Russian Nuclear Bomb Footage

[bookworm_020]

Found this on the web, some footage of the largest nuclear bomb ever set off.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2046393742348211186

I wonder how many the the bombers crew are still alive today?:hmm:

[Chock]

Pretty wild footage. Incidentally, those TU-95s are starting to show up off the coast of the UK again like they used to during the Cold War, checking out military exercises and such.

I remember having a somewhat heated discussion with and RAF recruitment guy about that when I was at school years ago, seeing that reminded me of it :D

[The Avon Lady]

Found this on the web, some footage of the largest nuclear bomb ever set off.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2046393742348211186

I wonder how many the the bombers crew are still alive today?:hmm:
Here's some similar footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUtnclJwx8), put into Cold War political context as well.

[Letum]

Ahhh! The Tzar Bomb!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Intresting stuff. very big, but more or less useless these days.

[The Avon Lady]

but more or less useless these days.
Useless?! Would be a great conversation starter in my living room. :yep:

[Jimbuna]

Not sure how useless it might be if it fell into the wrong hands of someone who could transport it !! :hmm:

[Letum]

Not sure how useless it might be if it fell into the wrong hands of someone who could transport it !! :hmm:
The transport bit is the hard part.
There is no delivery system that could transport such a large weapon to a defended target. (yet)

[Zorki]

Oh... The Trinety and beyond movie. Now thats an creepy movie... All that made 1945 and forward culdnt possibel help the global warming today...

Impressive what man i capabel to though....

[Oberon]

Yes, I could have sworn I read (over a customers shoulder) a headline and picture depicting a Tornado jet escorting a Bear, just like something out of the early 80s. Wonder what they're up to, coming back all of a sudden after ten or so years.

The Tsar Bomba, a great weapon in theory but IIRC a lot of the potential destructive energy got vented into the atmosphere as opposed to outward and across the landscape.

[baggygreen]

thank christ we never had to see those bloody things folowing nagasaki... 180km wide fireball... jeebus

[MadMike]

180km wide fireball? Try 4.6km!

Personally, as a retired nuke puke I prefer pure fusion weapons-

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/impact_cratering/World_Craters_Web/intromap.html

Yours, Mike

[Letum]

thank christ we never had to see those bloody things folowing nagasaki... 180km wide fireball... jeebus
180km fireball?!?! :huh:

Noooo!

The Tzar bomb was made for 100Mt, but was only ever detonated at 50Mt.
At 50Mt the fireball was 4.6km. If it had detonated at 100Mt the fireball would have been around 6.2km. Nowhere near 180km!

Of course the dammage will spread much further than 6.2km. With the 100Mt bomb you would be badly burnt over 200km away and windows would break over 1200km away.


*edit* Snap!

[Jimbuna]

Not sure how useless it might be if it fell into the wrong hands of someone who could transport it !! :hmm:
The transport bit is the hard part.
There is no delivery system that could transport such a large weapon to a defended target. (yet)

Thank Christ!! :yep:

[ASWnut101]

I have "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie." Very interesting, and includes the best soundtrack for the detonation scenes (Hiroshima/Nagasaki Requiem).


Tsar Bomba was amazing, but too bad they did not have good footage of the actual explosion. It was more of just the "mushroom" and flash.

[Platapus]

We were all very lucky the Soviets tested this weapon the way they did. The orginal design called for a 238U tamper on the tertiary which was replaced with one made out of lead. The reason for this replacement was a concern that a tertiary device would not work, so to play it safe (from a propaganda point of view), Dr. Sakharov decided to actually test a secondary device design only. The Tsar Bomba project was very rushed and only took 112 days from concept to detonation

This replacement reduced the fallout by 97% making it actually one of the cleanest nuclear devices ever detonated. One of the test designs called for the 238U tamper on the tertiary to remain but that the fissile material be removed. If this had been accomplished the device would have been horrifically dirty and would have spread radioactive materials all over the world. It probably would have changed the world as we know it now.

So hats off to Dr. Sakharov who played it safe.

Tsar Bomba trivia: The parachute used to retard the fall of the device was so large and thick that it required the majority of the nylon being produced in the Soviet Union. For months afterward, there was a shortage of nylon stockings throughout the country.

[bookworm_020]

We were all very lucky the Soviets tested this weapon the way they did. The orginal design called for a 238U tamper on the tertiary which was replaced with one made out of lead. The reason for this replacement was a concern that a tertiary device would not work, so to play it safe (from a propaganda point of view), Dr. Sakharov decided to actually test a secondary device design only. The Tsar Bomba project was very rushed and only took 112 days from concept to detonation

This replacement reduced the fallout by 97% making it actually one of the cleanest nuclear devices ever detonated. One of the test designs called for the 238U tamper on the tertiary to remain but that the fissile material be removed. If this had been accomplished the device would have been horrifically dirty and would have spread radioactive materials all over the world. It probably would have changed the world as we know it now.

So hats off to Dr. Sakharov who played it safe.

It was also done because the Russians didn't want to have all that polution coming back at them and having to deal with the other irate countries that it would have affected. The American lernt this the hard way http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

Video of the Castle Bravo test

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-5251367183171614419

[baggygreen]

thank christ we never had to see those bloody things folowing nagasaki... 180km wide fireball... jeebus
180km fireball?!?! :huh:

Noooo!

The Tzar bomb was made for 100Mt, but was only ever detonated at 50Mt.
At 50Mt the fireball was 4.6km. If it had detonated at 100Mt the fireball would have been around 6.2km. Nowhere near 180km!

Of course the dammage will spread much further than 6.2km. With the 100Mt bomb you would be badly burnt over 200km away and windows would break over 1200km away.


*edit* Snap! hmmmm i posted after watching the 2nd one, which AL posted. perhaps im getting confused, and it was *meant* to be a 180km fireball, or something, when they were talking about its intended use against a target like london... i'll rewatch it tonight to try make sense of myself:doh:

[MadMike]

Even at 150 megatons most of the explosive energy would be wasted with a radius not much larger than the 58 megaton blast (using the square root law). Sorry to disappoint you, but a 150 megaton bomb isn't going to produce a 180 km wide fireball. :roll:
Wanna learn about nukes? Start by reading here-

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/nukeffct/enw77.htm

Yours, Mike

[bookworm_020]

To help you understand the fireball size of the weapons I have listed, here is a chart I found that should help.

The Russian relised that a bigger fireball is no good if it misses the target or gets shot down on the way there. That's why smaller MIRV warheads became standard. Lay a couple of them on a target and they will do more damage than a large one.;)

[Jimbuna]

To help you understand the fireball size of the weapons I have listed, here is a chart I found that should help.

The Russian relised that a bigger fireball is no good if it misses the target or gets shot down on the way there. That's why smaller MIRV warheads became standard. Lay a couple of them on a target and they will do more damage than a large one.;)

Can't see the chart :hmm:

[Letum]

To help you understand the fireball size of the weapons I have listed, here is a chart I found that should help.

The Russian relised that a bigger fireball is no good if it misses the target or gets shot down on the way there. That's why smaller MIRV warheads became standard. Lay a couple of them on a target and they will do more damage than a large one.;)
Can't see the chart :hmm:
Prahaps he ment this one.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Comparative_nuclear_fireball_sizes.svg/582px-Comparative_nuclear_fireball_sizes.svg.png

[Jimbuna]

cheers :up:

[Platapus]

The American lernt this the hard way http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

Starfish Prime was also another American "oops" nuclear test -- Sorry Telstar!

[bookworm_020]

To help you understand the fireball size of the weapons I have listed, here is a chart I found that should help.

The Russian relised that a bigger fireball is no good if it misses the target or gets shot down on the way there. That's why smaller MIRV warheads became standard. Lay a couple of them on a target and they will do more damage than a large one.;)
Can't see the chart :hmm: Prahaps he ment this one.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Comparative_nuclear_fireball_sizes.svg/582px-Comparative_nuclear_fireball_sizes.svg.png

Thanks Letum!:up: