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
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