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most powerful bomb ever!


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The Most Powerful Bomb Ever Constructed

On October 30, 1961, the most powerful weapon ever constructed by mankind was exploded over the island of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Sea. The device was code-named "Ivan," and it was a multi-stage hydrogen bomb which was built in only fifteen weeks by engineers in the USSR, using off-the-shelf nuclear weapon components.

It was intended as a display of Soviet superiority during a period of grave tension between the USSR and the United States. The Russians had erected the Berlin wall only two months earlier, and they had just ended a shaky, three-year moratorium on atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. Before Ivan, the largest explosion the world had seen was an incredible 15 megatons, an event which caused a mushroom cloud five kilometers across. Ivan's explosion was over three times more powerful, despite the fact that the device was deliberately prevented from operating to its full potential.

The completed weapon weighed 27 metric tons, and though it was technically "aircraft-deliverable," it was too large to fit inside the bomb bay of the largest soviet bomber of that era, the Tu-95. Consequently, a Tu-95 was specially modified for the task, including the removal of the bomb bay doors to allow the bomb to protrude from the plane, and a coating of a special reflective paint to minimize the heat damage it would sustain from the fireball. Ivan was also attached to a parachute to prevent it from descending too rapidly, thereby giving the bomber adequate time to get out of range of the blast.

Because the project had been rushed, much of the mathematical analysis was skipped, and estimations were used instead. This led to uncertainties about the system performance, and last-minute design modifications. Doubts and uncertainties notwithstanding, on October 30, 1961 the Tu-95 dropped Ivan from an altitude of 34,500 feet over the Mityushikha Bay Nuclear Testing Range at Novaya Zemlya. The weapon's on-board barometric sensors detonated the bomb at approximately 13,000 feet at 11:32am.

Despite the cloudy weather, the flash of light was visible as far as 1,000 kilometers distant, though the sound of the blast would not reach that far for forty-nine minutes, in the form of an indistinct, heavy blow. The giant fireball reached from ground-level to about 34,000 feet into the air, violently releasing 3800 times more explosive energy than the Hiroshima bomb– equivalent to fifty million metric tons of TNT. One hundred kilometers from ground zero the heat would have inflicted third degree burns. Atmospheric focusing produced areas of destruction hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, including wooden structures which were completely destroyed, and some shattered windows in Finland. The explosion's atmospheric shockwave traveled around the Earth three times before it dissipated.

The mushroom cloud which followed the blast was enormous in scale. It stretched sixty kilometers into the sky, and had a diameter of about forty kilometers. Ionization from the explosion disrupted radio communications for the better part of an hour.

Some time after the explosion, a team was dispatched to ground zero to take photographs. One witness reported: "The ground surface of the island has been levelled, swept and licked so that it looks like a skating rink. The same goes for rocks. The snow has melted and their sides and edges are shiny. There is not a trace of unevenness in the ground… Everything in this area has been swept clean, scoured, melted and blown away." Analysis of the explosion showed that the area of complete destruction had a radius of twenty-five kilometers from ground zero.

Naturally, the United States was outraged, and responded by rattling its nuclear sabre in return. The U.S. soon followed suit with an extensive series of nuclear weapons tests.

Ivan– sometimes referred to as "Tsar Bomba" or "King of Bombs"– was originally designed to yield a 100 megaton explosion, but the soviets decided that such a blast would create too great a risk of nuclear fallout, and an almost certain chance that the release plane would be unable to reach safety before detonation. Prior to testing, the engineers replaced a portion of the radioactive uranium with a lead tamper, cutting its explosive potential in half, to a "mere" 50 megatons. Later analysis showed that the fallout from a 100 megaton detonation would have resulted in lethal levels of radioactive fallout over an enormous area.

Even at half strength, Ivan was so powerful that it was completely impractical. Much of the explosion's energy radiated upwards into space, and that which didn't was so excessive that using the device on any populated targets world would have resulted in adverse effects on Russian interests. It served as nothing more than a show of force, and in that respect, it served its purpose well. Thankfully, no other weapon with the massive destructive power of Tsar Bomba has ever been.

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  • ex infernis

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  • Raptor

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  • Wolvenblood

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  • Nik Xues

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Wow, even thinking of that explosion is scary, that's some serious damage that could cause.

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Jesus! seeing it on that scale really puts things into perspective. It's a good thing they didn't make another like it.

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Just think, that's showing it after they reduced it's payload to 50 megatons. Like the article explains, it was originally twice as large.

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The most powerful bomb will be an EMP bomb. If exploded high enough in the air above the USA, it will destroy every single electronic device in all of the United States. It will cripple the whole USA without a single loss of life (except people with medical support)

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The most powerful bomb will be an EMP bomb. If exploded high enough in the air above the USA, it will destroy every single electronic device in all of the United States. It will cripple the whole USA without a single loss of life (except people with medical support)

simply put it... BACK TO STONE AGE.. US would be vulnerable. that would be a nightmare for the citizens.

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With the way people rely on technology now, the damage could be irreversable. Does an EMP linger for a while, or would it die out after it's done the damage?

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an emp bomb's full potential scares me.

it wouldn't just nock out all electrical items it could be used to kill every human/animal in a specific area.

our brains are elictrical systems and a well tuned emp could be lethal. im not sure how a size of a brain effects this attacks effeciency.

oh and nukes are the cause of Emp technology

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our brains are elictrical systems and a well tuned emp could be lethal.

no, the brain uses chemical messages. you would more likely die from the nuclear blast that is currently required to create an emp.

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Hey guys!Just wanted to make a quick observation:You keep saying"a EMP bomb".But if you just detonate a nuke over a city,high above,it IS A EMP BOMB!Just so you know,EMP is a byproduct(so to speak) of when a nuke goes off.As a general rule,when a war is declared,and nukes are to be used,first is the one high above the city.It knocks out all i mean ALL electrical.Nothing will work if it uses even a battery.Your car will not start.Every piece of electronics is now fried,killing off all communications.You detonate a few nukes over a wide enough area,the whole country goes back to no electricity.And the russians DO have way better tech when it comes to nuke R+D.They are the one's who came up with the super,wich is hydrogen bomb in nature.They were the one's who kicked up the yield by adding Tritium to achive the bigger bang.And they also have improved thier delivery systems and made new missiles that have Stealth capability.Larger yield,higher capacity,harder to destroy,and more advanced then ours in alot of ways.But we are friends with them,right?I sure hope so....

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You keep saying"a EMP bomb".But if you just detonate a nuke over a city,high above,it IS A EMP BOMB!

that's what i just said

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Russia began creating larger nuclear weapons to compensate for the fact that their delivery systems were so poor. They weren't able to accurately strike a target so they had to crank up the yield by a ridiculous amount just to ensure that they were able to do some damage where they wanted.

It was the consequence of a fault, not an advantage.

an emp bomb's full potential scares me.

it wouldn't just nock out all electrical items it could be used to kill every human/animal in a specific area.

I'm not even going to bother trying to discredit that. Provide some evidence.

Edited by Raptor
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our nervous system consists of electrical impulses does it not?

so if you tuned a device just right it could at least "taser" an area causing mass pain from a mystery source. crank up the power and you could blow the whole system.

its a theory. i think they have already done some research into these kinds of indirect weapons using sound and microwaves. its only a matter of time till they realize how to make this one to.

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sorry double post.

the weapon i describe is the ideal weapon [no buildings get damaged easier to rebuild]

the enemy will spend so much protecting his systems leaving himself exposed.

bomb em

walk in

take over

no resistence

Edited by Nik Xues
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The most powerful bomb will be an EMP bomb. If exploded high enough in the air above the USA, it will destroy every single electronic device in all of the United States. It will cripple the whole USA without a single loss of life (except people with medical support)

Nuclear detonation creates an EMP, if you guys wanna look into other really bad explosives read about octanitrocubane, supposedly the most powerful non-nuclear explosive, and just think, that was back in '61, if we wanted to nowadays, I'm sure they could build a multi stage fusion boosted fission bomb that would be more powerful that the Tsar, let's just hope they never do. I can't believe that it was that much bigger than the Hiroshima bomb....dang.....

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our nervous system consists of electrical impulses does it not?

so if you tuned a device just right it could at least "taser" an area causing mass pain from a mystery source. crank up the power and you could blow the whole system.

its a theory. i think they have already done some research into these kinds of indirect weapons using sound and microwaves. its only a matter of time till they realize how to make this one to.

again no, it it very hard (if not impossible) to induce currents in human beings that would cause any damage. if fact i remember on the Future weapons show, the host stood beneath a non-explosive emp as they fired it and he suffered no harm.

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sorry double post.

the weapon i describe is the ideal weapon [no buildings get damaged easier to rebuild]

the enemy will spend so much protecting his systems leaving himself exposed.

bomb em

walk in

take over

no resistence

That is why we made Neutron bombs.Nuclear in nature,in more ways than you think...it only destroys living organisms and leaves buildings and structures intact.Very short burst of radiation,then all is good.No long term contamination.

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Russia began creating larger nuclear weapons to compensate for the fact that their delivery systems were so poor. They weren't able to accurately strike a target so they had to crank up the yield by a ridiculous amount just to ensure that they were able to do some damage where they wanted.

It was the consequence of a fault, not an advantage.

I'm not even going to bother trying to discredit that. Provide some evidence.

I wouldn't go as far to say that Russia's delivery systems are poor. As a matter of fact, they are anything but poor when it comes to rocket engine technology in contrast to the USA. The Russians really just wanted to prove what they were capable of by making the biggest bomb at the time. Besides, I don't really think you need much accuracy for something like a nuclear bomb ;)

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Perhaps not poor in rocket design, but alot of their technology was inferior to ours. Having said that the U.S.S.R. also had better designs in some instances regardless of technology. Take the BMP, a perfectly designed armored personal carrier. We still don't have one as good as that cold war relic.

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"our nervous system consists of electrical impulses does it not?

so if you tuned a device just right it could at least "taser" an area causing mass pain from a mystery source. crank up the power and you could blow the whole system.

its a theory. i think they have already done some research into these kinds of indirect weapons using sound and microwaves. its only a matter of time till they realize how to make this one to."

I'm pretty sure they have a home defense system that uses some kind of wave (I forget which) to cause severe burning pain in intruders.

One hundred megatons is unfathomably powerful. We're so ridiculous as a species. Honestly...

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  • 2 years later...

For those who don't know what EMP stands for, it's an Electric Magnetic Pulse. EMP bombs disable most technology, I'm not sure if it disables anything that works on batteries.

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sorry double post.

the weapon i describe is the ideal weapon [no buildings get damaged easier to rebuild]

the enemy will spend so much protecting his systems leaving himself exposed.

bomb em

walk in

take over

no resistence

The neutron bomb achieves this effect and was banned. I believe the reason is more because it was specifically designed to target civilian population centers, which your bomb would do, more than anything else.

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