View media item 22629
I have identified the above explosion image used by Dextrous in his previous post.
Project: Plumbob
Test: Priscilla
Time: 13:30 24 June 1957 (GMT)
Location:Nevada Test Site, Area 5
Test Height and Type: 700 Foot Balloon
Yield: 37 kt
Priscilla was a weapons effects test sponsored by the DOD using a stockpiled device of known yield. The device used was a LASL designed Mk-15/39 boosted primary similar to that tested in Redwing Lacrosse. The predicted yield was 40 kt, the same as in the Lacrosse test, but the actual yield was slightly lower. The test device weighed 581.4 lb total (nuclear system weight was 542 lb). It was 27.1 inches in diameter, and was 27.1 inches long.
This is a railroad bridge that was 1,800 feet from Priscilla ground zero and was subjected to overpressures exceeding 450 psi, severely distorting the interior structural girders.
However the largest nuclear device ever detonated was a three stage fission-fusion-fission device known as the Tsar bomb, with a yield of 57,000,000 tonnes.
This video was taken from an observation aircraft from SIXTY miles away......
A shock wave in air was observed at Dickson settlement at 700 km; windowpanes were partially broken to distances of 900 km. All buildings in Severny (both wooden and brick), at a distance of 55 km, were completely destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed, and stone ones lost their roofs, windows and doors; and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. The atmospheric disturbance generated by the explosion orbited the earth three times. A gigantic mushroom cloud rose as high as 64 kilometers (210,000 ft).
Despite being exploded in the atmosphere, it generated substantial seismic signals. According to a bulletin of the U.S. Geological Survey it had seismic magnitude mb = 5.0 to 5.25.
If you dropped such a bomb on a european city such as Berlin or Paris, it woudl simple vaporise most of that city, and the patch of ground about 20 miles in radius would be too radioactive for weeks for troops to enter. However, its an impractical bomb to use for warfare, because its so heavy it can only be delivered by a slow lumbering Tupolev Bomber, which would be easy to shoot down. This bomb was just part of the Great Biggest Willy Contest (otherwise known as the Nuclear Arms Race of the 1950's - 1990's) conducted between the USSR and the USA.