Tsar Bomba: Soviet Nuclear Bomb Testing, 1949-1962 (Europe@War)

The most powerful nuclear weapon ever created, codenamed "Ivan" and known in the West as the "Tsar Bomba", was tested by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR/Soviet Union) on 30 October 1961. This hydrogen bomb, RDS-202, was detonated at the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island in the Novaya Zemla archipelago, Barents Sea. The Tsar Bomba unleashed about 58 megatons of TNT, creating an 8-kilometer/5-mile-wide fireball and then a mushroom cloud that reached an altitude of 95 kilometers (59 miles). The shockwave eradicated a village 55 kilometers (34 miles) from ground zero, caused widespread damage to nature within a radius of dozens of kilometers, and created a heat wave felt as far as 270 kilometers (170 miles) away. This was only one of 45 tests of nuclear weapons conducted in the USSR in October 1961 alone.

Between 1949 and 1962, the Soviets set off 214 nuclear bombs in the open air, with dozens of these being released from aircraft operated by specialized test units. Equipped with a full range of bombers— from the Tupolev Tu-4 and Tupolev Tu-16 to the gigantic Tu-95— the units were staffed by men colloquially known as the "deaf-and-dumb", who lived and served in isolation from the rest of the world and were sworn to utmost secrecy. While operating at the edge of their specially modified machines to test-releasing weapons with unimaginable destructive potential, several of them narrowly avoided catastrophe.

Tsar Bomba is the story of the aircrews involved and their aircraft, richly illustrated with authentic photographs and custom-drawn color profiles. All of these were carefully hidden not only by the Iron Curtain, but also by a thick veil of secrecy for more than half a century.

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