How I Learned to Love the Bomb

"Well, boys, I reckon this is it - nukular combat toe-to-toe with the Rooskies." - MAJ T.J. "King" Kong, Dr Strangelove

During the Cold War the United States kept nuclear-armed bombers in the skies 24 hours a day, ready to strike in the event of a Soviet attack. Bombers were only one of the available delivery methods, however.

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, the most sophisticated of which was the Minuteman III (450 of which are still operational and capable of being launched within 1 minute), could deliver a W87 nuclear warhead packing the explosive power of 475 kilotons of TNT (to put this in perspective, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was measured at about 15 kilotons), by climbing to an altitude of 3.7 million feet (almost 100 times higher than a 747's cruising altitude on a trans-continental flight) and then re-entering the atmosphere at a speed of 15,000 MPH to detonate within 150 meters of its intended target.

Test launch of an LGM-25C Titan II from an underground silo, 1960s

Initially, ICBMs were designed to carry only one warhead but technological improvements led to the development of the Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle, or MIRV, in 1970, which could deliver up to ten warheads on a single missile. The Peacekeeper, at a throw weight of 96 tons, a range of over 5,200 miles, and at a cost of $70 million each, was one such missile, which could deliver the combined explosive power of 3,000 kilotons of TNT (the equivalent of 200 times the explosive power detonated over Hiroshima in 1945).

Testing of the Peacekeeper MIRV at Kawajalein Atoll

The largest thermonuclear device ever detonated was the Tsar Bomba, detonated by the Soviet Union on October 30, 1961. Originally designed to have a 100 megaton yield, it was ultimately reduced to a 50 megaton yield out of concern about nuclear fallout (???). The final product was over 3,000 times as powerful as Little Man, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and had the equivalent of a quarter of the explosive power of the 1883 Krakatoa explosion, which was heard 3,000 miles away by people on the island of Mauritius. The Tsar Bomba produced a fireball 5 miles in diameter that almost destroyed the bomber that dropped it. It was such a powerful explosion that it could cause third-degree burns 62 miles away from ground zero and broke window panes 560 miles away.

The Tsar Bomba's fireball

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