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AN602 “Tsar Bomba”

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The Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud seen from 100 miles away
The Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud seen from 100 miles away

They only needed one, and it was enough to bring about the worldwide end of airborne and surface nuclear bomb testing.

Tsar Bomba, the Soviet Union’s AN602 hydrogen bomb, was and remains the most powerful nuclear weapon ever made and its test was and remains the most powerful man-made explosion in world history.

At the 1960 United Nations General Assembly, Nikita Khrushchev promised to show the United States a “Kuz’kina Mat” — which sort of translates to “we’ll show you!” in Russian. Khrushchev showed the world in 1961 when the only Tsar Bomba ever built was dropped by a Tu-95 “Bear” bomber flown by Major Andrei Durnovtsev over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range in the Arctic, over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

Here are some numbers: The bomb weighed 27 metric tons. It was 26 feet long and 6.6 feet around. It was so big that the Tu-95V that dropped it had to have its bomb bar doors and body fuel tanks removed to accommodate it. It was attached to a parachute that, itself, weighed over 12,000 lbs. This gave the “Bear” and observing Tu-16 plane time to fly about 30 miles away before the detonation, which was still so strong that it made the massive Tu-95 drop more than half a mile in altitude due to the shock wave caused by the bomb.

The bomb detonated at 11:32 Moscow time on October 30, 1961 and created a fireball that rose up for miles and could be seen from more than 600 miles away. The mushroom cloud that resulted rose 57 miles up, which is seven times higher than Mount Everest — it’s also in the mesosphere, above the earth’s stratosphere.

The bomb was capable of a mind-boggling 100 megatons of yield, but the Soviet testers deliberately scaled this back to 57 megatons for the test. Still, at 50 mt., the bomb was the biggest ever detonated and expelled 1,400 times power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and yielded TEN TIMES the firepower of all of the ordinance expended throughout World War II.

When the bomb exploded, it leveled the surface of the testing range and melted the rocks on the ground. Thirty-four miles away, every building in the test range village of Severny was destroyed. Wooden structures 100 miles away were flattened. Radio communications were blocked for over an hour. Windows cracked 560 miles away.

The shock wave was so powerful that it circled the earth at least three times, according to measurements published in the journal Nature in February 1962. The shock wave was also so powerful that it prevented the bomb’s fireball from ever touching the ground, bouncing it up like a basketball.

All that, and we are told that there was very little nuclear fallout released by the bomb. Soviet leadership wisely decided to swap out fast-reacting uranium tampers with lead stoppers. This cut the 100 megaton yield down to 57 (Russia says 50, most experts agree that it was 50-60) but just as importantly removed 97 percent of the nuclear fallout from the bomb’s detonation.

The bomb also expelled a lot of its energy into space. This effectively limits the practical use of a weapon of this magnitude. Sure, a 50 megaton bomb will level a city, but so will a 1 megaton bomb. The bulky Tsar Bomba was merely a dangerous piece of agitprop for the Soviet Union.

Still, there was fallout from Tsar Bomba, and the many other nuclear tests conducted at Novaya Zemlya. Experts estimate the combined yield to be 273 megatons detonated there by the Soviets, and fallout is believed to have affected Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Norway. To this day, and for many years to come, plutonium isotopes will continue to pollute the Arctic seas thanks to nuclear testing, according to The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization.

A few years after the test, in 1963, the US, UK and USSR signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty forcing all nuclear tests to be conducted underground.

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The Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud seen from 100 miles away
Model of the “Tsar Bomba” in the Sarov atomic bomb museum.
The Tsar Bomba’s fireball, about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) in diameter, was prevented from touching the ground by the shock wave

MiG-3

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A restored MiG-3 at an airshow - Mochishche Airfield, Novosibirsk Oblast. (Wikimedia)
A restored MiG-3 at an airshow – Mochishche Airfield, Novosibirsk Oblast. (Wikimedia)
Failure is not the right word to describe the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3. You’ll, almost exclusively, hear about the airplane’s failures in a WWII air combat documentary. It was hard to fly. It was not a capable fighter at low altitudes. It was a poor fighter bomber. All true, but none of these things are the fault of the first mass produced MiG.

The MiG-3 was born out of design problems with the MiG-1 experimental fighter. It was faster than its contemporaries, and it was meant to fight at high altitudes, where its speed would be vital. In this sense, it can be compared to the fast interceptor jets would arise during the cold war, including the American F-106 “Delta Dart” and the Soviet MiG-25.

It is similar in another sense: All three of these aircraft were built to fight a war that would never come. The F-106 and MiG-25 were designed to be extremely fast, climb extremely high, and take out enemy nuclear-capable bombers before they could wipe out entire cities back home. This, of course, never came to fruition.

Similarly, the MiG-3 was designed to fly at high altitudes and engage the enemy, using speed as its weapon. The the war that came to the Eastern Front was a low-altitude war. It was a grittier, less streamlined role that the MiG found itself pressed into service for in 1941, and the airplane was ill-equipped to dogfight at low altitude. The Soviets also tried, and failed, to convert the MiG-3 into a fighter-bomber. The MiG-3 was an interceptor, and it was at a serious disadvantage against Germany’s rough and tumble Messerschmitt Bf 109.

The MiG-3 was designed, on paper and in wind tunnels, to be an improvement over the MiG-1. Changes included improved cooling, more ordinance, a second oil tank under the engine, streamlined supercharged air intakes, an armored cockpit, improved instrument layout, upgraded gunsight, and underwing hardpoints that added nearly 500 lbs. of increased ordinance carrying ability. On paper, it was a vast improvement. In reality, the MiG-3 was 500 lbs. heavier than the MiG-1, and safety oversights led to inferior airplanes being delivered to Red Army Air Forces units.

In service in WWII, the MiG-3 was difficult for veteran pilots to tame and deadly in the hands of an inexperienced pilot. It also faced a primary opponent in the Bf 109 that was faster at low altitude, more maneuverable, and more than 1,300 lbs. lighter.

The MiG-3 entered service just before the German Invasion, but the state of war that existed during this time meant that Soviet fighter pilots did not have time to properly train on the new, heavier fighter. VVS pilots were accustomed to the Polikarpov I-16, a light, highly maneuverable fighter. While it could turn on par with a Bf 109, it was older and had less engine power, reducing its rate of climb, dive, and top speed compared to the German fighter. None of that would soon matter, anyway. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Luftwaffe focused its attention on I-16 bases. Roughly 1/3 of the Red Army Air Forces’ 4,226 aircraft just prior to Operation Barbarossa were I-16’s. Within 48 hours of the Luftwaffe assault on their bases, more than half of all Soviet I-16s were destroyed on the ground or in the air.

The world got just the slightest taste of the MiG-3’s potential in June 1941, just prior to Operation Barbarossa. Pilots from the VVS’s 4th Fighter Regiment shot down three German high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, but this was about the extent of high-altitude combat.

The MiG would be retired before the end of WWII, largely supplanted by the Yakovlev Yak-1, which was much better suited for low-altitude combat.

Few MiG-3 survivors exist today. Some have been restored and are in private collections and museums. Some are flown in airshows all over the world.

Specifications

General

Crew: One
Length: 27 ft. 1 in.
Wingspan: 33 ft. 5 in.
Height: 10 ft. 9 7/8 in.
Empty weight: 5,965 lbs.
Loaded weight: 7,415 lbs.
Engine: 1 × Mikulin AM-35A liquid-cooled V-12, 1,350 hp

Performance

Maximum speed: 398 mph at 25,600 ft
Maximum speed at sea level: 314 mph
Range: 510 mi
Ceiling: 39,400 ft

Armament

  • One 12.7 mm UBS machine gun
  • Two 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns
  • Up to 220 lbs. of bombs, 2 spray containers for chemicals, gas or flammable liquids or 6 × 82 mm RS-82 rockets on wind hardpoints

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Yak-141 “Freestyle”

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Yak-141 VTOL fighter during hover at 1992 Farnborough Airshow
Yak-141 VTOL fighter during hover at 1992 Farnborough Airshow
What happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union? An American company came around in 1991 and was able to glean valuable insight from a proposed Russian fighter jet for what would one day become the F-35. It would have been a Soviet state disaster during the Cold War, but in the 90s it was merely a business partnership.

Yakovlev never thought it had a lasting fighter aircraft in its Yak-38, the Soviet Union’s first fixed-wing carrier jet and the only production Soviet VTOL aircraft. Soviet aircraft carriers were much different than the massive American supercarriers we’re used to seeing. The vertical take-off and landing capable Yaks were the only fighters the Soviets could carry. And the Yak-38 was slow, poorly armed, and weak.

But Yakovlev learned a lot from the 38. STOVL/VTOL aircraft were, and remain to this day, all the rage with the western “Harrier” family and the F-35 “Lightning II.” Yakovlev just didn’t know the role it would come to play in this field until later.

In the 1980s, the Soviets were hungry for a versatile carrier jet, one that could go beyond the role of simple interception and fleet defense. The next Yak would be able to sustain supersonic speeds and feature a variety of armament.

The superpower spared no expense at the time. Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev put at least 10 of his chief designers on what the military had originally called the Yak-41. More than 50 designs would be looked at before the team set its sights on a single-engine design with a vectoring nozzle and thrust jets behind the cockpit. The extreme temperatures that came with thrust vectoring and VTOL meant the plane had to be built with materials that could stack up, so titanium, graphite, and composites were chosen. Even so, the plane was not meant to hover for more than 2.5 minutes because of overheating worries.

The plane was designed to carry modern avionics and systems, including doppler radar, laser and TV guidance, a HUD, and helmet-mounted missile arming that let the pilot target an enemy up to 80 degrees to the right or left. The pilot could not see behind him, however.

Four prototypes were funded, and the Yak-41 made its first flight in 1987 at Zhukovskii. Two years later, the first successful hover flight test took place. The Soviets used the Yak-141 designation to throw off observers, as the program was classified a the time. In September 1991, the first successful vertical landing on a Soviet aircraft carrier took place. The Yak-41 would become the first VSTOL aircraft to achieve sustained supersonic flight. The program was a success except for one incident where a fuel tank ruptured during a hard landing in October, resulting in a fire and the ejection of the pilot. Despite the successes, funding ran out for the program, and the government-in-flux did not order the Yak-41 into production.

The Yak-141 aboard a Soviet Kiev-class aircraft carrier
The Yak-141 aboard a Soviet Kiev-class aircraft carrier
That should have been the end for the “Freestyle.” Like many other Soviet-era military prototypes, it was unfunded and unproduced. But the fall of Communism opened previously unheard-of doors for Yakovlev.

In 1991, facing the end of the “Freestyle’s” program run, Yakovlev approached several foreign aircraft companies for help funding and developing the airplane. A similar tactic worked with Aermacchi with the Yak-130 trainer leading to the successful Alenia Aermacchi M-346 “Master.”

Lockheed Martin, unable to obtain the British short takeoff/vertical landing technology used in the “Harrier” because of British Aerospace’s long-standing partnership with McDonnell Douglas, was already researching ideas for what would become the X-35. Lockheed Martin knew the Yak-41 technology was good, so the company signed a $400 million pact with Yakovlev to built three more Yak-141 prototypes. (By this time, Yakovlev had committed to using the 141 designation instead of Yak-41.) During the partnership, the two companies greatly improved the Yak-141’s systems, avionics, and maximum hover weight.

Lockheed Martin learned its vertical takeoff and landing tricks from Yakovlev, and these lessons transferred to the X-35. The X-35 is now known as the F-35. It beat Boeing’s X-32 in the Joint Strike Fighter contest in a crushing defeat for Boeing and a massive coup for Lockheed Martin. A lot of it was made possible by the little Soviet plane that could … take off and land vertically.

In the video game U.S. Navy Fighters Gold, a production version of the Yak-141 is one of the player’s primary adversaries as they face off against a Kiev carrier-led fleet in a Russian invasion of Ukraine. The plane is also flyable by the player.

Specifications

General

Crew: One
Length: 60 ft 2.25 in.
Wingspan: 33 ft 1.5 in
Height: 16 ft 5 in
Empty weight: 25,683 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 42,989 lb
Engine: One MNPK Soyuz R-79V-300 turbofan and two RKBM RD-41 hover turbojets behind the cockpit

Performance

Maximum speed: 1,118 mph
Range: 1,305-1,865 mi
Ceiling: 50,853 ft
Rate of climb: 49,213 ft/min

Armament

Guns: One 30 mm GSh-301 cannon with 120 rounds
Hardpoints: 4 underwing and 1 fuselage hardpoints with a capacity of 5,733 lb
Missiles: R-73 Archer, R-77 Adder or R-27 Alamo air-to-air missiles

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An-72/An-74 “Coaler”

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An-74 deceleration during landing with thrust reversers in deployed position (Media credit/Dmitry A. Mottl)
An-74 deceleration during landing with thrust reversers in deployed position (Media credit/Dmitry A. Mottl)
The “Coaler” is an example of Soviet-era design and technology benefiting post-Soviet nations. It is a short take-off and landing (STOL) capable transport plane developed by Antonov in the 1970s. It is still in limited production today, and despite its military intentions, it has bound much of its success as a commercial cargo carrier.

The An-72 first flew in December 1977. The An-74 variant was produced at the same time, designed for cold weather missions and exploration of the poles. Many additional variants have been built, including VIP transportation and armed maritime patrol.

The odd, ear-like placement of the engines help give the “Coaler” remarkable STOL capabilities. The overwing engines create a Coandă effect on takeoff, blowing exhaust gases over the wings.

The plane was in full-scale production by the 1980s. It bears a remarkable resemblance to the Boeing YC-14 which was very successful in test flights one year before the “Coaler” first took to the skies.

The “Coaler” is designed to land and takeoff from sand, grass, unpaved surfaces, and frozen terrain.

The Russians call the An-72 the “Cheburashka.” According to one source, the plane is very easy to fly and quite forgiving. Pilots are happy with the ergonomic cockpit, low noise levels, and responsiveness of the controls. With a 7,700 lb load, the plane can take-off in about a quarter of a mile. On landing, the plane remains controllable and stable at speeds as low as 102 mph.

In combat use, the An-74MP, Marine Patrol variant, can move 44 soldiers, 22 paratroopers, 16 stretchers with medical staff, or 10 tons of cargo. The An-72P Patrol variant carries a 23mm GSh-23L cannon plus bombs and unguided rockets.

The “Coaler” is still in military service in Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine as of 2012. Several civil airlines, mostly in developing nations, still use the plane for cargo or passenger flights.

Specifications

General

Crew: 5
Capacity: Up to 52 passengers
Length: 92 ft 1 in
Wingspan: 104 ft 7.5 in
Height: 28 ft 4.5 in
Empty weight: 42,000 lb
Maximum weight: 76,058 lb
Engines: Two Lotarev D-36 series 1A, 14,330 lbf thrust each

Performance

Maximum speed: 435 mph
Cruising speed: 342-373 mph
Range: 2,688 miles

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Su-25 “Frogfoot”

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A Bulgarian Air Force Sukhoi Su-25UBK in 2005 (Media credit/Chris Lofting via GNU License)
A Bulgarian Air Force Sukhoi Su-25UBK in 2005 (Media credit/Chris Lofting via GNU License)
Sukhoi’s Su-25 is a versatile, ugly, tough attack jet similar in purpose to the American A-10 Thunderbolt.

The Russians called the Su-25 “Grach” (Russian for “Rook”) and NATO calls it “Frogfoot.” It is, in many ways, the opposite of the Su-24 “Fencer,” which is also designed for ground attack. The Su-24 is sleek and supersonic, with variable-sweep wings and a $30 million pricetag. The Frogfoot is slow, fat, fixed winged, and costs only $11 million. One thing they share: both are still in wide use throughout the former Soviet bloc.

But don’t let looks fool you. The Su-25 is not a standoff, long-range missile truck. It is designed for low-altitude suppression of enemy armor and anti-aircraft weapons, and it has been an effective and dependable workhorse of many air forces for more than 30 years. More than 1,000 have been built, and few have ever been confirmed to have crashed. (Many have been lost in combat, of course, and a Russian Air Force Su-25 was accidentally shot down by its wingman near Vladivostok in 2008.)

The Su-25 is meant to travel slowly through a battlefield to engage ground targets with guns, rockets, bombs and missiles at close range from 11 external hardpoints. It has heavily armored and can withstand direct hits while remaining operational.

In 1969, responding to American interest in close air support, the Soviets held a design competition for its new close-support aircraft. The Sukhoi T-8 project beat out Yakovlev, Ilyushin and Mikoyan. The T-8 would eventually become the Su-25.

A Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-25 in 2006 (Wikimedia Commons/Sergey Ryabtsev)
A Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-25 in 2006 (Wikimedia Commons/Sergey Ryabtsev)
A variant of the Su-25, the Su-25K has been widely exported.

The Soviet Air Force Su-25s saw their first combat during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Su-25 was used to conduct air strikes against Mujahideen positions in the mountains. At peak, Su-25’s were averaging one sortie per day. In eight years in Afghanistan, 21 Su-25s were lost to hostile fire.

Iraq purchased a reported 73 Su-25s during the Iran-Iraq War. Ironically, several Su-25 pilots fled to Iran at the start of the Persian Gulf War, and Iran seized the planes as “gifts” from Iraq. The Su-25 did not have any combat success during the Persian Gulf War, with the plane’s only combat action coming when two were shot down quickly by American F-15Cs. By 1998 Iraq was still reported to have 12 Su-25s. Three Su-25K export craft were seen in a demonstration over Baghdad in 2002, but the Su-25 has not been used by Iraq since the 2003 invasion by the American-led coalition.

Today, the Frogfoot remains in active service in no fewer than 20 air forces including the Peruvian Air Force, which has conducted successful drug interdictions with the Su-25, and the Ukrainian Air Force, which operates dozens of Su-25s. The Frogfoot was widely exported to African nations also. Congo has had the worst luck with the airplane. In 1999, the Air Force of the Democratic Republic of the Congo purchased 10 Su-25s. Two crashed in non-combat circumstances, and one mysteriously vanished in 2007 and was never found.

While they were developed around the same time and are meant for similar missions, the American A-10 is vastly different than the Su-25. The A-10 is much larger, and the Su-25 does not have the size, armament, or survivabiltiy (through design or redundant systems) that the A-10 has.

On June 12, 2012, a Belarusian Air Force Su-25 crashed, killing the pilot. Local news reports indicated the pilot was ordered to eject but stayed to direct the plane away from a populated village, sacrificing his life.

Russia plans to keep the Su-25 in service until at least 2020, when a similar-but-advanced replacement is due.

In popular culture, the Dos computer game Su-25 Stormovik is based on the Frogfoot. The game featured amazing graphics for its time but was marred by clunky keyboard-only controls.

Specifications

General

Crew: One
Length: 50 ft 11 in.
Wingspan: 47 ft 1 in.
Height: 15 ft 9 in.
Empty weight: 23,677 lb.
Max. takeoff weight: 45,194 lb.
Engine: 2x Tumansky R-195 non-afterburning turbojets, 9,480 lbf. each

Performance

Maximum speed: 590 mph, Mach 0.77
Range: 1,553 mi.
Ceiling: 23,000 ft.
Thrust/weight Ratio: 0.51

Armament

  • 1 GSh-30-2 30mm cannon with 250 rounds
  • 11 hardpoints for up to 9,700 lb. of ordnance, including:
    • air-to-air missiles for self-defence
    • bombs
    • cluster bombs
    • gun pods
    • rockets
    • air-to-surface missiles

Essential Reading

There are several good, hardcover books for enthusiasts. Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot: Close Air Support Aircraft by Yefim Gordon is a fairly recent (2004) example.

Check out “The Soviet Union’s Tank-buster” also by Yefim Gordon as well.

Online resources:

  • Wikipedia — Good article. Well-sourced. Great for reading about Su-25 variants and countries of service.
  • Aviation.ru — Some great battle stories of the Su-25.
  • Fas.org

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