The Totskoye nuclear exercise was a
military exercise
A military exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the purpose of ensuring the com ...
undertaken by the
Soviet Army
uk, Радянська армія
, image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg
, alt =
, caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army
, start_date ...
to explore defensive and offensive
warfare
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
during
nuclear war
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear w ...
. The exercise, under the
code name
A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
"Snowball", involved an
aerial detonation of a 40
kt RDS-4
RDS-4 (also known as ''Tatyana'') was a Soviet nuclear bomb that was first tested at Semipalatinsk Test Site, on August 23, 1953. The device weighed approximately . The device was approximately one-third the size of the RDS-3. The bomb was dropped ...
nuclear bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
. The stated goal of the operation was military training for breaking through heavily fortified defensive lines of a military opponent using nuclear weapons.
[ An army of 45,000 soldiers marched through the area around the ]hypocenter
In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake.
Earthquakes
An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain energy s ...
soon after the nuclear blast
Nuclear Blast is a record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label mov ...
. The exercise was conducted on September 14, 1954, at 9.33 a.m.,[Memoirs of Lieutenant-Colonel N. V. Danilenko published in ''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II, 2006, p. 144]
/ref> under the command of Marshal
Marshal is a term used in several official titles in various branches of society. As marshals became trusted members of the courts of Medieval Europe, the title grew in reputation. During the last few centuries, it has been used for elevated o ...
Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( rus, Георгий Константинович Жуков, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐukəf, a=Ru-Георгий_Константинович_Жуков.ogg; 1 December 1896 – ...
to the north of Totskoye
Totskoye (russian: То́цкое) is a rural locality (a '' selo'') and the administrative center of Totsky District of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. Population:
During World War I, it was the site of a prisoner-of-war camp that became notorious ...
village in Orenburg Oblast
Orenburg Oblast (russian: Оренбургская область, ''Orenburgskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Orenburg. From 1938 to 1957, it bore the name ''Chkalov Oblast'' () ...
, Russia, in the South Ural Military District
The South Ural Military District (YuUrVO(ЮУрВО)) was a military administrative division of the Soviet Armed Forces. It existed from 1 December 1941 to 15 January 1958.
History
According to the directive No. 0444 of People's Commissar of Def ...
. The epicenter of the detonation is marked with a memorial.
History
In mid-September 1954, nuclear bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
ing tests were performed at the Totskoye proving ground during the training exercise ''Snezhok'' (russian: link=no, Снежок, ''Snowball'' or ''Light Snow'') with some 45,000 people, all Soviet soldiers and officers,[ who explored the explosion site of a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on ]Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
nine years earlier. After the first nuclear explosion, two additional non-nuclear bombs were exploded shortly after the main blast in order to imitate a second-wave nuclear strike.
The participants were carefully selected from Soviet military servicemen, informed that they would take part in an exercise with the use of a new kind of weapon, sworn to secrecy, and earned three months salary. A delegation of high-ranking government officials and senior military officers arrived to the region on the eve of the exercise, which included First Secretary 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 ...
, 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 ...
, Generals Aleksandr Vasilevsky
Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky ( ru , Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Василе́вский) (30 September 1895 – 5 December 1977) was a Soviet career-officer in the Red Army who attained the rank of Marshal of the Soviet ...
, Konstantin Rokossovsky
Konstantin Konstantinovich (Xaverevich) Rokossovsky (Russian: Константин Константинович Рокоссовский; pl, Konstanty Rokossowski; 21 December 1896 – 3 August 1968) was a Soviet and Polish officer who becam ...
, Ivan Konev
Ivan Stepanovich Konev ( rus, link=no, Ива́н Степа́нович Ко́нев, p=ɪˈvan sʲtʲɪˈpanəvʲɪtɕ ˈkonʲɪf; – 21 May 1973) was a Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union who led Red Army forces on the E ...
and Rodion Malinovsky
Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky (russian: Родио́н Я́ковлевич Малино́вский, ukr, Родіо́н Я́кович Малино́вський ; – 31 March 1967) was a Soviet military commander. He was Marshal of the Sovi ...
.[ The operation was commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov and initiated by the Soviet Ministry of Defense. At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a ][ atomic weapon—an ]RDS-4
RDS-4 (also known as ''Tatyana'') was a Soviet nuclear bomb that was first tested at Semipalatinsk Test Site, on August 23, 1953. The device weighed approximately . The device was approximately one-third the size of the RDS-3. The bomb was dropped ...
bomb, which had been previously tested in 1951 at the 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 ...
[—from . The bomb exploded above Totskoye range, from ]Totskoye
Totskoye (russian: То́цкое) is a rural locality (a '' selo'') and the administrative center of Totsky District of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. Population:
During World War I, it was the site of a prisoner-of-war camp that became notorious ...
.[
The exercise involved the ]270th Rifle Division
The 270th Rifle Division () was a Red Army infantry division formed twice during World War II, in 1941 and 1942.
The division was first formed in July 1941 and was destroyed in the Second Battle of Kharkov. Reformed in the summer of 1942, the ...
, 320 planes, 600 tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...
s and self-propelled gun
Self-propelled artillery (also called locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mo ...
s, 600 armoured personnel carriers
An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world.
Acc ...
, 500 artillery pieces and mortars and 6,000 automobiles.[''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II. 2006. P. 19]
/ref>[Totskoye nuclear exercise, 1954]
// Great Russian Encyclopedia
The ''Great Russian Encyclopedia'' (GRE; russian: Большая российская энциклопедия, БРЭ, transliterated as ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya entsiklopediya'' or academically as ''Bolšaja rossijskaja enciklopedija'') is a u ...
Following the explosion, a Li-2
The Lisunov Li-2 (NATO reporting name: Cab), originally designated PS-84, was a license-built Soviet-version of the Douglas DC-3. It was produced by Factory #84 in Moscow-Khimki and, after evacuation in 1941, at TAPO in Tashkent. The proje ...
airplane was put to use on a reconnaissance mission to report the movement of a radioactive cloud
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
produced by the blast,[ and the most dangerous areas were explored and marked by special reconnaissance troops.][Memoirs of Colonel V. I. Levykin published in ''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II, 2006, p. 142]
/ref> After the reconnaissance was complete and the Soviet command gained enough information on the level of radiation, the army moved in. The soldiers wore gas masks, protective suits and respirators,[ special gloves and capes][''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II. 2006. P. 68]
/ref> and moved around the territory in armoured personnel carriers, holding a distance of 400[''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II. 2006. P. 41]
/ref>-600 metres from the hypocenter
In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake.
Earthquakes
An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain energy s ...
and avoiding the most dangerous areas of the explosion site.[ They moved 400–500 metres from the hypocenter, whereas tanks and armoured personnel carriers came even closer.][
However, the protective measures were insufficient. According to one veteran in a Soviet documentary of the event, "Some, the majority even, had no protective clothing, and besides it was impossible to use gas masks" n the 115 degree temperatures of the area Additionally, insufficient care was taken to remove and dispose of contaminated clothing of the event. Evacuations were haphazard, where villagers who chose to stay were told to "dig ditches" to avoid effects. Yuri Sorokin filed suit in 1993 against the Russian government to receive compensation for medical injuries that he attributed to the exercise. <
Sergey Zelentsov (1927–2017), a military officer who was the first to reach the middle of the hypocenter, described his experience in the following words: "Not reaching the area of strong radioactive contamination, we crossed the road which the columns of advancing troops had passed before us. It was empty and quiet around, only the radiometers were clicking, noting us of the increased level of radiation. The troops proceeded past the hypocenter, outside of the area of severe radioactive contamination. Directly in the zone adjacent to the hypocenter of the explosion, the ground was covered with a thin glassy crust of melted sand, crunchy and breaking underfoot, like a thin ice on spring puddles after a night frost. And there were no footprints on it, except for my own. I walked quietly along this crust, since the radiometer registered a level of radioactivity not exceeding 1 R/h."][''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II. 2006. p. 127]
/ref>
The residents of villages (Bogdanovka, Fyodorovka and others) that were situated around from the hypocenter of the future explosion were offered temporary evacuation outside the radius. The nearest villages were generally not affected by the blast,[ except for a number of houses located less than from the explosion site that caught fire and burned down.][ They were evacuated by the military and temporarily accommodated in military tents. During the exercise, the residents received daily payment, while their property was insured. Those of them who decided not to return after the operation was complete, were provided with newly built four-room furnished houses near the Samarka river or obtained financial compensation.][
A few days afterwards, Soviet scientists received detailed reports on the test and began to study the impact of the nuclear blast on model houses, shelters, vehicles, vegetation and experimental animals affected by the explosion.] On 17 September 1954, the Soviet newspaper ''Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...
'' published a report on the exercise: "In accordance with the plan of scientific and experimental works, a test of one of the types of nuclear weapons has been conducted in the Soviet Union in the last few days. The purpose of the test was to examine the effects of nuclear explosion. Valuable results have been obtained that will help Soviet scientists and engineers to successfully solve the task of protecting the country from nuclear attack". The results of the exercise were discussed at a scientific conference at the Kuybyshev Military Academy in Moscow and served as the basis for the Soviet program of defense against nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear ...
.Memoirs of Colonel V. I. Levykin published in ''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II, 2006, p. 143
/ref>
See also
* List of nuclear weapons tests of the Soviet Union
The nuclear weapons tests of the Soviet Union were performed between 1949 and 1990 as part of the nuclear arms race. The Soviet Union conducted 715 nuclear tests using 969 total devices by official count, including 219 atmospheric, underwater, and ...
* Desert Rock exercises
Desert Rock was the code name of a series of exercises conducted by the US military in conjunction with atmospheric nuclear tests. They were carried out at the Nevada Proving Grounds between 1951 and 1957.
Their purpose was to train troops and ga ...
, the United States's closest counterpart.
References
*"Nuclear Testing in the USSR. Volume 2. Soviet Nuclear Testing Technologies. Environmental Effects. Safety Provisions. Nuclear Test Sites", Begell-House, Inc., New York, 1998
*A.A. Romanyukha, E.A. Ignatiev, D.V. Ivanov and A.G. Vasilyev, "The Distance Effect on the Individual Exposures Evaluated from the Soviet Nuclear Bomb Test in 1954 at Totskoye Test Site in 1954", Radiation Protection Dosimetry 86:53–58 (1999
online abstract
*
* {{Cite web , url=http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html , title=Totsk nuclear test, 1954 , author=Wm. Robert Johnston , date=2005-05-05 , accessdate=2011-03-05
by General of Aviation Ostroumov
a publication by Moskovskii Komsomolets
External links
Witness of the nuclear explosion (memoir by Valeriy Astafiev about Totskoye nuclear exercise), in Russian
Explosions in 1954
1954 in military history
Russian nuclear test sites
1954 in the Soviet Union
Soviet nuclear weapons testing
Orenburg Oblast
Human subject research in Russia
Soviet military exercises
September 1954 events in Europe