Rooskies declassify video of largest nuke ever exploded
Video just released in the last week or so by Russia's atomic energy agency.
Tsar Bomba was a hydrogen bomb the godless Soviets made and tested (atmospherically) in 1961. It was the most powerful bomb ever built, the (lying) Soviets claiming it was capable pf producing > 100 megatons of yield (> 1500x the yield of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined). They claim it was dialed back to "a mere" 50 megatons because beyond that point the majority of the energy was being blown harmlessly out of the atmosphere (harmless unless you're a Martian ;) ).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtCTzbh4mNQ
The target was the Mityushikha Bay test range on an uninhabited island sandwiched between the Barents and Kara seas, north of mainland Soviet Nenetskiy.
The bomb was so big they dropped it by parachutes so it still could be air burst and (possibly) not destroy the plane that had dropped it (a Tupolev 95). The parachute alone weighed a ton. Dropped from 34,500 feet and detonated at ~13,000. The plane was 71 miles away when the shock wave overtook it and it still disrupted airflow over its wings enough that it dropped more than half a mile before the crew regained control.
The fireball was five miles in diameter. The flash was seen as far away as 630 miles. The radiant energy in the flash was so hot it could have caused 3rd-degree burns as far away as 62 miles. There was evidence of damage from the shock wave as far away as 430 miles. It blew out windows as far away as Finland and Norway. An observer 168 miles away claimed he felt the heat. The mushroom cloud rose to a height of 42 miles, well above the stratosphere and into the mesosphere. Which validates the claim that much of the 100-mt version's yield would have been wasted.
I find it interesting that they showed a mechanical timer, as if they had more confidence in a glorified egg timer to detonate the bomb after a certain period in free fall than any other method. The Hiroshima bomb, OTOH, had a three-stage detonation device. The bomb falling free of the airplane switched on a 15-second mechanical timer (the theory being that if everything else went wrong, the blast then still would be survivable to the air crew). At the expiration of time, the egg timer switched on a barometric sensor. And when the barometer figured the altitude was right, it switched on a radar altimeter, which then signaled the bomb to explode when the distance to the ground was right.
Then again, it was 3000x times more bomb than at Hiroshima. How accurate did the timer have to be?
Also interesting that it took this long to declassify a simple video. But nuclear secrets, it seems, are most covetously guarded by all nations.
The last man to touch the Hiroshima bomb was 2nd Lieutenant Morris Jeppson, who removed the 'dummy' weapons plugs and replaced them with the real deal about 30 minutes before the attack. Jeppson kept the dummy plugs and in 2002 he tried to sell them at auction. The US government sued to stop the auction, claiming the plugs were classified government property. A judge in Mexifornia's 9th Circus court of appeals ruled against the government, the sale went ahead and Jeppson pocketed $167,000 on the deal.
There's still a shit-ton classified about WWII in general. Probably WWI, too, truth be told.
