Putin's options include the "Tsar Bomb"

[geetrue]

I just found this site called Sonic Bomb:http://www.sonicbomb.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=83&mode=&order=0&thold=0The


Tsar Bomba - The King of Bombs On October 30, 1961, the most powerful weapon ever constructed by mankind was exploded over the island of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Sea. The device was code-named "Tsar", a multi-stage hydrogen bomb built in only sixteen weeks by engineers in the USSR at the order of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

The "Tsar Bomba" or "King of Bombs"– was originally designed to yield a 100 megaton explosion. However, the uranium tamper was replaced with a lead one, decreasing the yield to 50 megatons, this also eliminated much of the radioactive fallout generated by the test, and an almost certain doom for the release plane. The lead tamper also made the bomb the cleanest device ever made, with 97% of the yield coming from the fusion reaction. Even at the decreased yield, it was approximately 4000 times more powerful than the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.

[Raptor1]

I don't think anything of that magnitude even exists anymore

[geetrue]

I hope not, but if Putin isn't too mad he could always drop one without the bad stuff in it.



The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, Russia's state television reported Tuesday, the latest show of the nation's military muscle amid chilly relations with the United States.

Channel One television said the new ordnance, nicknamed the "dad of all bombs" is four times more powerful than the U.S. "mother of all bombs."

"The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability," Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukhsin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks. Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb does not pose an environmental threat from the release of radiation, he added.

[Platapus]

Aint gonna happen

1. The RDS-220 was only produced once with several airframes of which one is on display. I doubt that the Russians have the machining equipment to make another one. Not that they would want to because...

2. By now the Russians have learned what we knew for years. Several smaller nukes can do more damage than one big one.

3. The current variants of the TU-95 are probably unable to carry the RDS-220 even if it were built.

The RDS-220 was simply a propaganda weapon.

We are all lucky that there was a delay in machining the uranium tamper lenses so the Russians switched to lead or there would have been considerable radioactive fallout. Redacted due to lack of citation

Useless trivia question

While a shortage of Uranium may have saved the world, what shortage did the RDS-220 cause in the Soviet Union? :know:

[Raptor1]

Yeah, that would be nasty, but the 'Father of all Bombs' is only equivalent to about 44 tons of TNT, compare that to 50 megatons...

@Platapus

What shortage of Uranium? I heard they modified it because of the fallout...

[AntEater]

Shortage of underwear, I think, because the parachute was so huge it took up a whole chunk of the silk production...
:rotfl:

[Platapus]

Excellent

Yes a shortage of nylon for underwear and hosery :up:

As for the shortage of Uranium, let me clearify some of the oversimplifications of my previous post.

The decision to substitute the Tamper was made due to not wanting to miss the schedule for the widely publicized test. The knowledge of the risks of a Uranium tamper were not understood in 1961 (we even did not have a full understanding of it).

Due to the schedule of the test, the weapon was still being designed while being constructed. Hardly approved project management techniques here! The total schedule of the RDS-220 from idea to boom was only 16 weeks!

Even if the tamper of the RDS-220 was Uranium it would not add much to the nuclear yield of the weapon. A tamper is made to blow apart only after a pre-determined duration (micro-seconds). The purpose of the tamper is to keep the atomic mass (pit arrangement) in a super critical state for just a little bit longer to get more efficiencey out of the primary nuclear fuel, in this case Enriched Uranium. There would be some parasitic nuclear boosting from the Uranium tamper but that would be minor.

There is a misconception that has been repeated on several websites about the RDS-220. The RDS-220 was designed with a theoretical maximum yield of 100 MT. In order to get to this theoretical maximum yield, additional tertiary fusion stage would be needed. The RDS-220, as tested in 1961, consisted of one Primary, one Secondary and one or two Tertiary stages (the details are still uncertain.) To up the yield, more tertiary systems would be placed around the secondary stage.

The key phrase is theoretical yield as no one has tested a nuclear device with more than three tertiary stages and there is every evidence that the yield would drop off sharply if you try to pile on more tertiary stages. Sort of a nuclear diminishing returns.

The reason that Uranium was intended to be used for the tamper around the Primary and Secondary stages was to act as a neutron absorber for any neutrons that escaped the neutron reflector. Inside the tamper is a neutron reflector such as beryllium. While it is possible to construct a nuclear device with one substance that acts as both a reflector and a tamper, it is more efficient to have separate layers that each do a better job. It is much better to layer a good reflector inside a good tamper.

The purpose of a neutron reflector is to ... well... uh.. reflect neutrons. You want all the neutrons you have to continue bouncing around in your primary, not escaping yearning to breath free.

The problem with a design of multiple tertiary stages is the exposure to escaping neutrons from the primary stage. Neutron reflectors are not 100% perfect. In trying to get the biggest yield you want to control exactly when neutrons hit specific stages. The use of Uranium as a tamper/neutron absorber sounds good (at least in 1961) but the effects of fallout clearly indicate that this is a very undesirable system.

So if the yield of the RDS-220 were to be upped to the maximum by installing additional tertiary stages then the use of a neutron absorber (in this case Uranium) would be needed. However it is the extra tertiary stages that provide the increased yield not the Uranium tamper. This is where the misconception started.

If the Soviets wanted to limit the yield of the RDS-220 they would not have installed the additional tertiary stages (they probably would not have worked anyway). Since there is a limited number of tertiary stages in the test RDS-220 there was less of a reason for such efficient neutron absorbers. Added to this a shortage of uranium, lead the soviets to substitute lead for the tamper.

I know, more than you ever wanted to know, but it is your own fault for starting a thread about nuclear technology. You know that I can't resist. :up:

[Raptor1]

I never heard about this shortage of uranium

Got any sources?

[Platapus]

I never heard about this shortage of uranium

Got any sources?


Excellent question, lemme dust off some of my nuke history references on this. :know:

[Platapus]

Two references I have in my nuke library at home that discuss the shortage of Uranium in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. However these two references to not reference the RDS-220 specifically.

"Cost of Uranium Concentrates to the Soviet Union" CIA 1973 (declassified in 1994)

"Enriched Uranium vs. Plutonium: Proliferant preferences in the choice of fissile material" by Joel Ullom 1994

Most of my nuclear references are in my office which I will check tomorrow when I get to work.

Just a quickie.

Uranium for the Soviet Union Nuclear program was supplied primarily from Romania though the SOVROM-CUARTT enterprise. This supply was stopped in 1961 due to political issues.http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/439-440/chapter1.html

This lead to the Soviets starting their Acid In Situ Leaching industry, in 1961 as a way of increasing their domestic production of Uranium. I imagine that this switching from imported Uranium from Romania to developing a new procedure accounted for the shortage I remember reading about (and am still looking for the citation)

[geetrue]

You sure know a lot Platapus ... your almost as smart as Skybird, uh?

Shoot maybe even smarter ... lol

So in other words this thing that is 4,000 times greater than the bomb we dropped on Japan is no longer in production. Any clues on if they still have one or two left on a warhead somewhere?

What the hell 10 independantly targeted warheads are even worse anyway ... why worry.

But what if one was left ... what would it do to LA or New York ... just one that is?

[AVGWarhawk]

Here is a better question. Of what use would dropping this bomb be other then complete annihilation and lay waste to the area it is dropped in for decades to come? It would make no use as I see it. Gaining useless land is not the intentions as I see it.

[geetrue]

Here is a better question. Of what use would dropping this bomb be other then complete annihilation and lay waste to the area it is dropped in for decades to come? It would make no use as I see it. Gaining useless land is not the intentions as I see it.

For the same reason we dropped two on Japan ... fear.

Fear to continue on that is.

[AVGWarhawk]

Here is a better question. Of what use would dropping this bomb be other then complete annihilation and lay waste to the area it is dropped in for decades to come? It would make no use as I see it. Gaining useless land is not the intentions as I see it.
For the same reason we dropped two on Japan ... fear.

Fear to continue on that is.


Dropping something of that magnitude is just to close for Russia's comfort. The fallout alone would not play favorites over the border. The area it was dropped would be useless for decades. Look at Cherynobal (SP). Japan was on the other side of the world for the Americans. The A bomb was not of the size of this one. The damage radius was somewhat known. The lasting effects of radiation was not. I think the Russians are a bit wiser as to the after effects of a weapon like this. Fear or not, I just do not see the Russians dropping this bomb in their backyard.

[Randomizer]

Very informative post Platapus, many thanks.

As for the follow up question I submit that large yields were more a function of poor accuracy of the delivery system than just to induce raw fear. As delivery systems became more accurate yields steadly decreased on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Agree that the RDS-220 primary role was propaganda but at 100 MT the bomber could stand off a ways and still deliver an effective damage on the primary target. I don't know if the Soviets practiced lob-toss bombing for their gravity bombs but I would think that no airframe in those days could have tossed an something as heavy as RDS-220 effectively.

By the Fall of 1961, the B-47's (which were limited to toss-bombing tactics) were on their way out of the USAF inventory and the AGM-28 Hound Dog air launched cruise missile was being deployed on SAC B-52's. Although they would remain in service until the end of the Cold War, the days of the heavy bomber-dropped nuclear gravity bombs were passing and the missile, guided or ballistic, would be the primary means of delivering strategically targeted nuclear weapons. It follows then that warheads and bombs had to become smaller.

Good Hunting

[Oberon]

You sure know a lot Platapus ... your almost as smart as Skybird, uh?

Shoot maybe even smarter ... lol

So in other words this thing that is 4,000 times greater than the bomb we dropped on Japan is no longer in production. Any clues on if they still have one or two left on a warhead somewhere?

What the hell 10 independantly targeted warheads are even worse anyway ... why worry.

But what if one was left ... what would it do to LA or New York ... just one that is?

I think that it was an aerial dropped bomb rather than a warhead, and it was grossly wasteful, most of the explosion vented into the atmosphere rather than out across the landscape. Still enough to be picked up by Swedish seismographs though. Like has been said, it was a propaganda weapon, and besides, the snag with air dropped nuclear weapons is that they're a battlefield weapon rather than a strategic weapon, you need to get the bomb to the target without interception first, in which case you need control over the airspace. ICBMs don't have that problem, they just have the whole ABM/SAM issue to deal with, and most MIRV warheads have maneuvering thrusters to help avoid those, I know the Russkie ones do anyway.

[geetrue]

I think that it was an aerial dropped bomb rather than a warhead, and it was grossly wasteful, most of the explosion vented into the atmosphere rather than out across the landscape. Still enough to be picked up by Swedish seismographs though. Like has been said, it was a propaganda weapon, and besides, the snag with air dropped nuclear weapons is that they're a battlefield weapon rather than a strategic weapon, you need to get the bomb to the target without interception first, in which case you need control over the airspace. ICBMs don't have that problem, they just have the whole ABM/SAM issue to deal with, and most MIRV warheads have maneuvering thrusters to help avoid those, I know the Russkie ones do anyway.

I see now ... it was just for that time and age. Sometimes I read too fast, like I said I just found it and had never heard of it.

Fear is a real substance ... I fear many people will lose their minds and become unstable in a conflict of this magitude.

[Platapus]

From a military standpoint the RDS-220 would be totally inappropriate for pretty much any application other than a Dr. Strangelove type doomsday device.

As far as I know, there is only one RDS airframe in a museum in Russia. I sure would like to visit that museum :)

The problem today would be the same as in 1961 -- delivery. A specially modified TU-95 was used and it probably had a hard time schlepping that monster. I don't think there is any way a lob laydown delivery technique could be used. It is just too damn big!

As for the Russians using something like this. Why? The russians have much better, more accurate nuclear systems they could use... assuming that the Russians would ever use a nuclear weapons. The Russians are many things but stupid aint one of them.

I checked my nuclear history sources at work and while I was able to find information on the 1961 shortage of Uranium (Romanian issue) I was unable to find any source that specifically linked the design decision of the RDS-220 to the shortage. Since I could not find a citation, I am redacting that portion of my post.

Raptor1. Thanks for keeping me honest here. :up:

[geetrue]

As for the Russians using something like this. Why? The russians have much better, more accurate nuclear systems they could use... assuming that the Russians would ever use a nuclear weapons. The Russians are many things but stupid aint one of them.


This is debatable due to the Russian chess minds they pocess, not to mention offloading a submarine nuclear core onto an ice flow in the artic, more than one submarine loss with no explanation, a rotting fleet of subs with new ones on the way ... hey maybe they aren't so dumb. They want us to pay for the waste disposal.

It has crossed my mind that Russia thinks about a first strike more than the USA does ... we friends of the feather (people that like to talk submarines and such) won't be able to talk like this after any strike of course.

Before a chess master makes a move he calulates what it would cost him, but at the same time he is thinking of his opponets move for each move he would make.

I wish I could listen in on Putin talking to his higher country men of understanding while they conference at a safe retreat.

The conversation of how to survive a first strike against the USA has certainly come up in their conversations before.

[geetrue]

Speaking of chess moves ... did you ever think ahead of time that Russia would pull a stunt like this?
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/russia-fires-ss-21-ballistic-missiles/story.aspx?guid=%7BBBA6D0C0-0C68-4870-AD17-D64189FBD05F%7D&dist=hppr


"Over the last few days Russia has fired over two dozen SS-21 Ballistic Short Range Missiles into the country of Georgia, integrating ballistic missile strikes with their conventional military forces. The SS-21 is a road mobile, solid fuel, single stage ballistic missile, which is maneuverable in flight and carries a high-explosive warhead weighing up to 1060lbs. with 150 meter accuracy. It has a range of 43 miles. These missiles have been used by the Russians tactically for psychological and military targets as the Georgians do not have the capability to defend against or defeat ballistic missiles.

[AntEater]

Russian doctrine sees ballistic missiles as artillery.
Each rifle division has a ballistic missile battery attached. These are the division commander's biggest guns.
The 19th motor-rifle has 4 launch vehicles for SS-21s.
In a cold war scenario, this would've meant nuclear strike capability at divisional level!
The russians take firepower seriously....
Today, they use conventional HE warheads, not nukes, of course.
Those missiles have a relatively small CEP, they give a division commander instant (relative) precision strike capability even if he doesn't have air support.
I think the russians expected not to have air support in central Europe, and this is a canned air strike.
A bit hypocritic there. I think people on the ground do not really care wether the 500 kg of explosive impacting near them came from an aircraft or from a missile.
That seems a bit medieval to me.
It is courteous to drop explosives from aircraft on people while it is not courteous to launch the same amount of explosives with rockets on people.
Just like the pope banned the crossbow for use against christians...
:rotfl:


Btw, Putins options also include the "Tsar Cannon"
http://www.allrussiatours.com/promotion/art.nsf/pages/BECBE9EE59A52FDBC3256C13003C1D61/$file/tsar-pushka-4.JPG

But sadly not anymore the "Tsar Tank"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Tsar_tank.jpg