The world has faced a nuclear holocaust several times since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nevertheless, one gets the impression that humanity still does not realize what element it is playing with. This is best evidenced by the history of the Car-bomb, which was created in the USSR only to ... beat the nose of the Americans.
The military potential of the new technology was enormous and extremely dangerous. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were used as a bogeyman, and subsequent nuclear tests by the United States and the USSR were the most ordinary demonstrations of force.
Of course, the Soviet Union has always tried to surpass everything the world has known so far. And in this case it could not be otherwise…
Incredibly destructive force
At the request of Nikita Khrushchev himself, a team of scientists consisting of Yulia Chariton, Andrei Sakharov, Wiktor Adamski, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov and Yuri Trutnev was to create the world's largest hydrogen thermonuclear bomb. The so-called Car-bomb with the designations AN602 or RDS-220 was designed and constructed at the Arzamas-16 facility belonging to the All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Experimental Physics.
Demonstration detonation of the charge, affectionately named Ivan, was scheduled for October 30, 1961. It was not an accidental date, because at about the same time the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was to take place. The event was therefore purely propaganda:it was intended to show the imperialist West that the USSR had theoretically unlimited destructive power, and at the same time to prove to comrades that the "rotten capitalists" were far behind in the arms race.
Originally, Khrushchev requested a 100 megaton bomb
Originally, Khrushchev wanted a 100 megaton bomb, but from a logistical point of view, it was almost impossible to construct, transport and detonate such a giant. Of course, theoretically, the Russians could create a bomb of this power, but the effects of its detonation could not be predicted.
So it was decided to prepare a cargo with half the "dream" power, which was unprecedented anyway. The car bomb was 8 meters long, 2.1 meters in diameter and weighed 27 tons. It was constructed in such a way that it released very little radioactive pollutants into the atmosphere, which - paradoxically - was one of the "cleanest" atomic bombs in history.
The New Earth Archipelago
A group of islands called New Earth, located in the circumpolar zone in the territory of the USSR, was selected for the detonation site. Preparations for this operation are shown in a documentary recently declassified by Russia.
The bomb itself was transported by a special Tu-95 bomber, assisted by a Tu-16 observation plane. The latter was equipped with measuring instruments and cameras to collect all information about the explosion. Ivan was dropped at an altitude of 10,500 meters, and the detonation took place at an altitude of 4,000 meters above land. The explosion was so powerful that the fireball itself had a diameter of almost 4,000 meters, and the flare was visible from a distance of 900 kilometers. The shock wave circulated the planet three times. Within a radius of 100 kilometers, the heat wave was so enormous that it could cause third degree burns.
A satellite photo of Paris showing the effects of a possible detonation of the Car bomb over the city
The surface of the earth in that place was somewhat flattened, and the small rocky islands of the New Earth Archipelago evaporated. The atomic mushroom was 60 kilometers high and 40 kilometers in diameter. It was a real finger of God. It is estimated that the power of thermonuclear transformations was equal to 1% of the power generated on the surface of the Sun. It was almost ten times more powerful than the sum of the weapons used in World War II.
The prospect of detonating a bomb twice as powerful is beyond imagination. A car bomb dropped on Berlin would threaten half of the continent. If one of the great US conurbations were targeted, millions would be killed instantly.
The most striking thing in all of this is that the detonation of the Car-bomb was purely propaganda. In combat conditions, transporting a bomb weighing almost 30 tons, no matter if by land or air, would be almost impossible. However, this does not change the fact that on October 30, 1961, the world saw what a megalomania-driven man is capable of and one can only speculate on what a further escalation of the Cold War would lead to ...
Bibliography:
- Maciej Zaremba, Car bomb explosion on the video revealed by the Russians. This is the biggest hydrogen bomb ever , "Wprost" (accessed on 2 November 2020).
- Brandon Specktor, Russia declassifies footage of 'Tsar Bomba' - the most powerful nuclear bomb in history , "Live Science" (access:2/1/2020).