Revisiting the “Tsar Bomba” nuclear test
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Hypersonic glide is a cheap upgrade to a missile with 1000 mi range and is deployed by China, India and other ‘developing’ countries. The U.S. did this circa 1980 with the Pershing II but now we don’t have anything land based with this range.
For that range, hypersonic glide improves accuracy, range, target flexibility, launch flexibility, and anti anti missile missile missile capability. It’s not hard to do technically at all.
For a true ICBM it is much more difficult, the g-forces are at least three times greater, thermal protection is tough, etc. The U.S. tested this capability circa 1980 also but never fielded it. This has the potential to be highly effective against nuclear warhead based missile interceptors like the one Russia has deployed around Moscow not to mention U.S. anti missile missiles.
Whether this is a useful strategy remains (unfortunately) up for debate.
The whole world working together for a single goal, it's beautiful.
Its an insane concept, and no normal / rational human would ever dream of that argument. But the problem is that we are not all rational people.
The majority of the people in the movie are rational, it only took a couple of crazies to turn the whole situation into a darkly hilarious and apocalyptic turn of events.
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Spoilers for the old movie:
That's exactly the point of the doomsday device. The problem in the movie, is that the Russians didn't announce the existence of the doomsday device yet... they were __planning__ to inform the USA on Dimitri Kissov birthday next week. Which is... a comedic but somewhat believable reason to hold back on the announcement of such a weapon.
So the Russians were only crazy because they didn't inform the USA of the weapon yet. And it only took one crazy commander ("Precious Bodily Fluids") to go against the US President and start the nuclear war.
The explosions from a nuclear blast have a radius proportional to cube-root(power), and radius-squared is roughly the level of damage you deal.
As such, MIRVs of smaller weapons (large enough to be of incredible destructive power, small enough to fit many many of them on a rocket) is simply a superior strategy over the old Tsar Bomba.
Historically a significant portion of the push for MERVs was simply an increase in targeting accuracy.
It's interesting how nuclear weapons in general were solving the problem of accurate targeting by making it unneeded. Today one attack helicopter can plausibly take out 16 1969-vintage T-72 tanks before rearming. In 1969 the expected solution to a giant herd of Soviet tanks coming through the Fulda Gap was tactical nuclear weapons, because NATO forces could not fire their conventional weapons accurately enough to stop such an advance.
[1] The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.
> It is hard to convey the damage of a gigaton bomb, because at such yields many traditional scaling laws do not work (the bomb blows a hole in the atmosphere, essentially). However, a study from 1963 suggested that, if detonated 28 miles (45 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth, a 10,000-megaton weapon could set fires over an area 500 miles (800 kilometers) in diameter. Which is to say, an area about the size of France.
Yes, it's so powerful it's blasting the air into space. Adding more power doesn't so much make the blast more powerful as make the air go into space more quickly!
I guess more power would make a difference to what it does with the ground beneath it, though. Not sure what that kind of energy would actually do, though, vaporize a chunk of the crust?
Wow. How many of these would it take to appreciably reduce atmospheric pressure world-wide?
FWIW, there was a pressure wave world-wide. The Wikipedia page says a fluctuation of 0.6 mbar was measured in New Zealand. (Krakatoa's pressure wave was recorded going around the Earth three times!)
That said, let's consider the number of Tsar Bomba's needed to lower the pressure by 0.01mBar, permanently, assuming all of the energy from the bomb was used to get air to exactly escape velocity. (In reality, energy also went into space, or melted snow, or was turned into seismic energy, or ... And there will be a distribution of velocities.)
Mass of the atmosphere is about 5.15E18 kg. 0.01mBar is 1/100,000 reduction in atmosphere gives 5.15E13 kg.
Escape velocity about 11 km/sec.
Energy = 1/2 m v * v = 3E21 J.
Tsar Bomba = 210–240 PJ = 2E17 J.
So, assuming the impossibly perfect transfer of all energy into moving air at escape velocity, 10,000 Tsar Bombas.
I don't know how many orders of magnitude more are needed before the spherical cap of atmosphere would be blasted to escape velocity, but clearly even a tera-ton bomb isn't enough.
Fair enough!
That is...a lot of bombs, wow.
In fact, the Tsar Bomba had a large parachute, to ensure that the airplane could fly away in time.
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Allegedly, the Tsar Bomba weighs 27 tons, which is a little bit beyond what a modern C-130 could carry. (But maybe a modified C-130 could carry such a weapon).
EDIT: Bigger bombs could be made, but the question of "how to deliver" the weapon to our enemies becomes a significant question. There's always the Dr. Strangelove approach of building an infinitely huge bomb in your own country, and hoping the bomb is big enough to blow up the world... but that was a joke / sarcastic movie and not an actual plan (I hope).
Want to nuke Jacksonville, Norfolk, New London, San Diego, and Puget Sound? Russia can already clobber them with enough ICBMs.
So... first strike? In which case the silos in the Great Plains launch on you, followed shortly thereafter by any SSBN on patrol.
It only makes sense as a defensive weapon. And while Russia is paranoid, I don't think they're strategically expecting the US to be able to neutralize their road/rail mobile forces and submarines and strategic bombers in a first strike.
In which case it only makes sense as a propaganda device. Good use of limited funding, there.
that is of course. Another way of building an even bigger d.ck.
>And while Russia is paranoid, I don't think they're strategically expecting the US to be able to neutralize their road/rail mobile forces and submarines and strategic bombers in a first strike.
Russia has been losing on high-tech weapons - high precision, stealth, global and battlefield awareness/connectivity and now on the drones (which is for example why Russia so conspicuously amassed so many basically WWII style forces right now on Ukraine border - to show that if Ukraine uses its Turkish drones - the current huge, yet carrying a kind of expiration date, strategic advantage Ukraine got over Russia in Donbass - to "solve" the Donbass issue like Azerbajan did in Nagorny Karabah using the same drones a year ago in a big facepalm to Russian weapons - the Russian forces will strike behind Ukraine Donbass forces cutting them from the rest of Ukraine somewhat similar to the Ilovaysk battle of August 2014, only at the much larger scale this time), and it is pretty feasible that US would get a hold on the sufficient intelligence and would have the capability to use low yield (even non-nuclear) precision first strike to disable most of the current Russian MAD assets, and the good anti-ICBM missile can do the rest. I'm not saying that US is going to actually do the strike - just having credible capability would adjust the situation severely. So Russia not being able to match in the high tech, goes wider and larger scale - like those nuclear powered cruise missile and that gigantic torpedo "wunderwaffe".
I don't think it's appropriate to deride the security motivations of modern Russia, so casually.
In the 20th century, Russia was very nearly wiped out, by surprise attack, TWICE. Their casualties were staggering, more than any other nation on earth has ever endured. And the trauma to their politics, economy, and culture will probably persist for decades, if not centuries.
In the direct aftermath of WWII, a huge swath of top US & UK military and political leaders publicly insisted that the West should re-arm and continue Total War against the USSR, and completely dismantle their military capabilies.
I don't mean to excuse ANYthing the Soviets or Russians have done, as a result of the national character they've been left with. But if we fail to fully understand how the world & its history look, from their perspective, we will be actively participating in the extinction of the human race.
Even in their initial military use, absent M.A.D., the message was "we can deliver overwhelming destruction with little or no exposure, and you have no effective counteremasures, with the expectation that the enemy would cease hostilities.
That messaging proved effective, even if it did require repeating.
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpos...
I live in coastal Los Angeles, and I regularly look out at the Santa Barbara Channel, and wonder if one of these nightmares is already out there.
I could absolutely see a country planting too-big-to-drop nukes along potential invasion routes. Especially during the Cold War, but even now.
When you have a gun that can deliver nukes 50km away (ie: standard M777 Howitzer), it makes more sense to shoot the nuke at the enemy rather than plant a bomb in an expected path. That way, you remain flexible.
Artillery guns like the M777 can be fired roughly 10-times per minute (depending on the skill of its crew). Give them nuclear rounds, and they'll deliver.
Navigating minefields takes either time, a total disregard for consequence, or ignorance. None are especially effective countermeasures in heat of battle.
A bag makes some semblance of sense: you are intending to run away before the bag goes off. That's not the case with Davy Crocket: you almost certainly will be exposed to the radiation.
EDIT: Hah. Apparently the Davy Crockett used that W54 you were talking about as the warhead.
Haul a nuclear backpack in, bury it, set the timer / unroll a cable, and then evacuate (optional) and detonate.
Pretty crazy stuff.
And there are a number of those nations.
> Allegedly, the Tsar Bomba weighs 27 tons, which is a little bit beyond what a modern C-130 could carry.
Turn a C-5 Galaxy into a drone and then you have 140+ tons to work with.
Or throw it out and give it some sort of self propulsion that keeps it at the airburst height until the plane is far enough away.
C-130 is just a little guy… looks like a C5 could carry at least 3 of those bombs (if I’m doing my math right.)
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113242...
> If there's a crisis, somebody in the Defense Ministries has to turn it on, so that's the first step. It then tries to find evidence that there's been a nuclear hit on the Soviet Union. If it determines that there has been a hit, then it tries to communicate back to the Defense Ministries. And if it can talk to them, it says, okay, humans are still alive. I don't need to work. I'll shut off.
> But if it can't communicate with them, then it knows there's been a crisis. We've been hit by a nuclear warhead and all the lines of communications with the Defense Ministries have been taken out. So now, we need to bypass all the traditional layers of command authority, and suddenly, the ability to launch a nuclear retaliatory strike is given to some junior official in a bunker.
The goal was that the Premier of the USSR was not allowed to have the authority to order a nuclear first strike. Only the Politburo could do that. This was post-Stalin, and the leadership didn't want one person to have too much power.
The USSR earlier had a dual-custody system - the military controlled the delivery systems, but the KGB controlled the warheads. They had to cooperate. Again, no single person could start a nuclear war. This is very Soviet. Padlocks that require two different keys are a popular USSR antique.
The Premier could activate Perimetr in a crisis. But that didn't do much. Only if Moscow were destroyed, for which there are sensors, and the system could not communicate with the underground bunkers of either the leadership or the General Staff, would the system activate. Several locations could stop the process.
Even if triggered by the destruction of Moscow and the silence of higher authority, Perimetr just released the codes that allowed regional commanders to use nuclear weapons at their discretion. It didn't launch an attack automatically, although some articles claim it did.
This is much more restrictive than the US system. The US president has the authority and the codes to launch a nuclear first strike. This was a very real concern in the last days of the Trump administration, enough that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Speaker of the House met to discuss what to do if attack orders were issued.
A French young man has a special auditory skill to identify other Submarines but a knack for messing up things at the worst moment. His commander gets upgraded to a French Nuclear missile submarine as tensions between EU and Russia get increasingly tense. Its not a Oscar winner but just a story very well done.You will have a good time. I liked the characters development and the several crossing stories while keeping the action at a fluid and surprising pace. Perfect movie for a pre-weekend relaxed evening.
One thing I found interesting: the book states that much of DPRK C3 is done over encrypted channels that use civilian cell phone network towers, because they can't afford to maintain a completely separate military communications network like many other nuclear states.
During the crisis, South Korea fires a missile at the Kim family home when Kim Jong Un was known to be observing a missile test elsewhere. But this results in rumors that Kim Jong Un had been killed, resulting in a spike in civilian cell phone traffic and a collapse in service. With communications down, missiles striking official residences, and a South Korea/US wargame happening next door, Kim concludes that a decapitation attack is in progress and goes nuclear.
Fun fact: for several decades the US has had a telephone priority system for government officials. If the book is at all correct, if would be in the US's interests for the DPRK to implement one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Emergency_Telecommu...
It was a good movie but I really hope that the "no recall possible" thing was just a plot point and not reality. There should always be an authenticated recall option especially before it's launched.
The design was for 100MT. Tsar Bomba was a reduced yield variant where some of uranium was replaced by lead to reduce the yield to 50MT. The 100MT variant had the same weight and dimensions and was deliverable by the same airplane.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) follows a US-made doomsday machine, with a little more care taken to explain/defend its creation.
nb spoilers abound if you try to read anything about it
Not that I'm eager to find out, if you're catching my drift.
I should have chosen my words more carefully.
If we think of it as a weapon, yes. If we think of it as a demolition device, then not even the sky is a limit. You never know when you might need to demolish a small moon.
> We're in the middle of a very odd arms race at the moment. [...] The biggest shift that's happened over the last couple of decades is that the US has invested a lot in anti-ballistic missile technology. That has either genuinely spooked the Russians and the Chinese, or it's allowed their military industrial complexes to push for a lot of money. They have similar dynamics as we do. It doesn't matter if they actually think it will be effective or not.
> The result is that both the Chinese and the Russians are developing fairly untested high-technology deterrence options, which include things like hypersonic warheads or drone-torpedoes—the kind of stuff that you would imagine they would do because they fear that their second strike capability is being affected by anti-ballistic missile technology. The US response to that is, maybe we should have some hypersonics also. It's another arms race for its own sake.
> [...] Are we getting close to a similar knife-edge today?
> The difficulty is that, for some of those choices, we've already chosen the path, and most people don't realize it. There are baked-in consequences of a decade of policy decisions. So even if we decided today, let's not go in this direction, it would still take active work to undo our policy decisions, much less convince the Chinese to undo theirs.
my note:
For a while now I have felt this sinking realization that even as global warming is slowly being understood as an existential threat, nuclear war is slipping out of our minds completely. In the end I'm afraid the two will collude to bring our civilization to collapse.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosion...
https://senseis.xmp.net/?AtomicBombGame
> The blast from the atomic bomb "Little Boy" above Hiroshima interrupted the game in its third day. It came at 8.15 am and at a point where the players had replayed the position - but had not yet started the game again. There were injuries to some of those there caused by flying glass, and damage to the building. Hashimoto was blown off his feet. The game wasn't resumed until after lunch. The game was then played to a conclusion, Hashimoto winning by five points with White (there was no komi). This tied the match 1-1.
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So we know what to do when a nuclear weapon goes off. You get knocked off your feat, wonder wtf is going on. Then you reset the gameboard and play your next move.
ra· di· us | ˈrā-dē-əs
plural radii ˈrā- dē- ˌī also radiuses
to be fair, that was how Teller wanted to solve most problems
If there was ever a project that embodied the quote, this is it.