Blast from the past: the biggest nuclear bomb ever built
The Tsar Bomba was the most destructive nuclear weapon of all time. It was built and detonated by the Soviets, basically for show-off.
This Summer I am reprinting articles that many of my followers may have missed, with updates when justified.
Picture, if you will, a nuclear explosion annihilating everything in a radius of more than 60 km, generating an earthquake, and shattering windows more than one thousand kilometres away, with a mushroom cloud reaching the stratosphere. And all this to show who was boss. Or whatever.
The roaring inferno was caused by the RDS-220, known by its designers as Big Ivan, but better known as the Tsar Bomba (“King Bomb”, or “Emperor Bomb”). It was detonated on October 30, 1961, in the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago, 800 km above the Arctic Circle.
That beast had a yield (explosive energy) of 50 megatons — equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT. This is more than 3,300 bombs of Hiroshima, all at the same time. Or at least 10 times more powerful than all conventional weapons used in World War 2.
The Tsar Bomba’s detonation dwarfs even the other explosions in the Top 10. This visualisation makes it strikingly clear:
Gigantic, my big big bomb
At 11:32 in the morning, a modified Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber dropped the Tsar Bomba from an altitude of 10.5 kilometres. With the size of a school bus and weighing 27 tons, the bomb was so heavy and powerful that it was attached to a parachute to slow its fall — so the pilots would have a chance to survive the blast. They managed to escape, but it was by the skin of their teeth (the odds were 50/50).
Fireball from another planet
The military also took other precautions. The bomb was detonated at 4,000 metres, and was built in such a way as to minimise radioactive fallout (detonations on or close to the ground can cause much more fallout; for a technical explanation, see here).
The mind-boggling spectacle overwhelmed the bomber’s crewmen. According to one of them,
“A fire-red ball of enormous size rose and grew. It grew larger and larger, and when it reached enormous size, it went up. Behind it, like a funnel, the whole earth seemed to be drawn in. The sight was fantastic, unreal, and the fireball looked like some other planet. It was an unearthly spectacle.”
The mushroom cloud, almost 100 km wide, reached the stratosphere at 64 km of altitude. The explosion shattered windows as far as Finland and Norway and generated a 5.25-magnitude earthquake. Its shockwaves travelled three times around the world. The video below, declassified and released in 2020, gives us a hint of the gigantic explosion.
Flat earth
Ground zero was completely flattened, as one witness recalled:
“The ground surface of the island has been levelled, swept and licked so that it looks like a skating rink. The same goes for rocks. The snow has melted and their sides and edges are shiny. There is not a trace of unevenness in the ground. Everything in this area has been swept clean, scoured, melted and blown away.”
And to think that the original idea was to launch a 100-megaton bomb. Believe it or not, that was the plan, and the team led by future dissident Andrei Sakharov (“father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb”) worked hard to develop an original design to accommodate such destructive power.
In the end, after many comings and goings, Sakharov decided to reduce the yield by half — for technical reasons, and also because of the nagging feeling of being responsible for a possible disaster.
A show of strength with your boys brigade
What was the point of all this? It is generally acknowledged that a weapon like the Tsar Bomba was unnecessary to the point of being virtually useless — not only in terms of logistics but also because it would be so overkill that it could pose a threat to the Soviet Union itself (especially due to the fallout; Europe is a very small place).
The only justification for the Tsar Bomba was political. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wanted to make a show of force at a time of crisis (especially in Berlin) and announced the “superbomb” to the world before it was ready to be tested. It’s a testament to the talent of Sakharov and the other scientists involved that they managed to pull it off.
Not a great plan
The world was not enthusiastic, to put it mildly. Forceful condemnation of the test and even of the idea of such a weapon was not limited to the United States and NATO. In the end, and as Sakharov himself hoped, the whole episode led to the rejection of atmospheric nuclear tests. Two years later, and almost one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed by the USSR, US, and UK (the treaty also banned tests in outer space and under the sea).
Bomb-measuring
The dream (so to speak) of ever more powerful nuclear weapons had begun many years before the Tsar Bomba was detonated. After the successful test of the first American thermonuclear bomb (H-bomb) in 1952, one of its co-developers, unrepentant warmonger Edward Teller (one of the inspirations for Dr Strangelove) started advocating for “much bigger bangs”.
Teller started working on a 10-gigaton bomb, called “Sundial”, with an explosive energy of 10 billion tons of TNT. This monstrous weapon would be triggered by “Gnomon”, a smaller one, with “just” 1 gigaton. If only the latter was denotated, and even as high as 45 km, it would scorch a region the size of France.
Plans were made to test Gnomon in the late 50s, but thankfully it did not come to pass. It would have 20 times the power of the Tsar Bomba. Sundial would multiply this by 10.
Were these people crazy? Yes.
The dead tree gives no shelter
Novaya Zemlya had been used as a nuclear testing ground since 1955, with towns and villages (forcibly) evacuated and the native population, as usual, ordered to leave. The tests went on until 1990.
When the PTB treaty came into force, they started being performed underground. After 35 years, the archipelago became the seat of an environmental disaster. Not only because of the bombs but also of the radioactive waste dumped by nuclear reactors.
The resettled population remained on the Russian Arctic shores. It was not that far away after all. Many people ended up being contaminated by radiation, with the well-known grim consequences for their health (like the original inhabitants of Bikini Atoll in the Pacific). The reindeer, their main source of food, were also affected. It sucks to be a native, as history shows.
Counterfactual holocaust
Let me finish this article with a hypothetical: what if the Tsar Bomba was dropped on a major Western city — let’s say, London? The website Nuke Map allows us to simulate it.
As you can see, London would be wiped off the map. The outmost circle is the limit of thermal radiation (third-degree burns). There would be more than 9 million casualties: almost 5.8 million dead and 3.5 million injured.
Figment of the imagination
Also notice the fallout spreading beyond Norwich (if the wind blows in that direction). And remember that the fallout would be much, much worse if the explosion happened on the ground.
But don’t worry. You can remain happy for the rest of the day, safe in the knowledge that this is not going to happen. Not only because, as was said before, it’s an impractical weapon, but also thanks to the many nuclear reduction treaties signed since the 80s.
Not that this is too reassuring though.
The most destructive nuclear weapons today have a bit more than 1 megaton. In our example, there would be “only” 1.1 million dead and 2.6 million injured. Cold comfort.
Wouldn't the posidon nuclear torpedo be the most powerful modern nuclear weapon with an estimated 100 megaton warhead?