Today in 1954, for its ninth nuclear test, the USSR staged a live-fire nuclear wargame near Totskoye, ~600 mi. SE of Moscow. At 9:33am local time, a 40-kt A-bomb was detonated 1,150 ft. in the air between two groups of soldiers, some just 2 mi. from blast.
The roughly 45,000 soldiers were then ordered into mock battle under highly radioactive conditions for the remainder of the day. Most had no protective equipment and were not warned about the dangers. Some who were issued gas masks removed them in the oppressive 115F (46C) heat.
Exposures were reportedly ten times the maximum allowable level for US soldiers for a year. The 1,000,000 people who lived within 100 miles of the blast were given no warning at all. For more about this "monstrous" exercise, see: washingtonpost.com/archive/politi…
Here's some of the original Soviet footage of the September 14, 1954, Totskoye nuclear wargame that was originally made public in the early 1990s and included in the first clip I posted (Russian speakers are welcome to post translations of the narration):
A few screenshots from the video (with YouTube's auto translate feature on):
A few more screenshots from the video (with YouTube's auto translate feature on):
And here's a picture of the bomb that was dropped that day:
The United States conducted similar military exercises—involving people and many different kinds of animals—during the 1950s at the Nevada Proving Ground outside Las Vegas:
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