Now We Know:The Top Ten Greatest Ever Weapons

What about a 'Tsar Bomba',50Megaton warhead delivered with a precise airburst?
Greatest weapon of all time.
Thank God no-one has ever.:bang:
 
sven hassell said:
What about a 'Tsar Bomba',50Megaton warhead delivered with a precise airburst?
Greatest weapon of all time.
Thank God no-one has ever.:bang:
Click to expand...

It was too big to be deployed in a real war. The bomb was almost as large as the plane carrying it.
 
Personally I think the Brown Bess Flintcock musket should be on the list instead of the harquebuses (which it replaced). While a Haquebuses was dangerous in the hands of a skilled soldier the flintcock was murderous in the hands of an inept one. I choose the Brown Bess because it was an exception design that stayed the Standard British Army Infantry weapon for almost 100 years.
 
zander_0633 said:
Any pics on that! Never heard it before!
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The Beginings of Russian Nuclear Bomb Physics​



The beginnings of nuclear physics were already being studied in Germany before the Second World War, and when war broke out, many prominent scientists fled to the United States to continue their research. Those who had fled warned the American government how close the Germans had been to creating a chain reaction. Taking the message to heart, the Americans initiated a crash course in nuclear physics with the ultimate aim of producing a nuclear bomb before the Germans did. Luckily, Hitler completely overlooked his nation’s potential in that regard, never producing any form of nuclear weapon, and only creating a usable rocket after it was too late to make a comeback.

kurchatov.jpeg
In Russia, some early work on nuclear fission was done by Yakov Zel’dovich and Yuri Khariton, who published several papers on the subject between 1939 and 1941. In 1943, after obtaining intelligence reports on the American Manhattan Project, the Russians officially began a nuclear weapon program under Igor Kurchatov. The program was largely an intelligence operation until after the war, when Russia was able to hire about 400 scientists who were veterans of the German V-2 ballistic rocket program. It fared well as an intelligence operation as there was a lot of excellent information coming in from sympathetic Manhattan Project scientists. Their willingness to leak information to Russia was due mainly to sympathy (the Russians had been fighting alone on the home front since 1941) and made possible by poor security (the urgency of the Manhattan Project left little room for strict controls). Some scientists, such as Klaus Fuchs, were able to provide the Russians with detailed design descriptions of American bombs, which in most cases resulted in conviction on treason changes and death.

After the war, Levrenti Beria, head of the secret police, became the new head of the Russian atomic program. Although Kurchatov remained scientific director, Beria exercised his authority and ordered that the first nuclear test be conducted with an exact replica of the American “Fat Man” bomb that fell on Nagasaki. The bomb was built according to plans supplied by Fuchs in 1945, and the test “First Lightning” (Joe 1 in the West) took place on August 29, 1949, barely four years after the program had begun. It would be two years before another test was conducted, since the urgency with which the program had operated led to unsafe operating procedures which had to be revised. The second test involved the same device, but with the modifications Beria had suppressed in 1949.

In 1947 the United States, which at that time had the world monopoly on nuclear weapons, proposed a plan to the United Nations whereby all nuclear weapons would be banned, and until an inspecting body had been set up, they could retain their arsenal. When the issue came up for voting, Russia exercised its veto power within the UN, as Stalin was aware how close his scientists were to creating a workable weapon. By 1949 the Russians had managed to create their first nuclear explosion; much sooner than the Americans had anticipated. The severity of the American reaction (fostered by shock and surprise) led Russia to fear that the Americans might start a preventative war before they could build up any sort of arsenal, so they redoubled their productivity.

Spurred by Russian efforts, President Truman instigated a crash program in fusion weapons, fearing the Russians might surpass them. Stalin received word of this through his spies, and kicked the Russian fusion program into high gear. The Russian program was run by Zel’dovich, along with Andrei Sakharov, Vitali Ginzberg and Viktor Davidenko. Their first idea was similar to the American’s, and involved a fission core surrounded by fusion fuel, but where the Americans had dismissed the idea as unworkable, the Russians actually managed to make a workable weapon out of it.



The Americans tested their first fusion weapon in November 1952, barely nine months before the Russians tested their “Sloika” (layer cake) design. While the Slokia test was a success, it was determined that the layering design was unsuitable for higher yield explosions, and with the Americans currently testing 10 Megaton bombs, it was clear that Russian scientists had been missing something. By late 1953 Davidenko had discovered what it was, and development began using an atomic trigger to compress the fusion fuel. Another breakthrough was credited to Sakharov, who after the American 15 Megaton Castle Bravo test in 1954, hit upon the idea of radiation implosion. This led to the first proper Soviet test of a fusion bomb in 1955 (sometimes referred to as “super”).



In 1961 Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev ordered the development of a 100 Megaton bomb for intimidation purposes, since a bomb that large would be virtually useless to the military. The bomb was built in record time, and was given the nickname “Tsar Bomba”. It was decided to test it at half-capacity, and it was air-dropped into the Northern test site at Novaya Zemlya. The resulting explosion was the largest ever recorded, as well as the cleanest nuclear bomb test, as it derived over 97% of its energy from fusion.



Most of the research and development of nuclear weapons in Russia was conducted in the Arazamus-16 laboratory in Sartov, Russia. Tests were conducted all over the Soviet Union, but the main sites were the missile testing range in Kapustin Yar (Russia) and the warhead testing ranges in Novaya Zemlya (Russia) and Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan). The lab was founded in 1946, and from that point until the end of the Cold War in 1991, the town of Sartov did not appear on any maps of the Soviet Union. Arazamus-16 is sometimes referred to as the Soviet Los Alamos, and was headed by Soviet physicist Yuri Khariton for all 45 years of its existence. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Arazamus-16 became the home of the Russian Atomic Weapon Museum.


 
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