Thread by @AtomicAnalyst

OTD 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), a 40-kt atomic bomb exploded 1,150 feet in the air between two groups of soldiers, some just 2 miles from the 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 that day were reportedly ten times the maximum allowable level for US soldiers for an entire 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Here is some of the original Soviet footage of the September 14, 1954, Totskoye nuclear wargame that was originally made public in the early 1990s and included in the first clip I posted:

These are a few screenshots from the video (with YouTube's auto translate feature on):

And a few more screenshots:

Here is a photograph of the atomic bomb that was detonated that day:

During the 1950s, the United States conducted similar military exercises—involving thousands of personnel and hundreds of animals (including dogs, pigs, sheep, rabbits, and rats)—at the Nevada Proving Ground, ~65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. For example:

https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1107320288142864385?s=20

Postscript: here's some eerie photographic evidence of what the Totskoye mushroom cloud looked like on the ground in Sorochinsk, less than 19 miles away.

https://twitter.com/atomicarchive/status/1437869687606583297?s=20