Joe 4 was an American nickname for the first
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
test of a
thermonuclear weapon
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
on August 12, 1953, that detonated with a force equivalent to 400
kiloton
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a t ...
s of
TNT
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...
. The proper Soviet terminology for the warhead was RDS-6s, , .
RDS-6 utilized a scheme in which
fission and
fusion
Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole.
Fusion may also refer to:
Science and technology Physics
*Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...
fuel (
lithium-6
Naturally occurring lithium (3Li) is composed of two stable isotopes, lithium-6 and lithium-7, with the latter being far more abundant on Earth. Both of the natural isotopes have an unexpectedly low nuclear binding energy per nucleon ( for lit ...
deuteride
In chemistry, a hydride is formally the anion of hydrogen( H−). The term is applied loosely. At one extreme, all compounds containing covalently bound H atoms are called hydrides: water (H2O) is a hydride of oxygen, ammonia is a hydride of ...
) were "
layered", a design known as the ''Sloika'' (russian: Слойка, links=no, named after a type of layered puff pastry) model in the Soviet Union. A ten-fold increase in explosive power was achieved by a combination of fusion and fission. A similar design was earlier theorized by
Edward Teller
Edward Teller ( hu, Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care fo ...
, but never tested in the U.S., as the "
Alarm Clock
An alarm clock (or sometimes just an alarm) is a clock that is designed to alert an individual or group of individuals at a specified time. The primary function of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they ar ...
".
Description
The Soviet Union started studies of advanced nuclear bombs and a hydrogen bomb, code named RDS-6, in June 1948. The studies would be done by
KB-11
The All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) (russian: Всероссийский научно-исследовательский институт экспериментальной физики) is a research inst ...
(usually referred to as
Arzamas-16
Sarov (russian: Саро́в) is a closed town in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It was known as Gorkiy-130 (Горький-130) and Arzamas-16 (), after a (somewhat) nearby town of Arzamas,SarovLabsCreation of Nuclear Center Arzamas-16/ref ...
, the name of the town) and
FIAN
''Fianna'' ( , ; singular ''Fian''; gd, Fèinne ) were small warrior-hunter bands in Gaelic Ireland during the Prehistoric_Ireland#Iron_Age_(500_BC_–_AD_400), Iron Age and History of Ireland (400–800), early Middle Ages. A ''fian'' was mad ...
.
The first hydrogen bomb design was the Truba (russian: Труба, pipe/cylinder) (RDS-6t)). In March 1948
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly aft ...
had provided the USSR with documents of the US
'Classical Super'. In these documents the classical super was described as consisting of a gun-type Uranium-235 primary with beryllium oxide tamper and a secondary consisting of a long cylinder with deuterium, doped with tritium near the primary. The design of the RDS-6t was similar to this classical super. The difference was that the light shell of beryllium oxide was replaced by a heavy shell. The assumption was that the deuterium tritium mixture could be easily heated and compressed and the shock would start the thermonuclear reaction prematurely. A heavy shell opaque to radiation would prevent this unwanted preheating more than the light shell.
In September / October 1948
Andrei Sakharov
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for nu ...
, working in FIAN, came up with a competing idea of alternating layers of deuterium and Uranium-238 around a fissile core (Sakharov's 'first idea'). This second design was code named Sloika (RDS-6s) or 'Layer Cake' after the layering. In March 1949
Vitaly Ginzburg
Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg, ForMemRS (russian: Вита́лий Ла́заревич Ги́нзбург, link=no; 4 October 1916 – 8 November 2009) was a Russian physicist who was honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003, together with ...
proposed to replace the deuterium by Lithium-6 deuteride ('second idea'). The proposal was based on the better efficiency due to the generation of tritium by the neutron capture of lithium and the Uranium-238 fission by the 14 MeV neutrons from D + T fusion. At that time Ginzburg did not know that the cross section for D + T reaction was much larger than that for D + D reaction. In April 1949 the group received D + T cross section data obtained from intelligence gathering without mentioning the source. The large advantage of lithium deuteride became evident and the deuterium design was abandoned. Both the 'first' and 'second' idea were used in the RDS-6s. The result was similar to the US 'Alarm Clock', but there is no indication that the Soviets were aware of the concept of the 'Alarm Clock'.
After the United States tested
Mike
Mike may refer to:
Animals
* Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum
* Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off
* Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documenta ...
in November 1952,
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...
sent a memo to spare no effort on the development of the RDS-6s. In the final development report from June 1953 the yield was estimated at 300 +/- 100 kilotons.
The RDS-6s was tested on August 12, 1953 (Joe 4). The measured yield was 400 kilotons, 10% from fission of the Uranium-235 core, 15-20% from fusion and 70 - 75% from fission of the Uranium-238 layers.
After the successful test Sakharov proposed a more powerful version of the RDS-6s, code named RDS-6sD.
Attempts to increase the yield of the RDS-6s however proved unfeasible.
In December 1953 all research on the RDS-6t was also stopped after it was proven that thermonuclear ignition was not possible in the RDS-6t. Both the RDS-6s and the RDS-6t were dead ends and research focused again on a two-stage thermonuclear weapon.
A variant of the RDS-6s was developed later, code named RDS-27. The difference between the RDS-6s and the RDS-27 was that the RDS-27 did not use tritium. This improved the operational usefulness of the RDS-27, but reduced the yield from 400 kilotons to 250 kilotons. The RDS-27 was intended as a warhead for the
R-7 ICBM.
The RDS-27 was tested November 6, 1955 (Joe 18).
Despite the inability of the RDS-6s to be scaled into the megaton range, the detonation was still used by Soviet diplomats as leverage. The Soviets claimed that they too had a hydrogen bomb, but unlike the United States' first thermonuclear weapon, theirs was deployable by air. The United States didn't develop a deployable version of the hydrogen bomb until 1954.
The first Soviet test of a "true" hydrogen bomb was on November 22, 1955 under the directive of
Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин; – 24 February 1975) was a Soviet politician who served as Minister of Defense (1953–1955) and Premier of the Soviet Union (1955–1 ...
(influenced by
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
), code-named
RDS-37
RDS-37 was the Soviet Union's first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on 22 November 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test.
Leading to the RDS-37
The RDS-3 ...
. All were at
Semipalatinsk Test Site
The Semipalatinsk Test Site (Russian language, Russian: Семипалатинск-21; Semipalatinsk-21), also known as "The Polygon", was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located on the steppe in northeast ...
,
Kazakh SSR
; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы)
*1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы)
, linking_name = the ...
. Like RDS-6, it was a "dry" weapon, using lithium-6 deuteride instead of liquid deuterium.
See also
*
2013 Chelyabinsk meteor airburst, whose estimated explosive force slightly exceeded the RDS-6s test's energy
*
Joe 1
The RDS-1 (russian: РДС-1), also known as Izdeliye 501 (device 501) and First Lightning (), was the nuclear bomb used in the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test. The United States assigned it the code-name Joe-1, in reference to Joseph S ...
*
RDS-37
RDS-37 was the Soviet Union's first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on 22 November 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test.
Leading to the RDS-37
The RDS-3 ...
*
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
Although the Soviet scientific community dis ...
*
Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike was the codename given to the first full-scale test of a thermonuclear device, in which part of the explosive yield comes from nuclear fusion.
Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952, by the United States on the island of Elugelab in ...
*
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device was the most powerful ...
*
Boosted fission weapon
A boosted fission weapon usually refers to a type of nuclear bomb that uses a small amount of fusion fuel to increase the rate, and thus yield, of a fission reaction. The neutrons released by the fusion reactions add to the neutrons released du ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
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External links
Soviet and Nuclear Weapons History* Video footage of th
Joe-4 Nuclear Test*
Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин; – 24 February 1975) was a Soviet politician who served as Minister of Defense (1953–1955) and Premier of the Soviet Union (1955–1 ...
{{coord, 50, 26, 16, N, 77, 48, 51, E, display=title
Nuclear bombs of the Soviet Union
Soviet nuclear weapons testing
Cold War history of the Soviet Union
1953 in the Soviet Union
1953 in military history
Explosions in 1953
August 1953 events in Asia