The biggest nuke ever, the "Tsar Bomba"

I thought I would share this video I found. It shows the detonation of the 50MT Russian "Tsar Bomba" (wikipedia description below). This is truly a scary example of what nuclear warfare may look like in the future.

Tsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бомба), literally "Tsar-bomb," is the nickname for the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb (codenamed "Ivan" by its developers)—the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.

Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb was originally designed to have a yield of about 100 megatons of TNT; however, the bomb was reduced by half in order to limit the amount of nuclear fallout that would result. One bomb was built and tested on October 30, 1961, in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.[1] The weapon never entered service.

en.wikipedia.org...

Do you have any idea how far away the camera was?

I find this video almost beautiful in a way.

Let's all hope that this video is the only time that it is seen...

reply to post by tribewilder


No, I am not sure how far away the camera was. It is suggested though you will receive 3rd degree burns even at 100k away.

Originally posted by Scooby Doo
This is truly a scary example of what nuclear warfare may look like in the future.

There really is no point in using a bomb that big unless of course it is just as a demonstration of a flipping big bomb (as the tsar bomb was).

Funnily enough they are too powerful! You can only destroy something so much!! The power of a blast falls off to the inverse spuare - simply put it is a waste to have 50 odd megatonnes set off in one place when you could cause much more destruction over a massively increased area by having 5 x's 10 MT devices, or 10 x's 5MT devices and overlapping the blast radius. 50 MT's was simply showing off by the Ruskies!

Hahahaha this bomb is aboslutely NOTHING compared to what they'll really use when the time comes, this bomb is like a cute adorable little child compared to the beast they want to unleash.

Actually I think this is a computer simulation of the Tsar-Bomba 50Mt nuke.

The Soviets only made 1 of these to show the world how strong they were. And 1 without the explosive components to put in a museum.

I think even in countries nearby, possibly Finland, people got mild skin burns.

On wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org...

There is a video of it from the air on youtube which I think is the real thing and the photo caption on wikipedia is from that such video if I remember correctly.

If you want to see the blast radius for one of those suckers, check out the link in this thread.

reply to post by john124


Yeah, I tend to agree. So I found this one:

reply to post by AboveGeneric


No, strategic warhead yields have actually declined as accuracy has improved. As another posted pointed out, there is no point in wasting material in one huge yield warhead when you can make several and either overlap, or strike multiple targets.

That is not to say that an egotistical nutjob (KJL, Amadenijad) may not eventually want a big one as a 'compensator', but most nuclear players want to maximize their arsenal. Oversized firecrackers like this are of a bygone era.

It is actually quite beautiful in a scary sorta way.

Its a crazy Nuclear Test Video

This looks like it was made on 3DS Max. It all seems to happen a bit to quickly to me and the scale seems wrong. If i remember correctly the tsar bomb didnt produce the effect everyone was expecting as most of the force rebounded off the earth and went into outer space.

[edit on 1-9-2009 by VitalOverdose]

the actual test

Originally posted by VitalOverdose
This looks like it was made on 3DS Max. It all seems to happen a bit to quickly to me and the scale seems wrong. If i remember correctly the tsar bomb didnt produce the effect everyone was expecting as most of the force rebounded off the earth and went into outer space.

[edit on 1-9-2009 by VitalOverdose]

To me this seemed quite obvious from the start. It could have been because I've seen the Tsar Bomb videos before. Also the tags said it was all CG.

The real Tsar Bomb was very very scary. But it's unlikely they would ever use a bomb that size again. Not unless they actually wanted total destruction. Smaller nukes do the job perfectly well. Although they should all be destroyed in my opinion.

I think their vacuum bombs (FOAB) are far more impressive. I doubt the tsar will ever be used, it's just bragging rights.



[edit on 2-9-2009 by quackers]

reply to post by quackers

The .44kt is FOAB is less than half as powerful as the little guys in the beginning of this video





The FOAB fireball is .3km across




The fire ball of tsar bomba


Is 8 km across



[edit on 2-9-2009 by punkinworks]

[edit on 2-9-2009 by punkinworks]

[edit on 2-9-2009 by punkinworks]

To give a sense of scale those "hills" in the distance (to the left) are actually 7000ft mountains that are over 300 miles away

i.ytimg.com...

reply to post by Scooby Doo


Yay to the biggest nuke ever.

Puleese! Do you want to end your life sooner rather than later?

You know the biggest nuke ever will end all life?

Down with praising this crap.

Anyone considered the ONE thing that is scarier than the video of the detonation of Big Ivan? The date, 1961.

That was 48 years ago, we could only dream to wonder how much progress has secretly been made on this and even 'greater' weapons.

It's always good to demonstrate that kind of fire power...it's existence has definately changed how wars are fought. Since the birth of the nuclear weapon, the great/super-power on great/super-power wars which flourished in the past are non-existent and the wars that are fought are of a much smaller scale and rely more heavily on the diplomatic and legal issues than military issues.

Because politicians, industrial, social and cultural aspects are the main forces behind wars its good that the military can say look here, this is something we've been working on...the enemy has these also, if YOU sissy's who have probably never been in a fist fight want to send us out in the field to die...most likely they'll hit our cities with these things and we can hit them back twice as hard...

The metro-sexual book worms will stop sending real men to die in wars.

People need to tremble and need to be afraid...they'll stop thinking so much. It just gets you into trouble and bomb's like that make it quite clear the consequences of your perverse thoughts.