how were the tests
RDS-6s were blown up at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. The charge was placed in a tower 30 meters high in the center of a giant test site. The test site contained a large number of measuring devices and cameras, as well as buildings specially constructed for the impact of the explosion, tanks, aircraft and other military equipment.
The signal to start the explosion was given at 7:30 am on 12 August 1953. The power of the RDS-6s was 400 kilotons, ten times that of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Buildings were destroyed within a radius of four kilometers. The Soviet leadership was satisfied with the result, and the “father” of this bomb, Andrei Sakharov, was immediately awarded the title of academician. In his honor, the scheme of the RDS-6s was called the “Sakharov puff” – because it resembled an atomic bomb wrapped in several alternating layers of uranium-238 and lithium-6 deuteride-tritide.
How does a hydrogen bomb differ from a “conventional” nuclear bomb?
These two types of bombs are similar in effect, but opposite in physical basis. The elements in the periodic table are arranged in ascending order according to the number of protons in the atomic nucleus. If you increase the number of protons, heavier elements are formed from lighter elements, and vice versa if you decrease. These processes are called nuclear fusion and decay, respectively, and both proceed with the release of energy.
A nuclear bomb releases energy due to the decay of uranium or plutonium nuclei after making the mass of this material critical, and a hydrogen (or thermonuclear) bomb is mainly caused by the fusion of nuclei of hydrogen, deuterium and heavy isotopes. tritium Both reactions produce a powerful explosion, but a conventional nuclear bomb has a practical yield ceiling that is very difficult to overcome. On the contrary, a hydrogen bomb can be made as powerful as you want – this was proven in practice in the USSR in 1961 by testing the 58 megaton Tsar Bomb. Theoretically, a thermonuclear explosion would not contaminate the field with radioactive fallout. However, inside every true thermonuclear bomb is a nuclear bomb as a “fuse” to compress and heat the hydrogen to initiate the fusion reaction.
In practice, the damaging factors in both types of explosions are the same – a hot ball of fire with a radius of less than a hundred or two meters, a bright flash that sets fire to everything around it, a powerful blast wave and radiation. Different types of devices differ only in power, the amount of radioactive fallout and the rate of damaging factors.
Was the RDS-6 the first thermonuclear bomb?
Yes and no. Strictly speaking, this type can be attributed only to bombs in which more than half of its energy is released due to the fusion reaction. For RDS-6s, this figure did not exceed 20%, and an explosion using such a device was first made by the Americans in May 1951 (“George” test, “Greenhouse” operation). In October 1952, the world’s first true thermonuclear device was tested there on Eniwetok Atoll (Test Mike, Operation Ivy).
However, RDS-6s are exactly bomb – A compact device suitable for throwing from an airplane, while the “George” and “Mike” tests used bulky products the size of a small house. But a caveat is needed here too. Although the RDS-6s fit inside the Tu-16 bomber, they were impossible to put into service. Its manufacture required large amounts of tritium, an expensive and difficult to produce isotope of hydrogen. Also, the service life of the bomb did not exceed six months, so the “gold” ammunition in its price would have to be destroyed regularly. The real thermonuclear bomb RDS-37, suitable for mass production, was tested by the USSR in 1955.
Thus, the RDS-6s test was politically and scientifically important, but had no direct impact on the balance of power on a potential battlefield.