Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
Scary, but very impractical. The Tsar Bomba was essentially a 'we can build one bigger than you' exercise. Most of the energy of the explosion was vented into the atmosphere rather than out as destructive lateral force, plus it had to be carried in a specially modified Tu-95.
Made a helluva mess of Novaya Zemlya though, and broke windows in Norway and Finland thanks to atmospheric focusing, and the seismic shockwave travelled around the Earth at least three times...and this was the dialed back explosion, the original design called for 100MT, but it was decided that the fallout would be too excessive and the delivery aircraft would probably have been destroyed by its own bomb.
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Thanks Oberon. I knew the Tsar bomb was tested but didn't know where or if it had been fielded. I also had no idea the shockwave was as prolific as that either.