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USSR Archive
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Joe-1-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 00:00 UTC 29/08/1949
Type: Tower @30m
Yield: 22 Kt
The first Soviet nuclear test, code named "First Lightning" the RDS-1. Houses, a bridge, a simulated metro, armored vehicles, 50 aircraft and 1500 animals were positioned in the test grounds. The code designation RDS was actually arbitrary, one popular interpretation was "Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Stalina" (Stalin's Rocket Engine), another was "Russia Does It Alone". The whole focus of the Soviet program at this point was to set off a Soviet atomic blast at the earliest possible time whatever the cost. At Project leader Lavrenti Beria's insistence , this device was an exact copy of the U.S. Gadget/Fat Man mainly thanks to extensive espionage. The 17,000 sq/mile test site was located 95 miles west of the city of Semipalatinsk on the steppes of present day Kazakhstan. The device would later be weaponized in RDS-1, the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon.
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Joe-2-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 06:19 UTC 24/09/1951
Type: Tower @30m
Yield: 38.3kt
Joe-2 was exploded on 24 September 1951 with a yield of 38.3 Kt. A plutonium implosion bomb, it incorporated improvements such as tritium boosting and pit levitation that Beria had prevented from being used in Joe-1. The rush to build and test Joe-1 had been so intense, that Soviet scientists had made no preparation for long term nuclear weapons research. Subsequently there was a two year gap between the first and second nuclear test.
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Joe-3-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 03:53 UTC 18/10/1951
Type: Airdrop @380m
Yield: 42kt
Code named Joe-3 by the US, this was the first Soviet air-dropped bomb test. Released from an
altitude of 10 km, it detonated 380 meters above the ground. It was a boosted weapon using a
composite construction of levitated plutonium core with a uranium 235 shell.
View 2
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Joe-4-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 12/08/1953
Type: Tower @30m
Yield: 400kt
Joe-4 was the fifth Soviet nuclear test and demonstrated the use of fusion in a weaponizable design known as the Sloika or "Layer Cake" design. The device obtained nearly all of its yield from fission and was limited for practical purposes to yields of less than 1Mt. The RDS-6s warhead used a U-235 fissile core surrounded by alternating layers of lithium-6 deuteride spiked with tritium, and a uranium fusion tamper inside a high explosive implosion system. The RDS-6t “Truba” was a two stage gun-type bomb with a D-T (Deuterium-Tritium) secondary. The Sloika was the brain child of Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov the head of the RDS-6s research project along with physicists Vitali Ginzburg, and Viktor Davidenko. Though not a true thermonuclear weapon as the Soviets claimed, and in conjunction with the fact that it was air-deliverable caused considerable embarrassment to the US. The US did not successfully test a deliverable thermonuclear bomb until 1954.
View 2
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Joe-8-|Totask|
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Date: 06:33 UTC 14/09/1954
Type: Airdrop @350m
Yield: 40kt
The Joe-8 test involved 44,000 Soviet troops at the Totsk range in the Orenberg region. Troops were positioned in trenches as close as 5 km to the designated ground zero, with one group of troops in a forward post about 2.5 km the epicenter. A Tu-4 "Bull" bomber was used to deliver an RDS-3 nuclear bomb. The weapon detonated at 6:33 GMT with a yield of 40 kt at 350 m. The weapon was 280 m off target, placing it even closer to the group of forward positioned troops. Totsk was chosen because of it's geographical similarity to Western Germany, where a possible war between the Soviet Union and United States might be fought. 40 minutes after the detonation, the troops were ordered to engage in a mock battle under the still rising mushroom cloud, with some soldiers coming as close as half a mile of ground zero. Some soldiers were suffering radiation sickness even before their return to base. Today it is unknown how much radiation the soldiers were exposed to during the exercise. Every soldier was sworn to secrecy following the test, and reportedly the medical archives of the local hospital were destroyed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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View 4
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Joe-14-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 30/10/1954
Type: Airburst @55m
Yield: 10kt
No further data available
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Joe-17-|Novaya Zemlya|
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Date: 21/09/1955
Type: Torpedo @-10m
Yield: 3.5kt
The first nuclear test fired at Novaya Zemlya was an underwater test of the RDS-9 warhead deployed on the 53-58 (T-5) torpedo. Over 30 ships were positioned at distances ranging from 300m to 1.6Km. Among the ships were four destroyers, three submarines, minesweepers and seaplanes. Over 500 goats and sheep, 100 dogs, and other animals were on board the ships. Only one ship was sunk by the explosion, a destroyer less than 300m from the explosion.
Surface zero
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Assembly and loading
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Joe-18-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 06/11/1955
Type: Airdrop @1000m
Yield: 250 Kt
This was a test of the RDS-27 bomb. The RDS-27 was almost identical to the RDS-6s design, except that is did not use tritium. The 250 kiloton yield was within the predicted range. Photos of this test are often mislabeled as being the November 22, 1955 test of the RDS-37 warhead. This was the world's first airdrop of a device that used thermonuclear reactions. The test was originally scheduled for the 5th, but was postponed until the 6th due to adverse weather conditions. At the time of the test there were some clouds,snowfall, and high winds (7 m/s) which helped reduce downwind fallout. The bomb was dropped by a Tu-16 bomber from an altitude of 12 km, exploded in 10:40 am (local), 1 km over the ground. The yield was within estimates, with 90% due to fission.
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Joe-19-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 22/11/1955
Type: Airdrop @1550m
Yield: 1.6 Mt
Designated Joe-19 was the Soviet Union's first test of a two-stage radiation
implosion design aka Sakharov's "Third Idea",a rediscovery of the Teller Ulam design,
later weaponised and designated RDS-37. The bomb's yield was reduced from its
design yield for the test by 50% by replacing part of the Li-6 D fusion fuel
with lithium hydride. Air dropped by a crew commanded by F. P. Golovashko (made
Hero of the Soviet Union). The bomb exploded underneath an thermal inversion
layer, which focused the shock back toward the ground unexpectedly. This
refracted shock wave did unanticipated collateral damage, killing two people.
The RDS-37 gave the Soviet Union a short lived monopoly on thermonuclear
weapons. It had demonstrated, along with the RDS-27 test, that the Soviet Union
had air deliverable thermonuclear weapons. The United States would not achieve
this until 1956 when it successfully dropped a hydrogen bomb during Operation
Redwing, codenamed Cherokee.
Alternate
clip
showing a wide-angle view and damage to structures.
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Joe-23-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 24/08/1956
Type: Tower @93m
Yield: 27 kt
Codenamed Joe-23 by the USA, and numbered '28' by the USSR, this atomic bomb test took place on 24 August 1956 at the Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS) in Kazakhstan. The device was mounted on top of a tower, and had a yield of 27 kilotons.
Preperation
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Joe-14-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 02/09/1956
Type: Airburst @1050m
Yield: 51kt
Unsuccessful test of a thermonuclear device, nominal yield was 400kt but the actual yield was 51kt due to the 2nd stage failing to ignite.
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Roza-|Novaya Zemlya|
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Date: 12/09/1961
Type: Airburst @1190m
Yield: 1150 Kt
Operation Roza was conducted under the command of Colonel General Victor Anisimovich Bolyatko. An R-12 balistic missile with a “product 49” warhead (a thermonuclear device, derived from the RDS-37) was launched in Vorkuta, north of Ural mountains. The launch was delayed when communication between the launch point and the base in Novaya Zemlya was broken twenty minutes before the launch. Communication was restored and the rocket launched, exploding in Mityushika bay at an altitude of 1190 meters with a yield of 1150 kt.
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Korall-|Novaya Zemlya|
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Date: 23/10/1961
Type: Subsurface @-20m
Yield: 4.8 Kt
Korall was an experiment with the objective of studying the effectiveness of the nuclear torpedo T-5 and the use of a new warhead system named ASBZO. Testing took place in Chyornaya bay. Torpedoes were launched from a B-130 submarine, commanded by Captain N.A.Shumkov at a range of 12.5 km. The system was initially tested with a conventional explosive warheads, and later on the 27th of October with a more powerful 16kt warhead.
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Tsar Bomba-|Novaya Zemlya|
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Date: 08:33 UTC 30/10/1961
Type: Airburst @4000m
Yield: 50 Mt
Tsar Bomba, the King of all Bombs. No other man made explosion has come close to the power of 1961
test. Its yield was ten times greater then all of the munitions exploded during WWII. It was not a
practical weapon, but a Cold War political stunt to frighten the West. Weighing 27 tons and 8
meters long, the TU-95 that carried had to be specially modified. Parachute retarded, it detonated
4km over the Novaya Zemlya testing grounds. It initially created a 6.5km wide fireball, Light from
the detonation was visible 1,000 km away; blast damage 1000km away; the mushroom cloud rose as high
as 64 km and developed to a width of 30-40 km.
Initial fireball
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| Loading
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Tyulpan-|Novaya Zemlya|
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Date: 8-18/09/1962
Type: Airburst @~2000m
Yield: 1.3-1.9 Mt
Test of the R-14 Chusovaya ballistic missile NATO reporting name SS-5 Skean during Operation
Tyulpan. The warhead detonated at approximately 2000m above the Mityushikha bay area of the Novaya Zemlya test range. The video shows one of two possible tests, on either the 8th or the 18th of September.
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Chagan-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 06:00 UTC 15/01/1965
Type: Subsurface @-178m
Yield: 140 Kt
Chagan was the USSR's first Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE), the
purpose being to gather data on the use of nuclear explosives for industrial
purposes. A 140 kiloton low-fission thermonuclear device utilized a pure fusion
secondary and a 5-7 kiloton fission primary. The test was situated in the Chagan
River dry bed so that the crater lip that would be formed by the explosion would
serve as a dam during the Spring high flow. The explosion formed a crater 400
meters in diameter and 100 meters deep. A lake was formed behind the 34 meter
upraised lip. Earth moving equipment then cut a channel through the lip allowing
the river to enter the crater filling it with 12 billion litres of water. The
reservoir was named Lake Chagan also known as Lake Balapan or the "Atomic Lake".
Approximately 20% of the fission products released by the Chagan test escaped into the atmosphere,
with dose levels at the crater lip of 20-30 R/hr. While the test did not violate the 1963 Limited
Test Ban Treaty (it was an underground test), radiation was later detected over
Japan. Today, the dose level on the lip is reported to be ~2.6 mR/hr. Beyond a
restricted area 100-150 m from the lip, the dose rate is at background levels.
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Butan-|Bashkir|
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Date: 08:00 UTC 30/03/1965
Type: subsurface @-1350m
Yield: 2.3-7.6kt
1965, two 2.3kt devices are used to stimulate the release of butane and oil from subterranian
deposits at the Grachevskij oil field, 40 km east of the city of Meleuz, Bashkortostan, Russia. A
third 7.6kt was detonated 3 months later. The operation was repeated again in the 1980s with a
further two 3.2kt devices.
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Urta-Bulak-|Uzbekistan|
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Date: 05:59 UTC 30/09/1966
Type: subsurface @-1532m
Yield: 30kt
Control of the Urtabulak gas well in the Bukhara region had been lost. When conventional techniques
to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, a subsurface 30 kiloton nuclear device was used to seal
off the well. It was listed as a 'seismic event' by the Soviets to conceal the true nature of
ordnance used.
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Taiga-|Semipalatinsk|
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Date: 07:00 UTC 23/03/1971
Type: Subsurface @-124m
Yield: 15Kt (x3)
The Taiga experiment was set of Soviet PNE's (Peaceful Nuclear Explosion) in
1969. Three nuclear devices, each with a 15 kiloton yield were detonated 124
meters underground. The nuclear devices were specially designed to have a
minimal fission yield with Only 0.3 kilotons coming from fission reactions.
Despite these measures, the radiation from the explosion was detected outside
the Soviet Union by several countries, including the United States and Sweden.
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