Who created the first atomic bomb? Manhattan hoax - who created the first atomic bomb? Who created the first nuclear weapon in the world

The appearance of such a powerful weapon as a nuclear bomb was the result of the interaction of global factors of an objective and subjective nature. Objectively, its creation was caused by the rapid development of science, which began with the fundamental discoveries of physics in the first half of the 20th century. The strongest subjective factor was the military-political situation of the 40s, when the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition - the USA, Great Britain, the USSR - tried to get ahead of each other in the development of nuclear weapons.

Prerequisites for the creation of a nuclear bomb

The starting point of the scientific path to the creation of atomic weapons was 1896, when the French chemist A. Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of uranium. Exactly chain reaction this element formed the basis for the development of terrible weapons.

At the end of the 19th and in the first decades of the 20th century, scientists discovered alpha, beta, gamma rays, discovered many radioactive isotopes chemical elements, the law of radioactive decay and laid the foundation for the study of nuclear isometry. In the 1930s, the neutron and positron became known, and the nucleus of the uranium atom with the absorption of neutrons was first split. This was the impetus for the creation of nuclear weapons. He was the first to invent and in 1939 patented the design nuclear bomb French physicist Frederic Joliot-Curie.

As a result of further development, nuclear weapons have become a historically unprecedented military-political and strategic phenomenon capable of ensuring the national security of the owner state and minimizing the capabilities of all other weapons systems.

The design of an atomic bomb consists of a number of different components, among which there are two main ones:

• frame,
• automation system.

Automation, together with a nuclear charge, is located in a case that protects them from various influences (mechanical, thermal, etc.). The automation system controls that the explosion occurs at a strictly set time. It consists of the following elements:

• emergency detonation;
• safety and cocking device;
• power supply;
• charge detonation sensors.

Delivery of atomic charges is carried out with the help of aviation, ballistic and cruise missiles. At the same time, nuclear munitions can be an element of a land mine, torpedo, aerial bombs, etc.

Nuclear bomb detonation systems are different. The simplest is the injection device, in which the impetus for the explosion is hitting the target and the subsequent formation of a supercritical mass.

Another characteristic of atomic weapons is the size of the caliber: small, medium, large. Most often, the power of the explosion is characterized in TNT equivalent. A small caliber nuclear weapon implies a charge capacity of several thousand tons of TNT. The average caliber is already equal to tens of thousands of tons of TNT, large - measured in millions.

Operating principle

The scheme of the atomic bomb is based on the principle of using nuclear energy released during a nuclear chain reaction. This is the process of fission of heavy or synthesis of light nuclei. Due to the release of a huge amount of intra-nuclear energy in the shortest period of time, a nuclear bomb is classified as a weapon of mass destruction.

There are two key points in this process:

• the center of a nuclear explosion, in which the process directly takes place;
• the epicenter, which is the projection of this process onto the surface (land or water).

A nuclear explosion releases an amount of energy that, when projected onto the ground, causes seismic tremors. The range of their propagation is very large, but significant harm environment applied at a distance of only a few hundred meters.

Nuclear weapons have several types of destruction:

• light emission,
• radioactive contamination,
• shockwave,
• penetrating radiation,
• electromagnetic impulse.

A nuclear explosion is accompanied by a bright flash, which is formed due to the release of a large amount of light and thermal energy. The strength of this flash is many times greater than the power of the sun's rays, so the danger of light and heat damage extends for several kilometers.

Another very dangerous factor in the impact of a nuclear bomb is the radiation generated during the explosion. It works only for the first 60 seconds, but has a maximum penetrating power.

The shock wave has a high power and a significant destructive effect, therefore, in a matter of seconds, it causes great harm to people, equipment, and buildings.

Penetrating radiation is dangerous for living organisms and is the cause of radiation sickness in humans. The electromagnetic pulse affects only the technique.

All these types of damage combined make the atomic bomb a very dangerous weapon.

First nuclear bomb tests

The United States was the first to show the greatest interest in atomic weapons. At the end of 1941, huge funds and resources were allocated in the country for the creation of nuclear weapons. The work resulted in the first tests of an atomic bomb with an explosive device "Gadget", which took place on July 16, 1945 in the US state of New Mexico.

It is time for the US to act. For the victorious end of the Second World War, it was decided to defeat the ally of Nazi Germany - Japan. The Pentagon chose targets for the first nuclear strikes, in which the United States wanted to demonstrate how powerful weapon they possess.

On August 6 of the same year, the first atomic bomb under the name "Kid" was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and on August 9, a bomb with the name "Fat Man" fell on Nagasaki.

The hit in Hiroshima was considered ideal: a nuclear device exploded at an altitude of 200 meters. The blast wave overturned the stoves in the houses of the Japanese, heated by coal. This has led to numerous fires even in urban areas far from the epicenter.

The initial flash was followed by a heat wave impact that lasted seconds, but its power, covering a radius of 4 km, melted tiles and quartz in granite slabs, incinerated telegraph poles. After the heat wave came the shock wave. The wind speed was 800 km / h, and its gust demolished almost everything in the city. Of the 76,000 buildings, 70,000 were completely destroyed.

A few minutes later, a strange rain of large black drops began to fall. It was caused by condensation formed in the colder layers of the atmosphere from steam and ash.

People hit by a fireball at a distance of 800 meters were burned and turned into dust. Some had their burnt skin torn off by the shock wave. Drops of black radioactive rain left incurable burns.

The survivors fell ill with a previously unknown disease. They began to experience nausea, vomiting, fever, bouts of weakness. The level of white cells in the blood dropped sharply. These were the first signs of radiation sickness.

3 days after the bombing of Hiroshima, a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It had the same power and caused similar effects.

Two atomic bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people in seconds. The first city was practically wiped off the face of the earth by the shock wave. More than half of the civilians (about 240 thousand people) died immediately from their wounds. Many people were exposed to radiation, which led to radiation sickness, cancer, infertility. In Nagasaki, 73 thousand people were killed in the first days, and after a while another 35 thousand inhabitants died in great agony.

Video: nuclear bomb tests

RDS-37 tests

Creation of the atomic bomb in Russia

The consequences of the bombing and the history of the inhabitants of Japanese cities shocked I. Stalin. It became clear that the creation of their own nuclear weapons is a matter of national security. On August 20, 1945, the Atomic Energy Committee began its work in Russia, headed by L. Beria.

Nuclear physics research has been carried out in the USSR since 1918. In 1938, a commission on the atomic nucleus was established at the Academy of Sciences. But with the outbreak of war, almost all work in this direction was suspended.

In 1943, Soviet intelligence officers handed over from England closed scientific papers on atomic energy, from which it followed that the creation of the atomic bomb in the West had advanced far ahead. At the same time, in the United States, reliable agents were introduced into several American nuclear research centers. They passed information on the atomic bomb to Soviet scientists.

The terms of reference for the development of two variants of the atomic bomb were compiled by their creator and one of the scientific leaders Yu. Khariton. In accordance with it, it was planned to create an RDS (“special jet engine”) with an index of 1 and 2:

1. RDS-1 - a bomb with a charge of plutonium, which was supposed to undermine by spherical compression. His device was handed over by Russian intelligence.
2. RDS-2 is a cannon bomb with two parts of a uranium charge, which must approach each other in the cannon barrel until a critical mass is created.

In the history of the famous RDS, the most common decoding - "Russia does it itself" - was invented by Yu. Khariton's deputy for scientific work K. Shchelkin. These words very accurately conveyed the essence of the work.

Information that the USSR had mastered the secrets of nuclear weapons caused an impulse in the USA to start a pre-emptive war as soon as possible. In July 1949, the Trojan plan appeared, according to which it was planned to start hostilities on January 1, 1950. Then the date of the attack was moved to January 1, 1957, with the condition that all NATO countries enter the war.

Information received through intelligence channels accelerated the work of Soviet scientists. According to Western experts, Soviet nuclear weapons could not have been created before 1954-1955. However, the test of the first atomic bomb took place in the USSR at the end of August 1949.

On August 29, 1949, the RDS-1 nuclear device was blown up at the Semipalatinsk test site - the first Soviet atomic bomb, which was invented by a team of scientists headed by I. Kurchatov and Yu. Khariton. The explosion had a power of 22 kt. The design of the charge imitated the American "Fat Man", and the electronic filling was created by Soviet scientists.

The Trojan plan, according to which the Americans were going to drop atomic bombs on 70 cities in the USSR, was thwarted due to the likelihood of a retaliatory strike. The event at the Semipalatinsk test site informed the world that the Soviet atomic bomb ended the American monopoly on the possession of new weapons. This invention completely destroyed the militaristic plan of the USA and NATO and prevented the development of the Third World War. started new story- the era of world peace, existing under the threat of total destruction.

"Nuclear club" of the world

Nuclear club - symbol several states possessing nuclear weapons. Today there are such weapons:

• in the USA (since 1945)
• in Russia (originally USSR, since 1949)
• in the UK (since 1952)
• in France (since 1960)
• in China (since 1964)
• in India (since 1974)
• in Pakistan (since 1998)
• in North Korea (since 2006)

Israel is also considered to have nuclear weapons, although the country's leadership does not comment on its presence. In addition, on the territory of NATO member states (Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada) and allies (Japan, South Korea, despite the official refusal) is a US nuclear weapon.

Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, which owned part of the nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR, in the 90s handed it over to Russia, which became the sole heir to the Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Atomic (nuclear) weapons are the most powerful tool of global politics, which has firmly entered the arsenal of relations between states. On the one hand, it is an effective deterrent, on the other hand, it is a weighty argument for preventing military conflict and strengthening peace between the powers that own these weapons. This is a symbol of an entire era in the history of mankind and international relations, which must be handled very wisely.

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Video about the Russian Tsar Bomba

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Truth in the penultimate instance

There are not many things in the world that are considered indisputable. Well, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, I think you know. And that the Moon revolves around the Earth, too. And about the fact that the Americans were the first to create an atomic bomb, ahead of both the Germans and the Russians.

So did I, until four years ago an old magazine fell into my hands. He left my beliefs about the sun and the moon alone, but faith in American leadership was shaken quite seriously. It was a plump volume in German, a 1938 binder of Theoretical Physics. I don’t remember why I got there, but quite unexpectedly I came across an article by Professor Otto Hahn.

The name was familiar to me. It was Hahn, the famous German physicist and radiochemist, who in 1938, together with another prominent scientist, Fritz Straussmann, discovered the fission of the uranium nucleus, in fact, starting work on the creation of nuclear weapons. At first, I just skimmed through the article diagonally, but then completely unexpected phrases made me become more attentive. And, ultimately, even forget about why I originally picked up this magazine.

Gan's article was devoted to an overview of nuclear developments in different countries of the world. As a matter of fact, there was nothing special to review: everywhere except Germany, nuclear research was in the pen. They didn't see much point. " This abstract matter has nothing to do with state needs., said British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain around the same time when he was asked to support British atomic research with public money.

« Let these bespectacled scientists look for money themselves, the state has a lot of other problems!" — this was the opinion of most world leaders in the 1930s. Except, of course, the Nazis, who just financed the nuclear program.
But it was not Chamberlain's passage, carefully quoted by Hahn, that caught my attention. England does not interest the author of these lines much at all. Much more interesting was what Hahn wrote about the state of nuclear research in the United States of America. And he literally wrote the following:

If we talk about the country in which the processes of nuclear fission are given the least attention, then the United States should undoubtedly be called. Of course, now I am not considering Brazil or the Vatican. However among developed countries even Italy and communist Russia are well ahead of the US. Little attention is paid to the problems of theoretical physics on the other side of the ocean, priority is given to applied developments that can give immediate profit. Therefore, I can state with confidence that during the next decade the North Americans will not be able to do anything significant for the development of atomic physics.

At first I just laughed. Wow, how wrong my compatriot! And only then I thought: whatever one may say, Otto Hahn was not a simpleton or an amateur. He was well informed about the state of atomic research, especially since before the outbreak of World War II this topic was freely discussed in scientific circles.

Maybe the Americans misinformed the whole world? But for what purpose? No one even thought about nuclear weapons in the 1930s. Moreover, most scientists considered its creation impossible in principle. That is why, until 1939, all the new achievements in atomic physics were instantly known to the whole world - they were completely openly published in scientific journals. No one hid the fruits of their labor, on the contrary, there was an open rivalry between different groups of scientists (almost exclusively Germans) - who will move forward faster?

Maybe scientists in the States were ahead of the whole world and therefore kept their achievements a secret? Nonsense assumption. To confirm or refute it, we will have to consider the history of the creation of the American atomic bomb - at least as it appears in official publications. We are all accustomed to take it on faith as a matter of course. However, upon closer examination, there are so many oddities and inconsistencies in it that you simply wonder.

With the world on a string - US bomb

1942 began well for the British. The German invasion of their little island, which seemed imminent, now, as if by magic, receded into a misty distance. Hitler did last summer major mistake in his life - attacked Russia. This was the beginning of the end. The Russians not only held out against the hopes of the Berlin strategists and the pessimistic forecasts of many observers, but also gave the Wehrmacht a good punch in the teeth in a frosty winter. And in December, the big and powerful United States came to the aid of the British and was now an official ally. In general, there were more than enough reasons for joy.

Only a few high-ranking officials who owned the information that British intelligence had received were not happy. At the end of 1941, the British became aware that the Germans were developing their atomic research at a frantic pace.. The ultimate goal of this process became clear - a nuclear bomb. The British atomic scientists were competent enough to imagine the threat posed by the new weapon.

At the same time, the British had no illusions about their capabilities. All the resources of the country were directed to elementary survival. Although the Germans and Japanese were up to their necks in the war with the Russians and the Americans, from time to time they found an opportunity to poke their fist into the decrepit building of the British Empire. From each such poke, the rotten building staggered and creaked, threatening to collapse.

Rommel's three divisions fettered almost the entire combat-ready British army in North Africa. Admiral Dönitz's submarines, like predatory sharks, darted across the Atlantic, threatening to interrupt the vital supply chain from across the ocean. Britain simply did not have the resources to enter into a nuclear race with the Germans.. The backlog was already large, and in the very near future it threatened to become hopeless.

I must say that the Americans were initially skeptical about such a gift. The military department point-blank did not understand why it should spend money on some obscure project. What other new weapons are there? Here are aircraft carrier groups and armadas of heavy bombers - yes, this is strength. And the nuclear bomb, which scientists themselves imagine very vaguely, is just an abstraction, grandmother's tales.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had to directly turn to American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a request, literally a plea, not to reject the British gift. Roosevelt called the scientists to him, figured out the issue and gave the go-ahead.

Usually the creators of the canonical legend of the American bomb use this episode to emphasize the wisdom of Roosevelt. Look, what a shrewd president! We will look at it a little differently: in what pen were the Yankees in atomic research, if they so long and stubbornly refused to cooperate with the British! So Gan was absolutely right in his assessment of the American nuclear scientists - they were nothing solid.

Only in September 1942 was it decided to start work on the atomic bomb. The organizational period took some more time, and things really moved from dead center only with the advent of the new year, 1943. From the army, the work was headed by General Leslie Groves (later he would write memoirs in which he would detail the official version of what was happening), the real leader was Professor Robert Oppenheimer. I will talk about it in detail a little later, but for now let's admire another curious detail - how the team of scientists who began work on the bomb was formed.

In fact, when Oppenheimer was asked to recruit specialists, he had very little choice. Good nuclear physicists in the States could be counted on the fingers of a crippled hand. Therefore, the professor made a wise decision - to recruit people whom he knows personally and whom he can trust, regardless of what area of ​​\u200b\u200bphysics they were engaged in before. And so it turned out that the lion's share of the seats was occupied by employees of Columbia University from Manhattan County (by the way, that is why the project was called Manhattan).

But even these forces were not enough. British scientists had to be involved in the work, literally devastating British research centers, and even specialists from Canada. In general, the Manhattan Project turned into a kind of Tower of Babel, with the only difference being that all of its participants spoke at the very least the same language. However, this did not save from the usual quarrels and squabbles in the scientific community that arose due to the rivalry of different scientific groups. Echoes of these frictions can be found on the pages of Groves' book, and they look very funny: the general, on the one hand, wants to convince the reader that everything was decorous and decent, and on the other hand, to boast how deftly he managed to reconcile completely quarreling scientific luminaries.

And now they are trying to convince us that in this friendly atmosphere of a large terrarium, the Americans managed to create an atomic bomb in two and a half years. And the Germans, who pored over their nuclear project merrily and amicably for five years, did not succeed. Miracles, and nothing more.

However, even if there were no squabbles, such record terms would still arouse suspicion. The fact is that in the process of research it is necessary to go through certain stages, which are almost impossible to reduce. The Americans themselves attribute their success to gigantic funding - in the end, More than two billion dollars were spent on the Manhattan Project! However, no matter how you feed a pregnant woman, she still will not be able to give birth to a full-term baby before nine months. It is the same with the nuclear project: it is impossible to significantly speed up, for example, the process of uranium enrichment.

The Germans worked for five years with full effort. Of course, they also had mistakes and miscalculations that took up precious time. But who said that the Americans had no mistakes and miscalculations? There were, and many. One of these mistakes was the involvement of the famous physicist Niels Bohr.

Skorzeny's unknown operation

British intelligence services are very fond of boasting about one of their operations. We are talking about the salvation of the great Danish scientist Niels Bohr from Nazi Germany. The official legend says that after the outbreak of World War II, the outstanding physicist lived quietly and calmly in Denmark, leading a rather secluded lifestyle. The Nazis offered him cooperation many times, but Bohr invariably refused.

By 1943, the Germans nevertheless decided to arrest him. But, warned in time, Niels Bohr managed to escape to Sweden, from where the British took him out in the bomb bay of a heavy bomber. By the end of the year, the physicist was in America and began to work zealously for the benefit of the Manhattan Project.

The legend is beautiful and romantic, only it is sewn with white thread and does not withstand any tests.. There is no more credibility in it than in the fairy tales of Charles Perrault. Firstly, because the Nazis look like complete idiots in it, and they never were like that. Think well! In 1940 the Germans occupied Denmark. They know that a Nobel laureate lives on the territory of the country, who can be of great help to them in their work on the atomic bomb. The same atomic bomb, which is vital for the victory of Germany.

And what do they do? They occasionally visit the scientist for three years, politely knock on the door and quietly ask: “ Herr Bohr, do you want to work for the benefit of the Fuhrer and the Reich? You do not want? Okay, we'll come back later.". No, this was not the way the German secret services worked! Logically, they should have arrested Bohr not in 1943, but in 1940. If possible, force (precisely force, not beg!) to work for them, if not, at least make sure that he cannot work for the enemy: put him in a concentration camp or destroy him. And they leave him to roam free, under the noses of the British.

Three years later, the legend goes, the Germans finally realize that they are supposed to arrest the scientist. But then someone (namely someone, because I have not found any indication of who did it) warns Bohr of the imminent danger. Who could it be? It was not the habit of the Gestapo to shout at every corner about impending arrests. People were taken quietly, unexpectedly, at night. So, the mysterious patron of Bor is one of the rather high-ranking officials.

Let's leave this mysterious angel-savior alone for now and continue to analyze the wanderings of Niels Bohr. So the scientist fled to Sweden. How do you think, how? On a fishing boat, avoiding German Coast Guard boats in the fog? On a raft made of boards? No matter how! Bor, with the greatest possible comfort, sailed to Sweden on the most ordinary private steamer, which officially entered the port of Copenhagen.

Let's not puzzle over the question of how the Germans released the scientist if they were going to arrest him. Let's think about this better. The flight of a world-famous physicist is an emergency on a very serious scale. On this occasion, an investigation was inevitably to be carried out - the heads of those who screwed up the physicist, as well as the mysterious patron, would have flown. However, no traces of such an investigation could be found. Maybe because it didn't exist.

Indeed, how valuable was Niels Bohr for the development of the atomic bomb? Born in 1885 and becoming a Nobel laureate in 1922, Bohr turned to the problems of nuclear physics only in the 1930s. At that time, he was already a major, accomplished scientist with well-formed views. Such people rarely succeed in areas that require an innovative approach and out-of-the-box thinking - and nuclear physics was such a field. For several years, Bohr failed to make any significant contribution to atomic research.

However, as the ancients said, the first half of life a person works for the name, the second - the name for the person. With Niels Bohr, this second half has already begun. Having taken up nuclear physics, he automatically began to be considered a major specialist in this field, regardless of his real achievements.

But in Germany, where such world-famous nuclear scientists as Hahn and Heisenberg worked, the real value of the Danish scientist was known. That is why they did not actively try to involve him in the work. It will turn out - good, we will trumpet to the whole world that Niels Bohr himself is working for us. If it doesn’t work out, it’s also not bad, it won’t get underfoot with its authority.

By the way, in the United States, Niels Bohr to a large extent got in the way. The fact is that an outstanding physicist did not believe at all in the possibility of creating a nuclear bomb. At the same time, his authority forced to reckon with his opinion. According to Groves' memoirs, the scientists working on the Manhattan Project treated Bohr like an elder. Now imagine that you are doing some hard work without any certainty of ultimate success. And then someone whom you consider a great specialist comes up to you and says that it’s not even worth spending time on your lesson. Will the job get easier? Don't think.

In addition, Bohr was a staunch pacifist. In 1945, when the US already had an atomic bomb, he vehemently protested its use. Accordingly, he treated his work with coolness. Therefore, I urge you to think again: what did Bohr bring more - movement or stagnation in the development of the issue?

It's a strange picture, isn't it? It began to clear up a little after I learned one interesting detail, which seemed to have nothing to do with Niels Bohr or the atomic bomb. We are talking about the "main saboteur of the Third Reich" Otto Skorzeny.

It is believed that Skorzeny's rise began after he released Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from prison in 1943. Imprisoned in a mountain prison by his former associates, Mussolini could not, it would seem, hope for release. But Skorzeny, on the direct instructions of Hitler, developed a daring plan: to land troops in gliders and then fly away in a small airplane. Everything turned out perfectly: Mussolini is free, Skorzeny is held in high esteem.

At least that's what most people think. Only a few well-informed historians know that cause and effect are confused here. Skorzeny was entrusted with an extremely difficult and responsible task precisely because Hitler trusted him. That is, the rise of the "king of special operations" began before the story of Mussolini's rescue. However, very soon - a couple of months. Skorzeny was promoted in rank and position exactly when Niels Bohr fled to England. I couldn't find any reason to upgrade.

So we have three facts:
— Firstly, the Germans did not prevent Niels Bohr from leaving for Britain;
— Secondly, Boron did more harm than good to Americans;
— Thirdly, immediately after the scientist ended up in England, Skorzeny gets a promotion.

But what if these are the details of one mosaic? I decided to try to reconstruct the events. Having captured Denmark, the Germans were well aware that Niels Bohr was unlikely to assist in the creation of an atomic bomb. Moreover, it will rather interfere. Therefore, he was left to live in peace in Denmark, under the very nose of the British. Maybe even then the Germans expected that the British would kidnap the scientist. However, for three years the British did not dare to do anything.

At the end of 1942, vague rumors began to reach the Germans about the start of a large-scale project to create an American atomic bomb. Even given the secrecy of the project, it was absolutely impossible to keep the awl in the bag: the instant disappearance of hundreds of scientists from different countries, one way or another connected with nuclear research, should have pushed anyone mentally normal person to such conclusions.

The Nazis were sure that they were far ahead of the Yankees (and this was true), but this did not prevent the enemy from doing something nasty. And at the beginning of 1943, one of the most secret operations of the German special services was carried out. On the threshold of Niels Bohr's house, a certain well-wisher appears who tells him that they want to arrest him and throw him into a concentration camp, and offers his help. The scientist agrees - he has no other choice, being behind barbed wire is not the best prospect.

At the same time, apparently, the British are being lied to about the complete indispensability and uniqueness of Bohr in the field of nuclear research. The British are pecking - and what can they do if the prey itself goes into their hands, that is, to Sweden? And for complete heroism, Bora is taken out of there in the belly of a bomber, although they could comfortably send him on a ship.

And then the Nobel laureate appears at the epicenter of the Manhattan Project, producing the effect of an exploding bomb. That is, if the Germans managed to bomb the research center at Los Alamos, the effect would be about the same. Work has slowed down, moreover, very significantly. Apparently, the Americans did not immediately realize how they were cheated, and when they realized, it was already too late.
Do you still believe that the Yankees built the atomic bomb themselves?

Mission "Alsos"

Personally, I finally refused to believe in these tales after I studied in detail the activities of the Alsos group. This operation of the American intelligence services was kept secret for many years - until its main participants left for a better world. And only then did information come to light - albeit fragmentary and scattered - about how the Americans hunted for German atomic secrets.

True, if you thoroughly work on this information and compare it with some well-known facts, the picture turned out to be very convincing. But I won't get ahead of myself. So, the Alsos group was formed in 1944, on the eve of the landing of the Anglo-Americans in Normandy. Half of the members of the group are professional intelligence officers, half are nuclear scientists.

At the same time, in order to form Alsos, the Manhattan Project was mercilessly robbed - in fact, the best specialists. The task of the mission was to collect information about the German atomic program. The question is, how desperate were the Americans in the success of their undertaking, if they made the main bet on stealing the atomic bomb from the Germans?
It was great to despair, if we recall a little-known letter from one of the atomic scientists to his colleague. It was written on February 4, 1944 and read:

« It looks like we're in a hopeless case. The project is not moving forward one iota. Our leaders, in my opinion, do not believe in the success of the whole undertaking at all. Yes, and we do not believe. If it were not for the huge money that we are paid here, I think many would have been doing something more useful long ago.».

This letter was cited at one time as proof of American talents: look, they say, what good fellows we are, in a little over a year we pulled out a hopeless project! Then in the USA they realized that not only fools live around, and they hurried to forget about the piece of paper. With great difficulty I managed to dig up this document in an old scientific journal.

They spared no money and effort to ensure the actions of the Alsos group. She was well equipped with everything you need. The head of the mission, Colonel Pash, had a document from US Secretary of Defense Henry Stimson, which obligated everyone to provide the group with all possible assistance. Even Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces Dwight Eisenhower did not have such powers.. By the way, about the commander-in-chief - he was obliged to take into account the interests of the Alsos mission in planning military operations, that is, to capture in the first place those areas where German atomic weapons could be.

At the beginning of August 1944, to be precise - on the 9th, the Alsos group landed in Europe. One of the leading US nuclear scientists, Dr. Samuel Goudsmit, was appointed scientific director of the mission. Before the war, he maintained close ties with his German colleagues, and the Americans hoped that the "international solidarity" of scientists would be stronger than political interests.

Alsos managed to achieve the first results after the Americans occupied Paris in the fall of 1944.. Here Goudsmit met with the famous French scientist Professor Joliot-Curie. Curie seemed sincerely happy about the defeats of the Germans; however, as soon as it came to the German atomic program, he went into a deaf "unconscious". The Frenchman insisted that he did not know anything, had not heard anything, the Germans did not even come close to developing an atomic bomb, and in general their nuclear project was of an exclusively peaceful nature.

It was clear that the professor was missing something. But there was no way to put pressure on him - for cooperation with the Germans in what was then France, they were shot, regardless of scientific merits, and Curie was clearly afraid of death most of all. Therefore, Goudsmit had to leave without salty slurping.

Throughout his stay in Paris, vague but threatening rumors constantly reached him: uranium bomb exploded in Leipzig, in the mountainous regions of Bavaria, strange outbreaks are noted at night. Everything indicated that the Germans were either very close to creating atomic weapons or had already created them.

What happened next is still shrouded in mystery. They say that Pasha and Goudsmit still managed to find some valuable information in Paris. Since November at least, Eisenhower has received constant demands to move forward into German territory at any cost. The initiators of these demands - now it's clear! - in the end, it turned out to be people associated with the atomic project and who received information directly from the Alsos group. Eisenhower did not have a real opportunity to carry out the orders received, but the demands from Washington became more and more stringent. It is not known how all this would have ended if the Germans had not made another unexpected move.

Ardennes riddle

In fact, by the end of 1944, everyone believed that Germany had lost the war. The only question is how long the Nazis will be defeated. It seems that only Hitler and his closest associates adhered to a different point of view. They tried to delay the moment of the catastrophe until the last moment.

This desire is quite understandable. Hitler was sure that after the war he would be declared a criminal and would be tried. And if you play for time, you can get a quarrel between the Russians and the Americans and, ultimately, get out of the water, that is, out of the war. Not without losses, of course, but without losing power.

Let's think: what was needed for this in conditions when Germany had nothing left of forces? Naturally, spend them as sparingly as possible, keep a flexible defense. And Hitler, at the very end of the 44th, throws his army into a very wasteful Ardennes offensive. For what?

The troops are given completely unrealistic tasks - to break through to Amsterdam and throw the Anglo-Americans into the sea. Before Amsterdam, German tanks were at that time like walking to the moon, especially since fuel splashed in their tanks for less than half the way. Scare allies? But what could frighten well-fed and armed armies, behind which was the industrial power of the United States?

All in all, Until now, not a single historian has been able to clearly explain why Hitler needed this offensive. Usually everyone ends with the argument that the Fuhrer was an idiot. But in fact, Hitler was not an idiot, moreover, he thought quite sensibly and realistically until the very end. Idiots can rather be called those historians who make hasty judgments without even trying to figure something out.

But let's look at the other side of the front. There are even more amazing things going on! And it's not even that the Germans managed to achieve initial, albeit rather limited, successes. The fact is that the British and Americans were really scared! Moreover, the fear was completely inadequate to the threat. After all, from the very beginning it was clear that the Germans had few forces, that the offensive was local in nature ...

So no, and Eisenhower, and Churchill, and Roosevelt simply fall into a panic! In 1945, on January 6, when the Germans were already stopped and even driven back, British Prime Minister writes panic letter to Russian leader Stalin which requires immediate assistance. Here is the text of this letter:

« There is very heavy fighting going on in the West, and at any time big decisions may be required from the High Command. You yourselves know from your own experience how troubling the situation is when one has to defend a very wide front after a temporary loss of initiative.

It is highly desirable and necessary for General Eisenhower to know in general terms what you intend to do, since this, of course, will affect all of his and our most important decisions. According to the message received, our emissary Air Chief Marshal Tedder was in Cairo last night, weather-bound. His trip was greatly delayed through no fault of yours.

If he has not yet arrived to you, I shall be grateful if you can let me know if we can count on a major Russian offensive on the Vistula front or somewhere else during January and at any other points that you may you wish to mention. I will not pass on this highly classified information to anyone, with the exception of Field Marshal Brooke and General Eisenhower, and only on condition that it is kept in the strictest confidence. I consider the matter urgent».

If you translate from diplomatic language into ordinary: save us, Stalin, they will beat us! Therein lies another mystery. What kind of "beat" if the Germans have already been thrown back to the starting lines? Yes, of course, the American offensive, planned for January, had to be postponed to the spring. And what? We must rejoice that the Nazis squandered their strength in senseless attacks!

And further. Churchill slept and saw how to keep the Russians out of Germany. And now he is literally begging them to start moving west without delay! To what extent should Sir Winston Churchill be frightened?! It seems that the slowdown in the advance of the Allies deep into Germany was interpreted by him as a mortal threat. I wonder why? After all, Churchill was neither a fool nor an alarmist.

And yet, the Anglo-Americans spend the next two months in terrible nervous tension. Subsequently, they will carefully hide it, but the truth will still break through to the surface in their memoirs. For example, Eisenhower after the war will call the last war winter "the most disturbing time."

What worried the marshal so much if the war was actually won? Only in March 1945 did the Ruhr operation begin, during which the Allies occupied West Germany, surrounding 300,000 Germans. The commander of the German troops in the area, Field Marshal Model, shot himself (the only one of the entire German generals, by the way). Only after this did Churchill and Roosevelt more or less calm down.

But back to the Alsos group. In the spring of 1945, it noticeably intensified. During the Ruhr operation, scientists and intelligence officers moved forward almost after the vanguard of the advancing troops, collecting a valuable harvest. In March-April, many scientists involved in German nuclear research fall into their hands. The decisive find was made in mid-April - on the 12th, members of the mission write that they stumbled upon "a real gold mine" and now they "learn about the project in the main." By May, Heisenberg, and Hahn, and Osenberg, and Diebner, and many other outstanding German physicists were in the hands of the Americans. Nevertheless, the Alsos group continued active searches in the already defeated Germany ... until the end of May.

But at the end of May, something strange happens. The search is almost over. Rather, they continue, but with much less intensity. If earlier they were engaged in by prominent world-famous scientists, now they are beardless laboratory assistants. And the big scientists pack their things in droves and leave for America. Why?

To answer this question, let's see how events developed further.

At the end of June, the Americans conduct tests of an atomic bomb - allegedly the first in the world.
And in early August, they drop two on Japanese cities.
After that, the Yankees run out of ready-made atomic bombs, and for quite a long time.

Strange situation, isn't it? Let's start with the fact that only a month passes between testing and combat use of a new superweapon. Dear readers, this is not the case. Making an atomic bomb is much more difficult than a conventional projectile or rocket. For a month it is simply impossible. Then, probably, the Americans made three prototypes at once? Also incredible.

Making a nuclear bomb is a very expensive procedure. There is no point in doing three if you are not sure that you are doing everything right. Otherwise, it would be possible to create three nuclear projects, build three research centers, and so on. Even the US is not rich enough to be so extravagant.

However, well, let's assume that the Americans really built three prototypes at once. Why didn't they immediately start mass production of nuclear bombs after successful tests? After all, immediately after the defeat of Germany, the Americans found themselves in the face of a much more powerful and formidable enemy - the Russians. The Russians, of course, did not threaten the United States with war, but they prevented the Americans from becoming masters of the entire planet. And this, from the point of view of the Yankees, is a completely unacceptable crime.

Nevertheless, the United States has new atomic bombs ... When do you think? In the autumn of 1945? In the summer of 1946? No! Only in 1947 did the first nuclear weapons begin to enter the American arsenals! You will not find this date anywhere, but no one will undertake to refute it either. The data that I managed to get is absolutely secret. However, they are fully confirmed by the facts known to us about the subsequent buildup of the nuclear arsenal. And most importantly - the results of tests in the deserts of Texas, which took place at the end of 1946.

Yes, yes, dear reader, exactly at the end of 1946, and not a month earlier. The data about this was obtained by Russian intelligence and got to me in a very complicated way, which, probably, does not make sense to disclose on these pages, so as not to substitute the people who helped me. On the eve of the new year, 1947, a very curious report lay on the table of the Soviet leader Stalin, which I will quote here verbatim.

According to Agent Felix, in November-December of this year, a series of nuclear explosions were carried out in the El Paso, Texas area. At the same time, prototypes of nuclear bombs were tested, similar to those dropped on the Japanese islands last year.

Within a month and a half, at least four bombs were tested, the tests of three ended unsuccessfully. This series of bombs was created in preparation for the large-scale industrial production of nuclear weapons. Most likely, the beginning of such a release should be expected no earlier than mid-1947.

The Russian agent fully confirmed the data I had. But maybe all this is disinformation on the part of the American intelligence services? Hardly. In those years, the Yankees tried to convince their opponents that they were the strongest in the world, and would not underestimate their military potential. Most likely, we are dealing with a carefully hidden truth.

What happens? In 1945, the Americans drop three bombs - and all are successful. The next test - the same bombs! - pass a year and a half later, and not too successfully. Serial production begins in another six months, and we do not know - and will never know - to what extent the atomic bombs that appeared in the American army warehouses corresponded to their terrible purpose, that is, how high-quality they were.

Such a picture can be drawn only in one case, namely: if the first three atomic bombs - the same ones from 1945 - were not built by the Americans on their own, but received from someone. To put it bluntly - from the Germans. Indirectly, this hypothesis is confirmed by the reaction of German scientists to the bombing of Japanese cities, which we know about thanks to the book by David Irving.

"Poor Professor Gan!"

In August 1945, ten leading German nuclear physicists, the ten main actors in the Nazi "atomic project", were held captive in the United States. All possible information was pulled out of them (I wonder why, if you believe the American version that the Yankees were far ahead of the Germans in atomic research). Accordingly, scientists were kept in a kind of comfortable prison. There was also a radio in this prison.

On August 6, at seven o'clock in the evening, Otto Hahn and Karl Wirtz were at the radio. It was then that in the next news release they heard that the first atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan. The first reaction of the colleagues to whom they brought this information was unequivocal: this cannot be true. Heisenberg believed that the Americans could not create their own nuclear weapons (and, as we now know, he was right).

« Did the Americans mention the word "uranium" in connection with their new bomb? he asked Han. The latter replied in the negative. “Then it has nothing to do with the atom,” Heisenberg snapped. An eminent physicist believed that the Yankees simply used some kind of high-powered explosive.

However, the nine o'clock newscast dispelled all doubts. Obviously, until then the Germans simply did not assume that the Americans managed to capture several German atomic bombs. However, now the situation has cleared up, and scientists began to torment the pangs of conscience. Yes Yes exactly! Dr. Erich Bagge wrote in his diary: Now this bomb has been used against Japan. They report that even after a few hours the bombed city is hidden by a cloud of smoke and dust. We are talking about the death of 300 thousand people. Poor professor Gan!»

Moreover, that evening, scientists were very worried about how "poor Gang" would not commit suicide. Two physicists were on duty at his bedside until late to prevent him from killing himself, and went to their rooms only after they found that their colleague had finally fallen into a sound sleep. Gan himself later described his impressions as follows:

For a while I was occupied with the idea of ​​dumping all the uranium into the sea in order to avoid a similar catastrophe in the future. Although I felt personally responsible for what happened, I wondered if I or anyone else has the right to deprive humanity of all the fruits that a new discovery can bring? And now this terrible bomb has worked!

Interestingly, if the Americans are telling the truth, and the bomb that fell on Hiroshima was really created by them, why should the Germans feel "personally responsible" for what happened? Of course, each of them contributed to nuclear research, but on the same basis, one could place some of the blame on thousands of scientists, including Newton and Archimedes! After all, their discoveries eventually led to the creation of nuclear weapons!

The mental anguish of German scientists acquires meaning only in one case. Namely, if they themselves created the bomb that destroyed hundreds of thousands of Japanese. Otherwise, why should they worry about what the Americans have done?

However, so far all my conclusions have been nothing more than a hypothesis, confirmed only by circumstantial evidence. What if I'm wrong and the Americans really managed the impossible? To answer this question, it was necessary to closely study the German atomic program. And it's not as easy as it seems.

/Hans-Ulrich von Krantz, "The Secret Weapon of the Third Reich", topwar.ru/

Within two years, the Heisenberg group carried out the research needed to create an atomic reactor using uranium and heavy water. It was confirmed that only one of the isotopes, namely, uranium-235, contained in very small concentrations in ordinary uranium ore, can serve as an explosive. The first problem was how to isolate it from there. The starting point of the bombing program was an atomic reactor, which required either graphite or heavy water as a reaction moderator. German physicists chose water, thereby creating a serious problem for themselves. After the occupation of Norway, the only heavy water plant in the world at that time passed into the hands of the Nazis. But there, the stock of the product needed by physicists by the beginning of the war was only tens of kilograms, and the Germans did not get them either - the French stole valuable products literally from under the noses of the Nazis. And in February 1943, the British commandos abandoned in Norway, with the help of local resistance fighters, disabled the plant. The implementation of Germany's nuclear program was in jeopardy. The misadventures of the Germans did not end there: an experimental nuclear reactor exploded in Leipzig. The uranium project was supported by Hitler only as long as there was hope of obtaining a super-powerful weapon before the end of the war unleashed by him. Heisenberg was invited by Speer and asked bluntly: "When can we expect the creation of a bomb capable of being suspended from a bomber?" The scientist was honest: "I think it will take several years of hard work, in any case, the bomb will not be able to affect the outcome of the current war." The German leadership rationally considered that there was no point in forcing events. Let scientists work quietly - by the next war, you see, they will have time. As a result, Hitler decided to concentrate scientific, industrial and financial resources only on projects that would give the fastest return in the creation of new types of weapons. State funding for the uranium project was curtailed. Nevertheless, the work of scientists continued.

Manfred von Ardenne, who developed a method for gas diffusion purification and separation of uranium isotopes in a centrifuge.

In 1944, Heisenberg received cast uranium plates for a large reactor plant, under which a special bunker was already being built in Berlin. The last experiment to achieve a chain reaction was scheduled for January 1945, but on January 31, all equipment was hastily dismantled and sent from Berlin to the village of Haigerloch near the Swiss border, where it was deployed only at the end of February. The reactor contained 664 cubes of uranium with a total weight of 1525 kg, surrounded by a graphite neutron moderator-reflector weighing 10 tons. In March 1945, an additional 1.5 tons of heavy water was poured into the core. On March 23, it was reported to Berlin that the reactor had started working. But the joy was premature - the reactor did not reach a critical point, the chain reaction did not start. After recalculations, it turned out that the amount of uranium must be increased by at least 750 kg, proportionally increasing the mass of heavy water. But there were no reserves left. The end of the Third Reich was inexorably approaching. On April 23, American troops entered Haigerloch. The reactor was dismantled and taken to the USA.

Meanwhile across the ocean

In parallel with the Germans (with only a slight lag), the development of atomic weapons was taken up in England and the USA. They began with a letter sent in September 1939 by Albert Einstein to US President Franklin Roosevelt. The initiators of the letter and the authors of most of the text were émigré physicists from Hungary Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller. The letter drew the president's attention to the fact that Nazi Germany was conducting active research, as a result of which it could soon acquire an atomic bomb.

In 1933, the German communist Klaus Fuchs fled to England. After receiving a degree in physics from the University of Bristol, he continued to work. In 1941, Fuchs reported his involvement in atomic research to Soviet intelligence agent Jurgen Kuchinsky, who informed Soviet ambassador Ivan Maisky. He instructed the military attache to urgently establish contact with Fuchs, who, as part of a group of scientists, was going to be transported to the United States. Fuchs agreed to work for Soviet intelligence. Many illegal Soviet spies were involved in working with him: the Zarubins, Eitingon, Vasilevsky, Semyonov and others. As a result of their active work, already in January 1945, the USSR had a description of the design of the first atomic bomb. At the same time, the Soviet residency in the United States reported that it would take the Americans at least one year, but no more than five years, to create a significant arsenal of atomic weapons. The report also said that the explosion of the first two bombs might be carried out in a few months. Pictured is Operation Crossroads, a series of atomic bomb tests conducted by the United States on Bikini Atoll in the summer of 1946. The goal was to test the effect of atomic weapons on ships.

In the USSR, the first information about the work carried out by both the allies and the enemy was reported to Stalin by intelligence as early as 1943. It was immediately decided to deploy similar work in the Union. Thus began the Soviet atomic project. Tasks were received not only by scientists, but also by intelligence officers, for whom the extraction of nuclear secrets has become a super task.

The most valuable information about the work on the atomic bomb in the United States, obtained by intelligence, greatly helped the promotion of the Soviet nuclear project. The scientists participating in it managed to avoid dead-end search paths, thereby significantly accelerating the achievement of the final goal.

Experience of Recent Enemies and Allies

Naturally, the Soviet leadership could not remain indifferent to German nuclear developments. At the end of the war, a group of Soviet physicists was sent to Germany, among whom were the future academicians Artsimovich, Kikoin, Khariton, Shchelkin. All were camouflaged in the uniform of colonels of the Red Army. The operation was led by First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Ivan Serov, which opened any door. In addition to the necessary German scientists, the “colonels” found tons of metallic uranium, which, according to Kurchatov, reduced work on the Soviet bomb by at least a year. The Americans also took out a lot of uranium from Germany, taking the specialists who worked on the project with them. And in the USSR, in addition to physicists and chemists, they sent mechanics, electrical engineers, glassblowers. Some were found in POW camps. For example, Max Steinbeck, the future Soviet academician and vice-president of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, was taken away when he was making a sundial at the whim of the head of the camp. In total, at least 1000 German specialists worked on the atomic project in the USSR. From Berlin, the von Ardenne laboratory with a uranium centrifuge, equipment of the Kaiser Institute of Physics, documentation, reagents were completely taken out. Within the framework of the atomic project, laboratories "A", "B", "C" and "G" were created, the scientific supervisors of which were scientists who arrived from Germany.

K.A. Petrzhak and G. N. Flerov In 1940, in the laboratory of Igor Kurchatov, two young physicists discovered a new, very peculiar type of radioactive decay of atomic nuclei - spontaneous fission.

Laboratory "A" was headed by Baron Manfred von Ardenne, a talented physicist who developed a method for gaseous diffusion purification and separation of uranium isotopes in a centrifuge. At first, his laboratory was located on the Oktyabrsky field in Moscow. Five or six Soviet engineers were assigned to each German specialist. Later, the laboratory moved to Sukhumi, and over time, the famous Kurchatov Institute grew up on the Oktyabrsky field. In Sukhumi, on the basis of the von Ardenne laboratory, the Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology was formed. In 1947, Ardenne was awarded the Stalin Prize for the creation of a centrifuge for the purification of uranium isotopes on an industrial scale. Six years later, Ardenne became twice a Stalin laureate. He lived with his wife in a comfortable mansion, his wife played music on a piano brought from Germany. Other German specialists were not offended either: they came with their families, brought with them furniture, books, paintings, were provided with good salaries and food. Were they prisoners? Academician A.P. Alexandrov, himself an active participant in the atomic project, remarked: "Of course, the German specialists were prisoners, but we ourselves were prisoners."

Nikolaus Riehl, a native of St. Petersburg who moved to Germany in the 1920s, became the head of Laboratory B, which conducted research in the field of radiation chemistry and biology in the Urals (now the city of Snezhinsk). Here Riehl worked with his old acquaintance from Germany, the outstanding Russian biologist-geneticist Timofeev-Resovsky (“Zubr” based on the novel by D. Granin).

In December 1938, German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann for the first time in the world carried out artificial fission of the uranium atom nucleus.

Recognized in the USSR as a researcher and talented organizer, able to find effective solutions to the most complex problems, Dr. Riehl became one of the key figures in the Soviet atomic project. After the successful testing of the Soviet bomb, he became a Hero of Socialist Labor and a laureate of the Stalin Prize.

The work of laboratory "B", organized in Obninsk, was headed by Professor Rudolf Pose, one of the pioneers in the field of nuclear research. Under his leadership, fast neutron reactors were created, the first nuclear power plant in the Union, and the design of reactors for submarines began. The object in Obninsk became the basis for the organization of the A.I. Leipunsky. Pose worked until 1957 in Sukhumi, then at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna.

Changes in US military doctrine between 1945 and 1996 and basic concepts

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On the territory of the United States, in Los Alamos, in the desert expanses of the state of New Mexico, in 1942, an American nuclear center was established. At its base, work was launched to create a nuclear bomb. The overall management of the project was entrusted to the talented nuclear physicist R. Oppenheimer. Under his leadership, the best minds of that time were gathered not only in the United States and England, but almost all Western Europe. A huge team worked on the creation of nuclear weapons, including 12 laureates Nobel Prize. There was no shortage of funds either.

By the summer of 1945, the Americans managed to assemble two atomic bombs, called "Kid" and "Fat Man". The first bomb weighed 2722 kg and was loaded with enriched Uranium-235. "Fat Man" with a charge of Plutonium-239 with a capacity of more than 20 kt had a mass of 3175 kg. On June 16, the first field test of a nuclear device took place, timed to coincide with the meeting of the leaders of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France.

By this time, relations between former associates had changed. It should be noted that the United States, as soon as they got the atomic bomb, sought to have a monopoly on its possession in order to deprive other countries of the opportunity to use atomic energy at their discretion.

US President G. Truman became the first political leader who decided to use nuclear bombs. From a military point of view, there was no need for such bombardments of densely populated Japanese cities. But political motives during this period prevailed over military ones. The leadership of the United States aspired to supremacy in everything post-war world, and nuclear bombing, in their opinion, should have been a significant reinforcement of these aspirations. To this end, they began to seek the adoption of the American "Baruch Plan", which would secure the US monopoly atomic weapons in other words, "absolute military superiority".

The fateful hour has come. On August 6 and 9, the crews of B-29 "Enola Gay" and "Bocks car" planes dropped their deadly cargo on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The total human losses and the extent of destruction from these bombings are characterized by the following figures: 300 thousand people died instantly from thermal radiation (temperature about 5000 degrees C) and a shock wave, another 200 thousand were injured, burned, irradiated. On an area of ​​12 sq. km, all buildings were completely destroyed. In Hiroshima alone, out of 90,000 buildings, 62,000 were destroyed. These bombings shocked the whole world. It is believed that this event marked the beginning of the nuclear arms race and the confrontation between the two political systems of that time at a new qualitative level.

The development of American strategic offensive weapons after the Second World War was carried out depending on the provisions of military doctrine. Its political side determined the main goal of the US leadership - the achievement of world domination. The main obstacle to these aspirations was considered the Soviet Union, which, in their opinion, should have been liquidated. Depending on the alignment of forces in the world, the achievements of science and technology, its main provisions changed, which was reflected in the adoption of certain strategic strategies (concepts). Each subsequent strategy did not completely replace the one that preceded it, but only modernized it, mainly in matters of determining the ways of building up the Armed Forces and methods of waging war.

From mid-1945 to 1953, the American military-political leadership in matters of building strategic nuclear forces (SNF) proceeded from the fact that the United States had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and could achieve world domination by eliminating the USSR during a nuclear war. Preparations for such a war began almost immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany. This is evidenced by the directive of the Joint Military Planning Committee No. 432 / d of December 14, 1945, which set the task of preparing the atomic bombing of 20 Soviet cities - the main political and industrial centers of the Soviet Union. At the same time, it was planned to use the entire stock of atomic bombs available at that time (196 pieces), which were carried by modernized B-29 bombers. The method of their application was also determined - a sudden atomic "first strike", which should put the Soviet leadership before the fact of the futility of further resistance.

The political justification for such actions is the thesis of the "Soviet threat", one of the main authors of which can be considered US Chargé d'Affaires in the USSR J. Kennan. It was he who, on February 22, 1946, sent a “long telegram” to Washington, where in eight thousand words he described the “life threat” that seemed to hang over the United States, and proposed a strategy for confrontation with the Soviet Union.

President G. Truman instructed to develop a doctrine (later called the "Truman Doctrine") of pursuing a policy from a position of strength in relation to the USSR. In order to centralize planning and increase the effectiveness of the use of strategic aviation, in the spring of 1947 a strategic aviation command (SAC) was created. At the same time, the task of improving strategic aviation technology is being implemented at an accelerated pace.

By mid-1948, the Committee of Chiefs of Staff drew up a plan for a nuclear war with the USSR, which received the code name Chariotir. It stipulated that the war should begin "with concentrated air raids using atomic bombs against government, political and administrative centers, industrial cities and selected oil refineries from bases in the Western Hemisphere and England." In the first 30 days alone, it was planned to drop 133 nuclear bombs on 70 Soviet cities.

However, as American military analysts calculated, this was not enough to achieve a quick victory. They believed that during this time the Soviet Army would be able to capture key areas of Europe and Asia. In early 1949, a special committee was created from the highest ranks of the army, air force and navy, under the leadership of Lieutenant General H. Harmon, who was tasked with trying to assess the political and military consequences of the planned atomic attack on the Soviet Union from the air. The conclusions and calculations of the committee clearly showed that the United States was nuclear war not yet ready.

The conclusions of the committee indicated that it was necessary to increase the quantitative composition of the SAC, increase its combat capabilities, and replenish nuclear arsenals. To ensure a massive nuclear strike by air assets, the United States needs to create a network of bases along the borders of the USSR, from which nuclear bombers could carry out combat sorties along the shortest routes to planned targets on Soviet territory. It is necessary to launch serial production of B-36 heavy strategic intercontinental bombers capable of operating from bases on American soil.

The announcement that the Soviet Union had mastered the secret of nuclear weapons aroused in the US ruling circles a desire to unleash a preventive war as soon as possible. The Troyan plan was developed, which provided for the start of hostilities on January 1, 1950. At that time, the SAC had 840 strategic bombers in combat units, 1350 in reserve and over 300 atomic bombs.

To assess its vitality, the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff ordered the group of Lieutenant General D. Hull to test the chances of putting out of action nine of the most important strategic areas on the territory of the Soviet Union at headquarters games. Having lost the air offensive against the USSR, Hull's analysts summed up: the probability of achieving these goals is 70%, which will entail the loss of 55% of the available bombers. It turned out that US strategic aviation in this case would very quickly lose combat effectiveness. Therefore, the question of a preventive war in 1950 was removed. Soon, the American leadership was able to actually verify the correctness of such assessments. During the Korean War, which began in 1950, B-29 bombers suffered heavy losses from attacks by jet fighter aircraft.

But the situation in the world was changing rapidly, which was reflected in the American strategy of "massive retaliation" adopted in 1953. It was based on the superiority of the United States over the USSR in the number of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery. It was planned to conduct a general nuclear war against the countries of the socialist camp. Strategic aviation was considered the main means of achieving victory, for the development of which up to 50% of the funds allocated to the Ministry of Defense for the purchase of weapons were directed.

In 1955, SAC had 1,565 bombers, 70% of which were B-47 jets, and 4,750 nuclear bombs for them with a yield of 50 kt to 20 Mt. In the same year, the B-52 heavy strategic bomber was put into service, which is gradually becoming the main intercontinental carrier of nuclear weapons.

At the same time, the military-political leadership of the United States is beginning to realize that in the conditions of the rapid growth of the capabilities of Soviet air defense systems, heavy bombers will not be able to solve the problem of achieving victory in a nuclear war alone. Ballistic missiles entered service in 1958 medium range Thor and Jupiter being deployed in Europe. A year later, the first Atlas-D intercontinental missiles were put on combat duty, the nuclear submarine J. Washington" with missiles "Polaris-A1".

With the advent of ballistic missiles in the strategic nuclear forces, the possibilities for delivering a nuclear strike from the United States are significantly increasing. However, in the USSR, by the end of the 1950s, intercontinental carriers of nuclear weapons were being created, capable of delivering a retaliatory strike on the territory of the United States. Soviet ICBMs were of particular concern to the Pentagon. Under these conditions, the leaders of the United States considered that the strategy of "massive retaliation" did not fully correspond to modern realities and should be adjusted.

By the beginning of 1960, nuclear planning in the United States was taking on a centralized character. Prior to this, each branch of the Armed Forces planned the use of nuclear weapons independently. But the increase in the number of strategic carriers required the creation of a single body for planning nuclear operations. They became the Joint Strategic Objectives Planning Headquarters, subordinate to the commander of the SAC and the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces. In December 1960, the first unified plan for the conduct of a nuclear war was drawn up, which received the name "Unified Integrated Operational Plan" - SIOP. It envisaged, in accordance with the requirements of the "massive retaliation" strategy, waging only a general nuclear war against the USSR and China with unlimited use of nuclear weapons (3.5 thousand nuclear warheads).

In 1961, the "flexible response" strategy was adopted, reflecting changes in official views on the possible nature of the war with the USSR. In addition to a general nuclear war, American strategists began to allow the possibility of limited use of nuclear weapons and warfare with conventional weapons for a short time (no more than two weeks). The choice of methods and means of waging war had to be carried out taking into account the current geostrategic situation, the balance of forces and the availability of resources.

The new installations had a very significant impact on the development of American strategic weapons. A rapid quantitative growth of ICBMs and SLBMs begins. The improvement of the latter is given Special attention, since they could be used as "forward-based" means in Europe. At the same time, the American government no longer needed to look for possible deployment areas for them and persuade the Europeans to give their consent to the use of their territory, as was the case during the deployment of medium-range missiles.

The military-political leadership of the United States believed that it was necessary to have such a quantitative composition of strategic nuclear forces, the use of which would ensure the "guaranteed destruction" of the Soviet Union as a viable state.

In the early years of this decade, a significant constellation of ICBMs was deployed. So, if at the beginning of 1960 the SAC had 20 missiles of only one type - Atlas-D, then by the end of 1962 - already 294. By this time, Atlas intercontinental ballistic missiles of modifications "E" were adopted and "F", "Titan-1" and "Minuteman-1A". The latest ICBMs were several orders of magnitude higher than their predecessors in terms of sophistication. In the same year, the tenth American SSBN went on combat patrol. The total number of Polaris-A1 and Polaris-A2 SLBMs has reached 160 units. The last of the ordered B-52H heavy bombers and B-58 medium bombers entered service. Total bombers as part of the strategic aviation command amounted to 1819. Thus, the American nuclear triad of strategic offensive forces (units and formations of ICBMs, nuclear missile submarines and strategic bombers) took shape organizationally, each component of which harmoniously complemented each other. It was equipped with over 6,000 nuclear warheads.

In mid-1961, the SIOP-2 plan was approved, reflecting a "flexible response" strategy. It provided for the conduct of five interconnected operations to destroy the Soviet nuclear arsenal, suppress the air defense system, destroy the organs and points of the military and government controlled, large groupings of troops, as well as strikes on cities. The total number of targets in the plan was 6,000. In place of those, the developers of the plan also took into account the possibility of a retaliatory nuclear strike by the Soviet Union on US territory.

At the beginning of 1961, a commission was formed, whose duties were charged with developing promising ways for the development of American strategic nuclear forces. Subsequently, such commissions were created regularly.

In the autumn of 1962, the world was again on the brink of nuclear war. The outbreak of the Caribbean crisis forced politicians around the world to look at nuclear weapons from a new perspective. For the first time, it clearly played the role of a deterrent. Sudden appearance for the USA Soviet missiles medium-range in Cuba and their lack of overwhelming superiority in the number of ICBMs and SLBMs over the Soviet Union made a military way to resolve the conflict impossible.

The American military leadership immediately declared the need for rearmament, in fact, heading for unleashing a strategic offensive arms race (START). The desires of the military found due support in the US Senate. Enormous money was allocated for the development of strategic offensive arms, which made it possible to improve the strategic nuclear forces qualitatively and quantitatively. In 1965, the Thor and Jupiter missiles, the Atlas missiles of all modifications and the Titan-1 were completely decommissioned. They were replaced by the Minuteman-1B and Minuteman-2 intercontinental missiles, as well as the heavy Titan-2 ICBM.

The marine component of the SNA has grown significantly both quantitatively and qualitatively. Taking into account such factors as the almost undivided dominance of the US Navy and the combined fleet of NATO in the vast oceans in the early 60s, the high survivability, stealth and mobility of SSBNs, the American leadership decided to significantly increase the number of deployed submarine missile carriers that could successfully replace medium-sized missiles. range. Their main targets were to be large industrial and administrative centers of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

In 1967, the strategic nuclear forces had 41 SSBNs with 656 missiles, of which more than 80% were Polaris-A3 SLBMs, 1054 ICBMs and over 800 heavy bombers. After the decommissioning of obsolete B-47 aircraft, the nuclear bombs intended for them were eliminated. In connection with the change in the tactics of strategic aviation, the equipment of the B-52 received cruise missiles AGM-28 "Hound Dog" with a nuclear warhead.

The rapid growth in the second half of the 60s in the number of Soviet OS-type ICBMs with improved characteristics, the creation of a missile defense system, made the likelihood of America achieving a quick victory in a possible nuclear war miserable.

The strategic nuclear arms race posed more and more new tasks for the US military-industrial complex. It was necessary to find a new way to quickly build up nuclear power. The high scientific and production level of the leading American rocket-building firms made it possible to solve this problem as well. Designers have found a way to significantly increase the number of nuclear charges raised without increasing the number of their carriers. Multiple reentry vehicles (MIRVs) were developed and implemented, first with dispersive warheads, and then with individual guidance.

The US leadership decided that the time had come to slightly correct the military-technical side of its military doctrine. Using the tried-and-tested thesis of the "Soviet missile threat" and the "US lagging behind", it easily managed to allocate funds for new strategic weapons. Since 1970, the deployment of Minuteman-3 ICBMs and Poseidon-S3 SLBMs with MIRV-type MIRVs began. At the same time, the obsolete Minuteman-1B and Polaris were removed from combat duty.

In 1971, the strategy of "realistic deterrence" was officially adopted. It was based on the idea of ​​nuclear superiority over the USSR. The authors of the strategy took into account the upcoming equality in the number of strategic carriers between the US and the USSR. By that time, without taking into account the nuclear forces of England and France, the following balance of strategic weapons had developed. For land-based ICBMs, the United States has 1,054 versus 1,300 for the Soviet Union; for the number of SLBMs, 656 versus 300; and for strategic bombers, 550 versus 145, respectively. The new strategic offensive arms development strategy provided for a sharp increase in the number of nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles while improving their performance characteristics, which was supposed to provide a qualitative superiority over the strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union.

The improvement of the strategic offensive forces was reflected in the next plan - SIOP-4, adopted in 1971. It was developed taking into account the interaction of all components of the nuclear triad and provided for the defeat of 16,000 targets.

But under pressure from the world community, the US leadership was forced to negotiate nuclear disarmament. The methods of conducting such negotiations were regulated by the concept of "negotiating from a position of strength" - an integral part of the "realistic deterrence" strategy. In 1972, the US-USSR Treaty on the Limitation of ABM Systems and the Interim Agreement on Certain Measures in the Sphere of the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT-1) were concluded. However, the buildup of the strategic nuclear potential of the opposing political systems continued.

By the mid-70s, the deployment was completed missile systems Minuteman 3 and Poseidon. All SSBNs of the Lafayette type, equipped with new missiles, have been upgraded. Heavy bombers were armed with nuclear SD SRAM. All this led to a sharp increase in the nuclear arsenal assigned to strategic delivery vehicles. So in five years from 1970 to 1975, the number of warheads increased from 5102 to 8500 units. The system of combat control of strategic weapons was being improved at full speed, which made it possible to implement the principle of quickly re-aiming warheads at new targets. It now took only a few tens of minutes to completely recalculate and replace the flight mission for one missile, and the entire grouping of SNA ICBMs could be retargeted in 10 hours. By the end of 1979, this system was implemented on all ICBM launchers and launch control points. At the same time, the protection of mine launchers ICBM "Minuteman".

The qualitative improvement in US START made it possible to move from the concept of "assured destruction" to the concept of "selection of targets", which provided for multivariate actions - from a limited nuclear strike with several missiles to a massive strike against the entire complex of planned targets of destruction. The SIOP-5 plan was drawn up and approved in 1975, which provided for strikes on military, administrative and economic targets of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries in a total number of up to 25 thousand.

The main form of use of American strategic offensive weapons was considered to be a sudden massive nuclear strike with all combat-ready ICBMs and SLBMs, as well as a certain number of heavy bombers. By this time, SLBMs had become the leaders in the US nuclear triad. If before 1970 most of the nuclear charges were listed as strategic aviation, then in 1975, 4536 warheads were installed on 656 sea-based missiles (on 1054 ICBMs - 2154 charges, and on heavy bombers - 1800). The views on their use have also changed. In addition to attacking cities, given the short flight time (12-18 minutes), submarine missiles could be used to destroy launching Soviet ICBMs in the active part of the trajectory or directly in launchers, preventing their launch before the American ICBMs approached. The latter were entrusted with the task of destroying highly protected targets, and above all, silos and command posts of missile units of the Strategic Missile Forces. In this way, a Soviet retaliatory nuclear strike on US territory could be thwarted or significantly weakened. Heavy bombers were planned to be used to destroy surviving or newly identified targets.

From the second half of the 1970s, the transformation of the views of the American political leadership on the prospects for nuclear war began. Taking into account the opinion of the majority of scientists about the disastrous for the United States even a retaliatory Soviet nuclear strike, it decided to accept the theory of a limited nuclear war for one theater of operations, and specifically, the European one. For its implementation, new nuclear weapons were needed.

The administration of President J. Carter allocated funds for the development and production of the highly effective strategic sea-based Trident system. The implementation of this project was planned to be carried out in two stages. At the first, it was planned to rearm 12 SSBNs of the J. Madison" missiles "Trident-C4", as well as build and put into operation 8 SSBNs of a new generation of the "Ohio" type with 24 of the same missiles. At the second stage, it was supposed to build another 14 SSBNs and arm all the boats of this project with the new Trident-D5 SLBM with higher performance characteristics.

In 1979, President J. Carter decides on the full-scale production of the Peekeper (MX) intercontinental ballistic missile, which, in terms of its characteristics, was supposed to surpass all existing Soviet ICBMs. Its development has been carried out since the mid-70s along with the Pershing-2 IRBM and a new type of strategic weapon - long-range ground and air-based cruise missiles.

With the coming to power of the administration of President R. Reagan, the “doctrine of neo-globalism” appeared, reflecting the new views of the US military-political leadership on the path to achieving world domination. It provided for a wide range of measures (political, economic, ideological, military) to "reject communism", the direct use military force against those countries where the United States sees a threat to its "vital interests." Naturally, the military-technical side of the doctrine was also adjusted. Its basis for the 1980s was the strategy of "direct confrontation" with the USSR on a global and regional scale, aimed at achieving "complete and undeniable military superiority of the United States."

Soon, the Pentagon developed "Guidelines for the construction of the US armed forces" for the coming years. In particular, they determined that in a nuclear war "the United States must prevail and be able to force the USSR to cease hostilities in a short time on the terms of the United States." Military plans provided for the conduct of both general and limited nuclear war within the framework of one theater of operations. In addition, the task was to be ready to wage an effective war from space.

Based on these provisions, concepts for the development of the SNA were developed. The concept of "strategic sufficiency" required to have such a combat composition of strategic carriers and nuclear warheads for them in order to ensure the "deterrence" of the Soviet Union. The concept of "active countermeasures" envisaged ways to ensure flexibility in the use of strategic offensive forces in any situation - from a single use of nuclear weapons to the use of the entire nuclear arsenal.

In March 1980, the president approves the SIOP-5D plan. The plan provided for the delivery of three options for nuclear strikes: preventive, retaliatory, and retaliatory. The number of objects of destruction was 40 thousand, which included 900 cities with a population of over 250 thousand each, 15 thousand industrial and economic facilities, 3,500 military targets in the USSR, the Warsaw Pact countries, China, Vietnam and Cuba.

In early October 1981, President Reagan announced his "strategic program" for the 1980s, which contained instructions for further building up the strategic nuclear potential. At six meetings of the Committee on Military Affairs of the US Congress, the last hearings on this program were held. Representatives of the president, the Ministry of Defense, leading scientists in the field of armaments were invited to them. As a result of comprehensive discussions of all structural elements, the strategic arms buildup program was approved. In accordance with it, starting from 1983, 108 Pershing-2 IRBM launchers and 464 BGM-109G land-based cruise missiles were deployed in Europe as forward-based nuclear weapons.

In the second half of the 1980s, another concept was developed - "essential equivalence". It determined how, in the conditions of the reduction and elimination of some types of strategic offensive weapons, by improving the combat characteristics of others, to ensure a qualitative superiority over the strategic nuclear forces of the USSR.

Since 1985, the deployment of 50 silo-based MX ICBMs began (another 50 missiles of this type in a mobile version were planned to be put on combat duty in the early 1990s) and 100 B-1B heavy bombers. The production of BGM-86 air-launched cruise missiles to equip 180 B-52 bombers was in full swing. A new MIRV with more powerful warheads was installed on the 350 Minuteman-3 ICBMs, while the control system was modernized.

An interesting situation developed after the deployment of Pershing-2 missiles in West Germany. Formally, this group was not part of the US SNA and was the nuclear means of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armed Forces of NATO in Europe (this position has always been occupied by US representatives). The official version, for the world community, of its deployment in Europe was a reaction to the appearance of RSD-10 (SS-20) missiles in the Soviet Union and the need to re-arm NATO in the face of a missile threat from the East. In fact, the reason was, of course, different, which was confirmed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied NATO Armed Forces in Europe, General B. Rogers. In 1983, in one of his speeches, he said: “Most people believe that we are undertaking the modernization of our weapons because of the SS-20 missiles. We would have carried out the modernization even if there were no SS-20 missiles.”

The main purpose of the Pershings (considered in the SIOP plan) was to deliver a "decapitation strike" on the command posts of the strategic formations of the USSR Armed Forces and the Strategic Missile Forces in Eastern Europe, which was supposed to disrupt the Soviet retaliatory strike. To do this, they had all the necessary tactical and technical characteristics: a short flight time (8-10 minutes), high firing accuracy and a nuclear charge capable of hitting highly protected targets. Thus, it became clear that they were intended to solve strategic offensive tasks.

Land-based cruise missiles, also considered NATO's nuclear weapons, have become a dangerous weapon. But their use was envisaged in accordance with the SIOP plan. Their main advantage was the high accuracy of firing (up to 30 m) and the secrecy of the flight, which took place at an altitude of several tens of meters, which, combined with a small effective dispersion area, made it extremely difficult for the air defense system to intercept such missiles. The targets for the KR could be any pinpoint highly protected targets such as command posts, silos, etc.

However, by the end of the 1980s, the USA and the USSR had accumulated such a huge nuclear potential that it had long outgrown reasonable limits. There was a situation when it was necessary to make a decision what to do next. The situation was aggravated by the fact that half of the ICBMs (Minuteman-2 and part of Minuteman-3) had been in operation for 20 years or more. Maintaining them in a combat-ready state cost more and more every year. Under these conditions, the country's leadership decided on the possibility of a 50% reduction in strategic offensive arms, subject to a reciprocal step on the part of the Soviet Union. Such an agreement was concluded at the end of July 1991. Its provisions largely determined the development of strategic weapons for the 1990s. A directive was given for the development of such strategic offensive arms, so that the USSR would need to spend large financial and material resources to parry the threat from them.

The situation changed radically after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a result, the United States achieved world domination and remained the only "superpower" of the world. Finally, the political part of the American military doctrine was carried out. But with the end of the Cold War, according to the Clinton administration, threats to US interests have remained. In 1995, the report "National Military Strategy" appeared, presented by the chairman of the committee of the chiefs of staff of the Armed Forces, and sent to Congress. It became the last of the official documents that set out the provisions of the new military doctrine. It is based on a “strategy of flexible and selective engagement”. Certain adjustments in the new strategy have been made to the content of the main strategic concepts.

The military-political leadership still relies on force, and the Armed Forces are preparing to wage war and achieve "victory in any wars, wherever and whenever they arise." Naturally, there is improvement military structure, including strategic nuclear forces. They are entrusted with the task of deterring and intimidating a potential enemy, both in peacetime and at the entrance to a general or limited war using conventional weapons.

A significant place in theoretical developments is given to the place and methods of operation of the SNA in a nuclear war. Taking into account the existing correlation of forces between the United States and Russia in the field of strategic weapons, the American military-political leadership believes that the goals in a nuclear war can be achieved as a result of multiple and spaced nuclear strikes against objects of military and economic potential, administrative and political control. In time, it can be both proactive and reciprocal actions.

The following types of nuclear strikes are envisaged: selective - to destroy various command and control agencies, limited or regional (for example, against enemy troop groups in the course of a conventional war if the situation develops unsuccessfully) and massive. In this regard, a certain reorganization of the US START was carried out. A further change in American views on the possible development and use of strategic nuclear weapons can be expected at the beginning of the next millennium.

Ancient Indian and Greek scientists assumed that matter consists of the smallest indivisible particles; they wrote about this in their treatises long before the beginning of our era. In the 5th century BC e. the Greek scientist Leucippus from Miletus and his student Democritus formulated the concept of an atom (Greek atomos "indivisible"). For many centuries this theory remained rather philosophical, and only in 1803 the English chemist John Dalton proposed a scientific theory of the atom, confirmed by experiments.

At the end of XIX beginning of XX century. this theory was developed in the writings of Joseph Thomson, and then Ernest Rutherford, called the father of nuclear physics. It was found that the atom, contrary to its name, is not an indivisible finite particle, as previously stated. In 1911, physicists adopted Rutherford Bohr's "planetary" system, according to which an atom consists of a positively charged nucleus and negatively charged electrons revolving around it. Later it was found that the nucleus is also not indivisible; it consists of positively charged protons and chargeless neutrons, which, in turn, consist of elementary particles.

As soon as the structure of the atomic nucleus became more or less clear to scientists, they tried to realize the old dream of alchemists - the transformation of one substance into another. In 1934, French scientists Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie, when bombarding aluminum with alpha particles (helium atom nuclei), obtained radioactive phosphorus atoms, which, in turn, turned into a stable silicon isotope of a heavier element than aluminum. The idea arose to conduct a similar experiment with the heaviest natural element, uranium, discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth. After Henri Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of uranium salts in 1896, scientists were seriously interested in this element.

E. Rutherford.

Mushroom nuclear explosion.

In 1938, the German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann conducted an experiment similar to the Joliot-Curie experiment, however, taking uranium instead of aluminum, they hoped to obtain a new superheavy element. However, the result was unexpected: instead of superheavy, light elements from the middle part of the periodic table were obtained. Some time later, the physicist Lisa Meitner suggested that the bombardment of uranium with neutrons leads to the splitting (fission) of its nucleus, resulting in the nuclei of light elements and a certain number of free neutrons.

Further studies have shown that natural uranium consists of a mixture of three isotopes, with uranium-235 being the least stable of them. From time to time, the nuclei of its atoms spontaneously divide into parts, this process is accompanied by the release of two or three free neutrons, which rush at a speed of about 10 thousand kms. The nuclei of the most common isotope-238 in most cases simply capture these neutrons, less often uranium is converted into neptunium and then into plutonium-239. When a neutron hits the nucleus of uranium-2 3 5, its new fission immediately occurs.

It was obvious: if you take enough big piece pure (enriched) uranium-235, the nuclear fission reaction in it will go like an avalanche, this reaction was called a chain reaction. Each nuclear fission releases a huge amount of energy. It was calculated that with the complete fission of 1 kg of uranium-235, the same amount of heat is released as when burning 3 thousand tons of coal. This colossal release of energy, released in a matter of moments, was to manifest itself as an explosion of monstrous force, which, of course, immediately interested the military departments.

The Joliot-Curies. 1940s

L. Meitner and O. Hahn. 1925

Before the outbreak of World War II, Germany and some other countries carried out highly classified work on the creation of nuclear weapons. In the United States, research designated as the "Manhattan Project" started in 1941; a year later, the world's largest research laboratory was founded in Los Alamos. The project was administratively subordinated to General Groves, scientific leadership was carried out by University of California professor Robert Oppenheimer. The project was attended by the largest authorities in the field of physics and chemistry, including 13 Nobel Prize winners: Enrico Fermi, James Frank, Niels Bohr, Ernest Lawrence and others.

The main task was to obtain a sufficient amount of uranium-235. It was found that plutonium-2 39 could also serve as a charge for the bomb, so work was carried out in two directions at once. The accumulation of uranium-235 was to be carried out by separating it from the bulk of natural uranium, and plutonium could only be obtained as a result of a controlled nuclear reaction by irradiating uranium-238 with neutrons. Enrichment of natural uranium was carried out at the plants of the Westinghouse company, and for the production of plutonium it was necessary to build a nuclear reactor.

It was in the reactor that the process of irradiating uranium rods with neutrons took place, as a result of which part of the uranium-238 was supposed to turn into plutonium. The sources of neutrons were fissile atoms of uranium-235, but the capture of neutrons by uranium-238 prevented the chain reaction from starting. The discovery of Enrico Fermi, who discovered that neutrons slowed down to a speed of 22 ms, caused a chain reaction of uranium-235, but were not captured by uranium-238, helped solve the problem. As a moderator, Fermi proposed a 40-cm layer of graphite or heavy water, which includes the hydrogen isotope deuterium.

R. Oppenheimer and Lieutenant General L. Groves. 1945

Calutron at Oak Ridge.

An experimental reactor was built in 1942 under the stands of the Chicago stadium. On December 2, its successful experimental launch took place. A year later, a new enrichment plant was built in the city of Oak Ridge and a reactor for the industrial production of plutonium was launched, as well as a calutron device for the electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes. The total cost of the project was about $2 billion. Meanwhile, at Los Alamos, work was going on directly on the device of the bomb and methods for detonating the charge.

On June 16, 1945, near the city of Alamogordo in New Mexico, during tests code-named Trinity (“Trinity”), the world's first nuclear device with a plutonium charge and an implosive (using chemical explosives for detonation) detonation scheme was detonated. The power of the explosion was equivalent to an explosion of 20 kilotons of TNT.

The next step was the combat use of nuclear weapons against Japan, which, after the surrender of Germany, alone continued the war against the United States and its allies. On August 6, an Enola Gay B-29 bomber, under the command of Colonel Tibbets, dropped a Little Boy (“baby”) bomb on Hiroshima with a uranium charge and a cannon (using the connection of two blocks to create a critical mass) detonation scheme. The bomb was parachuted down and exploded at an altitude of 600 m from the ground. On August 9, Major Sweeney's Box Car aircraft dropped the Fat Man plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. The consequences of the explosions were terrible. Both cities were almost completely destroyed, more than 200 thousand people died in Hiroshima, about 80 thousand in Nagasaki. Later, one of the pilots admitted that they saw at that moment the most terrible thing that a person can see. Unable to resist the new weapons, the Japanese government capitulated.

Hiroshima after the atomic bombing.

The explosion of the atomic bomb put an end to World War II, but in fact began a new cold war, accompanied by an unbridled nuclear arms race. Soviet scientists had to catch up with the Americans. In 1943, a secret "laboratory No. 2" was created, headed by the famous physicist Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov. Later, the laboratory was transformed into the Institute of Atomic Energy. In December 1946, the first chain reaction was carried out at the experimental nuclear uranium-graphite reactor F1. Two years later, the first plutonium plant with several industrial reactors was built in the Soviet Union, and in August 1949, a test explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb with a plutonium charge RDS-1 with a capacity of 22 kilotons was carried out at the Semipalatinsk test site.

In November 1952, on the Eniwetok Atoll in pacific ocean The United States detonated the first thermonuclear charge, the destructive force of which arose due to the energy released during the nuclear fusion of light elements into heavier ones. Nine months later, at the Semipalatinsk test site, Soviet scientists tested the RDS-6 thermonuclear, or hydrogen, 400-kiloton bomb developed by a group of scientists led by Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov and Yuli Borisovich Khariton. In October 1961, a 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested, was detonated at the test site of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

I. V. Kurchatov.

At the end of the 2000s, the United States had approximately 5,000 and Russia 2,800 nuclear weapons on deployed strategic launchers, as well as a significant number of tactical nuclear weapons. This reserve is enough to destroy the entire planet several times. Just one thermonuclear bomb average power (about 25 megatons) is equal to 1500 Hiroshima.

In the late 1970s, research was underway to create a neutron weapon, a type of low-yield nuclear bomb. neutron bomb differs from conventional nuclear in that it artificially increases the fraction of the explosion energy that is released in the form of neutron radiation. This radiation affects the manpower of the enemy, affects his weapons and creates radioactive contamination of the area, while the impact of the shock wave and light radiation is limited. However, not a single army in the world has taken neutron charges into service.

Although the use of atomic energy has brought the world to the brink of destruction, it also has a peaceful side, although it is extremely dangerous when it gets out of control, this was clearly shown by the accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants. The world's first nuclear power plant with a capacity of only 5 MW was launched on June 27, 1954 in the village of Obninskoye Kaluga region(now the city of Obninsk). To date, more than 400 nuclear power plants are in operation in the world, 10 of them in Russia. They generate about 17% of the world's electricity, and this figure is likely to only increase. At present, the world cannot do without the use of nuclear energy, but we want to believe that in the future, humanity will find a safer source of energy supply.

Remote Control nuclear power plant in Obninsk.

Chernobyl after the disaster.