced fallout, as well as the massively greater yield.

There's still some fallout, because the fusion reaction requires a fission reaction to trigger it, but nothing like the sort of contamination created by a relatively large fission device, such as the ones detonated over Japan, as the fission trigger within a fusion device is only used as a source of X rays to trigger the fusion reaction in the main fuel. There were probably three stages in the Tsar Bomba, a conventional explosive initiator, which compressed the fission trigger, much the same as a small conventional fission bomb, and the focussed X rays from that fission reaction initiated the fusion reaction that produced almost all the power of the device. The nature of a fusion reaction consumes pretty much all the fuel, leaving little in the way of material that could contaminate the area.

To quote from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

To limit the amount of fallout, the third stage and possibly the second stage had a lead tamper instead of a uranium-238 fusion tamper (which greatly amplifies the fusion reaction by fissioning uranium atoms with fast neutrons from the fusion reaction). This eliminated fast fission by the fusion-stage neutrons so that approximately 97% of the total yield resulted from thermonuclear fusion alone (as such, it was one of the "cleanest" nuclear bombs ever created, generating a very low amount of fallout relative to its yield). There was a strong incentive for this modification since most of the fallout from a test of the bomb would likely have descended on populated Soviet territory.

[mickjoebill]

Despite the considerable expertise in nuclear physics, the digital age had not arrived, they needed analog cameras to make a record of an analog sensor.


Mjb

[lomapaseo]

Clean bombs are the difference between roasting alive in milli-seconds and having your hair fall out over days before you die

[hiflymk3]

George C. Scott at his best.
https://youtu.be/vuP6KbIsNK4

[Loose rivets]

It's funny how George C really didn't want to diminish his professional image by playing this part. When he did, he obviously threw himself into the part.

[meadowrun]

Actually early Soviet corona virus vaccine trials.

[BusyB]

Black Sun by Owen Matthews is a very good spy/thriller that I read months ago using the building of this bomb as a theme.

[NutLoose]

Newly released footage.

This is newly declassified footage of the biggest nuclear bomb blast of all time. The Russian ‘Tsar Bomba’ weapon was dropped on 30 October 1961. It exploded with the force of an estimated 50 million tons of tnt. Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, the Russian State Corporation Headquartered in Moscow released the video to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Russia's nuclear industry.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslondon/chilling-declassified-russian-footage-of-the-biggest-nuclear-bomb-blast-of-all-time/vi-BB18AMXu

[fitliker]

Cosmic Irony the guy who designed that particular weapon , Sakharov was awarded a Nobel peace prize :)

The model of aircraft that carried the payload is still in service and a similar aircraft was playing War games off Alaska this week. Not the scarey version the one with the hypersonic cruise missiles and Mig 31 escorts , just the observation model.


The Nazis were working on a clean Nuclear device , start worrying if the designs and plans for the clean weapon they tested in Poland are ever found . Although such a device would make mining more profitable

[Asturias56]

" start worrying if the designs and plans for the clean weapon they tested in Poland"

Who tested a N device in Poland?

[fitliker]

Who ? Google it . Those guys in the Hugo Boss uniforms did make several different types of big bangs . Several failures , a big dirty one and several clean big bangs in Poland . Old news really was in the papers last year and on the History Channel as well . A bigger bang than the Recent Thermobaric devices which would suggest a clean burning fuel or a failure to ignite the dirty nuclear fuel .

[MPN11]

Runours and News ,,, have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsos_Mission5

[Just This Once...]

Ahh, the big and pointless bomb. No matter the obvious (as pointed out by the Russian scientists building the thing) the Russian politicians wanted it anyway.

[Mick Stability]

The device had no conceivable military value, but what it did do was to demonstrate the the West that the 'Sloika' design was viable and weaponized. The layer cake which Sakharov and Ginzburg instigated had no theoretical upper limit on yield.

The concern over the test, and the uncertainty over the effects convinced the bomb technicians to remove part of the uranium tamper to detune the device to approximately half its design yield of 100 Mt.

As it was, the shockwave went round the World seven times, and the blast was visible from over 600 miles away.

By the time it exploded though, it marked the beginning of the end for large weapons. The fourth power law means the less accurate your weapon, the massively bigger it has to be to achieve the necessary military objective. Hence smaller, accurate weapons were paradoxically more effective, and the more of them you could launch on a single bus. You just needed to invent GPS.

So they did.

[Martin the Martian]

I've heard it said that the Tsar Bomba was created with the intention of targeting Mount Cheyenne and NORAD, or just to detonate over the North Atlantic to create a huge EMP. Likely?

[Just This Once...]

By the time it exploded though, it marked the beginning of the end for large weapons. The fourth power law means the less accurate your weapon, the massively bigger it has to be to achieve the necessary military objective.

Plus the small matter that the Russian boffins understood completely - an insanely big bomb on roughly spherical planet tends to push most of its energy towards space.

[NutLoose]

You’d never hang it under a Jag.

[fitliker]

The Imperial Japanese built a heavy water plant in 1936 . How different Pearl Harbour would look if they had of been successful in building a device.
If they had of built a device and a means of delivery the outcomes would have been different.

The research done by them in Camp 731 was interesting from a historical point of view . Technically not very highly advanced , but an interesting inquiry into human indifference to pain and suffering in the search for new weapons .

[Buster Hyman]

I bet it took the Polar Bears weeks to get the stains out of their fur.

[chevvron]

I don’t understand why they describe it as a ‘clean bomb’. WTF is ‘clean’ about it? It was polished before the exploded it?
To be a 'clean' bomb, it had to be an 'airburst' ie detonate sufficiently high so as not to suck up debris from the surface into the fireball which would subsequently come back down as radioactive fallout; by detonating above the ground, you also get maximum damage from the shockwave too.
At least, that's what we were taught in the Royal Observer Corps where we had to report the fireballs as 'touching' or 'clear' from our GZI photos.

[Asturias56]

"The Imperial Japanese built a heavy water plant in 1936 . How different Pearl Harbour would look if they had of been successful in building a device."

What people forget is the ENORMOUS amount of engineering and scientific effort that was required in the US to actually build the damn things in the first place - the idea is pretty simple but oh the details. No-one else could have done it - and certainly not Japan

[Treble one]

LR, Kubrick tricked him into hamming it up for takes and called them rehearsals, not the real thing. Then he used them in the film.

[etudiant]

Who ? Google it . Those guys in the Hugo Boss uniforms did make several different types of big bangs . Several failures , a big dirty one and several clean big bangs in Poland . Old news really was in the papers last year and on the History Channel as well . A bigger bang than the Recent Thermobaric devices which would suggest a clean burning fuel or a failure to ignite the dirty nuclear fuel .

That needs a bit more documentation than the History Channel.
Afaik, Speer allocated enough resources to Heisenberg to perform basic research experiments, but nothing like the scale of support that could generate a bomb. There was no shortage of uranium, but a mistake in measuring the utility of graphite to serve as a moderator meant the Germans were forced to try for a heavy water moderated reactor, which never came about. Other claims of a separate SS run program producing test explosions are undocumented and unverified.

[MPN11]

Scenario ... load on unattributable ship, sail to San Francisco, detonate and contaminate large swathes if US West Ciast with plume heading East on orvailing wind. No need to worry about Decontam, as invasion of USA is not in the script.

Of course, retaliation is a different question ... but whodunnit? USSR or PRC?

[wiggy]

That needs a bit more documentation than the History Channel.
Afaik, Speer allocated enough resources to Heisenberg to perform basic research experiments, but nothing like the scale of support that could generate a bomb. There was no shortage of uranium, but a mistake in measuring the utility of graphite to serve as a moderator meant the Germans were forced to try for a heavy water moderated reactor, which never came about. Other claims of a separate SS run program producing test explosions are undocumented and unverified.

I'm glad I'm not the only one went :rolleyes: when I read the original post that you replied to, anyhow it gave me an excuse to re-read Richard Rhodes version of the story which funnily enough ties in with your version of events, rather than whatever nonsense appears to be on Google.

fitliker, if you haven't, pick up a copy of Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb"...it's regarded as one of the most authoritative works on atomic research prior to WW2 and the development of the first nuclear weapons ..needless to say it has some pages devoted to the German efforts.

[ORAC]

Operation Epsilon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Epsilon

[Whenurhappy]

Cosmic Irony the guy who designed that particular weapon , Sakharov was awarded a Nobel peace prize :)

The model of aircraft that carried the payload is still in service and a similar aircraft was playing War games off Alaska this week. Not the scarey version the one with the hypersonic cruise missiles and Mig 31 escorts , just the observation model.


The Nazis were working on a clean Nuclear device , start worrying if the designs and plans for the clean weapon they tested in Poland are ever found . Although such a device would make mining more profitable
Really? The Nazi nuclear programme was at least a decade behind TUBE ALLOYS/MANHATTEN and was a million kilometers away from even being remotely weaponised. Some interesting work was done at Heidleburg (where they built a primative 'pile') and at the Chemical Research institute in Garmisch (where, at the end of the war, they hid radioactive material in the river - which US Authorities recoved in 1946/47).

[MPN11]

My current [and very interesting] reading on Kindle ... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08546CXNJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o09?ie=UTF8&psc=1The Western Allies’ Procurement of Nazi Germany’s Technology: The History of British and American Operations to Capture Nazi Scientists and EquipmentI note that it's still free. :ok:

[Whenurhappy]

That needs a bit more documentation than the History Channel.
Afaik, Speer allocated enough resources to Heisenberg to perform basic research experiments, but nothing like the scale of support that could generate a bomb. There was no shortage of uranium, but a mistake in measuring the utility of graphite to serve as a moderator meant the Germans were forced to try for a heavy water moderated reactor, which never came about. Other claims of a separate SS run program producing test explosions are undocumented and unverified.
After the July 1944 plot against Hitler, Hitler (probably Himmler, in reality) apointed the pyschotic and paranoid architect and SS General Herr Dr Frans Kammler to progressively take over the two main V weapons production and delivery programmes and all jet aircraft production. I have seen reference that he also took over nuclear research, which would have been logical, as he took over all other innovative weapons programmes. Luckily he was grossly incompetent and regularly issued countermanding orders on the same day.

Unfortunately if you try to do scholarly research on the German weapons programmes, the internet is a dangerous place. It is festering with Nazi fanboi material and pure fantasy (such as Antactic bases, Amerika Racket, 'the Bell' anti-gravity aircraft, flying saucers etc). Each has a germ of truth about them but been then allowed to run riot in the fevered minds of some rather sick people. A classic example of this is: Hans Kammler - The Fairfield Project (http://fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/hans-kammler)

Here's a much better researched article on the V2 being deployed to attack specific operational level targets (which I hadn't hear of before). By this stage the batteries had been withdrawn from around The Hague and therefore couldn't reach London. V2ROCKET.COM - SS Werfer Abteilung 500 in Hellendoorn / Dalfsen (http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/hellendoorn_dalfsen.html)

Kammler died near Prague in May 1944 in a partisan ambush where he took his own life. He driver later gave evidence to Allied investigators.

[AnglianAV8R]

BBC NEWS | Europe | Hitler 'tested small atom bomb'


https://www.nevingtonwarmuseum.com/germany---atomic-reactor-atomkellar.html (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4348497.stm)


After a war, the winners write the history.

[fitliker]

In a Willy waving contest points may be awarded for style and entertaining value , but it is usually biggus dickus that wins .
The RAF raid that took out the secret factory in Norway , probably was the most important raid in WW2 . Those crew might never get the recognition they deserve due to secrecy . But without their efforts the war might have ended differently.

[etudiant]

BBC NEWS | Europe | Hitler 'tested small atom bomb'


https://www.nevingtonwarmuseum.com/germany---atomic-reactor-atomkellar.html (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4348497.stm)


After a war, the winners write the history.

All very dubious imho. Germany did not have an enrichment program afaik and no nuclear reactors, so where does the fissionable material come from?
The only practical indication that the Nazi nuclear program may have been much larger than generally believed is that the controversial Asse salt mine nuclear waste deposit site apparently stores 200,000 tons of nuclear materials including stuff left over from the Nazi era. How much the legacy stuff represents was not disclosed..

[fitliker]

They were attempting to use Thorium , to create a cleaner bomb . Leaving the ground liveable for Lebensraum after they had removed the indigenous population . De javu anyone ?
Source ? : I read it on the modern equivalent of the backside of a toilet door ; the internet . So I am not sure how accurate it could be . Someone said they had witnessed several flashes , so who knows ?