11/1/52 US explodes hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll yield=10.4 MT
1954-US test bomb yield is almost 17 MT
11/22/55 Russia explodes bomb in Kazakhstan 1.6 MT yield
11/8/57 Britain explodes bomb yield = 1.8 MT
10/31/61 Russia explodes bomb yield=58MT
By the early sixties, bombs with yields greater than 1MT were not unknown.
The yield were closely guarded secrets, and the effects could only be guessed at.
%8, would, of course, done you in.
Where did that number come from, exactly?
Has anyone else ever done 58 MT?
Does such a thing exist?
Has it ever?
Einstein claimed such a burst would ignite the atmosphere, and kill us all.
I dunno, he may be right.
The Soviet Union made a lot of claims - I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in them.
Those big nukes we and the Soviets tested back in the day were very large and heavy, and impractical for use as strategic weapons. The largest warheads ever deployed on an ICBM by any nation were the US 9 Mt W53, mounted atop the Titan II ICBM, and the Soviet 20 Mt Mod-1 warhead, mounted atop the Soviet SS-18 ICBM. All the Mod-1s were decommissioned by 1984, and all the Titan IIs were decommissioned by 1988.
Current strategic nuclear arsenals contain warheads with yields in the sub-megaton range, and rely on multiple, smaller warheads and enhanced accuracy to destroy targets.
Because nuclear war with Russia (or any other nation) is very unlikely, our primary concern is with terrorist nukes, which would be crude and have relatively low yields, probably in the 5-10 kt range at best. While this would be enough to destroy the core of a major city, people living even 5 miles away would survive the blast relatively unscathed. Of course, there would still be the potential for massive fires and societal disruption that could affect those near the city, but outside the damage area.
Bottom line is, if you live 20 or more miles outside a major city that gets hit by a terrorist nuke, you’d probably not know that a nuke went off in the city until you heard it on the news.