Talk:Soviet atomic bomb project

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Infiltration of the German program

"Under the administration of Beria, the NKVD co-opted atomic spies of the Soviet Atomic Spy Ring into the Western Allied program, and infiltrated the German nuclear program." – The last part doesn't make sense. Beria was appointed in August 1945. By then, neither the Uranium Club nor the Reich existed, and it would take years for Germany to regain enough resources to even think about a nuclear program. Hexmaster.se (talk) 17:15, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Uranium logistics

User:Kl833x9 added some interesting information about the Soviet effort to mine uranium (see here). My only real problem with it is that for his references he cited 1. his own experiences and 2. an apparently all-Russian source. The first falls under original research and the second is not confirmable by people who don't speak Russian (i.e., most people on the English Wikipedia).

If the facts could be confirmed in an English-language source of any repute, I'd be happy with their inclusion. I believe Alexei Kojevnikov's latest book (cited here) talks about this issue in particular though I don't have a copy on hand at the moment. Hopefully this is not too pedantic. --Fastfission 20:51, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

A few other issues: As I understand it, while the Soviets did try to get material from East German mines, the mines themselves were not very fruitful. I am not sure they actually contributed much to the Soviet effort. Also, the difficulties uranium miners faced in general were not limited to the Soviet program, but in fact plagued every uranium mining operating until relatively recently (not because it was a radioactive environment, but because uranium mines are filled with radon gas, a known carcinogen) and it is rarely cost-efficient to properly ventilate them (I believe France gets around this by mostly using open-pit mining). --Fastfission 20:54, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

1. In the russian source you can verify the fact that the first russian uranium source was really in germany.

2. The amount of exploited uranium ore was 200,000 tons. The whole area around the city is now a moon landscape which will be recovered slowly during the next decades. During the time of the cold war nearly every man living in the region worked in some part of the mine or the facility. In some sources large uranium deposits have 130,000 tons of ore.

3. I think that especially students of top-tier U.S. universities should be able to speak foreign languages. You for example speak german, spanish and also a little bit russian (so the source can be interesting for you i think. Also some people are thinking that the majority of U.S. citizens and also a lot of british people are speaking only one language. So you are definitly a counterexample to that prejudice.) I think also that the wikipedia is intended for people who can have nearly every educational skill (exept illiterates). Those who are not able to read a russian book, can simply ignore this source. I did not write any other text in russian language. I can also assure you that there are a lot of russians, which are speaking english (and therefore use the english wikipedia). In german wiki i have also referenced sources in italian, french, english and russian language in different articles. Despite the fact that not every user of the german wiki can speak all of these languages, nobody has mocked it, because sometimes native sources are more exactly than sources in a common language and there are always sources listed, which are in german language. Thats the reason why i'm using also the english, french, hungarian and naturally the russian wiki for research. Finally: why you have a problem with the native russian source if it offers you (speaker ru-1) the possibility to audit what I have written ? (Its from 1999 and does not contain any antiamerican content, if that is your problem. Instead it has the purpose to tell the russians citizens, who often are still believing that stalin was a fine man, how fine he really was.) Finally, i think you should be able to confirm the content to the non-russian speakers. (I have got the book also from the dresden university library, so I hope that you are maybe able to retrieve it by a similar way.) For the moment I can give you these links to that topic:

• [1] a page of the former miners. Interesting for you is maybe especially the map of the whole uranium mining cites (I have only mentioned the most important one).
• [2] An extended article about the history of the mines.
• [3] The part of the page of the town Ronneburg about the uranium mine.

If you are searching more stuff then good keywords are f.ex:

• Wismut: the name of the company responsible for the mining
• Uranerz: engl. uranium ore
• The following town-names: Crossen, Seelingstädt, Schlema
• DDR: engl. GDR german democratic republic

....

4. The russians cannot plague a uranium mine which is not on their territory. In the case that a mine is still located now in russia, i had the intention to explain, that the mines are still active, if the uranium is not completely exploited.

5. Why are you favorizing second hand information ? (It's a translation, which you have mentioned, and as far as I have experienced often translations are containing sometimes serious semantic mistakes or are fitted to the mentalities and feelings of the targeted readers. For example: Some time ago I bought some memoirs from a former OSS officer via amazon. In that book he is reporting about the treatment of some german POWs by his comrades from the resistance. They hitted them with a metal poker in the face before they killed them. I am sure that, if there will be a german translation of this book, the passage will be canceled or at minimum changed to avoid an injury of the feelings of some readers. I fact I found no literature in german language where such deeds are mentioned so detailed.)

6. Why you are reverting the whole paragraph without any diskussion ? Now i am put before a fait accompli. Maybe my english expression skills are not so perfect ? If it is so, than I would have no problem if you save the facts and rewrite the text. Or are you concerned about some citynames ? (Maybe osama is reading too ...)

7. Why are you trying to explain me things, which I (maybe) know better: "As I understand it, while the Soviets did try to get material from East German mines, the mines themselves were not very fruitful." If that fact is true, why did they exploit the uranium from 1946 until december 1990 and didn't close the mine when they have explored much better sources ? There is a prejudice that russians are sometimes a little bit simple, but I can assure you that they are in general intelligent enough to realize such facts. On the other hand: I will not even try to explain you how the battle of Midway was fought or try to tell you the detailed event sequence of the first moon landing, or why the vietnam war was lost ... because I'am absolutely sure that you have the better knowledge about topics of the history of your home country.

Finally I would ask you to revert your revert. Maybe you can enhance the readability and expression of the text, but I can definitly guarantee you that the mentioned facts are true. If you need more serious books and sources about that topic, I can find some more tomorrow.

cu

--kl833x9 00:49, 3 August 2005 (CEST)

• I didn't ever respond to this, but:
  1. If you look at what I wrote above, I didn't say they didn't necessarily get some uranium from Germany. I said that I hadn't seen evidence that it was a major source, and citing a Beria biography in Russian doesn't help much.
  2. Again, you are citing personal experience in this. That's not useful for us here.
  3. We all do our best on the language front. But that doesn't affect the fact that on the English Wikipedia, citations ought to be found in English wherever possible. The main problem is not that I couldn't hypothetically look up the reference and translate a few sentences. The problem is that I can't evaluate the source as a whole, something I can do very quickly in English.
  4. I'm not sure I follow the point of this one.
  5. Secondary sources developed by trained historians are preferable over memoirs. A historian looks at two dozen memoirs and tries to piece out what makes sense and what can be supported by other information. An individual memoir can be full of much mistake and fancy. This is not a radical idea.
  6. I reverted it because the information looked sketchy at best and very speculative at other times. It contained too many "Maybe they did this?" questions to be very trustworthy by itself. This is not a statement about your trustworthiness, it is about how I, as another editor, can evaluate what you have written.
  7. I didn't say the Russians were simple. I'm just looking for verifiable facts.
• Hope that makes a little sense. I'll try to look into the issue when I get the time, but as it was I didn't find the additions to jive with my understanding of the situation. As for who knows whose history better, I don't know, though I should say that my primary reference on this is a Russian who works in the United States. Not sure where that falls on your scale. --Fastfission 02:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Why?

what the heck this page dosent do anything it is horrible where is the information? i'm tritng to do a report but this doesn't give me any help

• At the very least, it links to a number of online resources and has a number of print resources listed. --Fastfission 01:52, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Tsar Bomba - 3rd degree burns at 100km

Tsar Bomba - "The explosion was hot enough to induce third degree burns at 100 km."

This doesn't seem to be realistic... Anyone have a citation?

On the contrary, VERY realistic. 50 Mt bomb after all.

Quoting Carey Sublette at nuclear archive, "The Tu-95 was painted with a special white reflective paint to protect it from the thermal radiation of the fireball. The airborne laboratory plane was also covered with the same paint. In clear air, the 50 Mt test was capable in principle of inflicting third degree burns at a distance of up to 100 km." It appears then to be a computed rather than an experienced statement. SkoreKeep (talk) 11:12, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Picture problems

Has anyone else noticed that the first picture of "Andrei Sakharov (left) with Igor Kurchatov (right)" dosen't work? James.Denholm 05:07, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Eh? It appears that it's at rest, on a park bench. Is your statement relevant? SkoreKeep (talk) 11:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Chagan

"The area is still radioactive (as of 2006)."

This is a meaningless statement. All areas are radioactive. The importance is the relative radioactivity of the area, not that it is radioactive in and of itself. An actual measurement or measurements of the level of radioactivity at Chagan should be be listed. - MSTCrow 19:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction about Mayak?

The single most damaging incident took place at the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant Mayak in 1957 and is considered to be the largest release of radioactivy by accident, several times more severe than the Chernobyl disaster.

Yet International_Nuclear_Events_Scale#Level_7Lists Chernobyl as level 7 while Mayak is level 6. Also, the Mayak article states This nuclear accident, the Soviet Union's worst other than the Chernobyl disaster,[...]

If it is not a contradiction, Someone knowledgeable should clarify the terminology. 70.80.113.243 05:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Tsarbomb.jpg

Image:Tsarbomb.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 02:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Andrei Sakharov and Igor Kurchatov.jpeg

Image:Andrei Sakharov and Igor Kurchatov.jpeg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Notes on Image:Andrei Sakharov and Igor Kurchatov.jpeg

I'd like to save the image, and at the time I uploaded it, I did it in good faith the image was PD -- pre-1973 Soviet photo. Now it appears this has changed. Can the image be saved by, say, lowering the image quality (or some other rationale)? That's the only way I see right off.

dino (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Water-to-motivation conversion?

The first paragraph under the Nuclear Physics in the Soviet Union section contains the sentence:

But such surveys were never made, as it was discovered that the main motivation for uranium ores at the time—radium, which had scientific as well as medical uses—could be retrieved from borehole water from the Ukhta oilfields.

Clarifying:

… it was discovered that the main motivation for uranium ores at the time … could be retrieved from borehole water…

This sentence seems to suggest that the Russians turned water into motivation. If we can convert electricity to religion, maybe the Russians can convert water to motivation. (I find the absurdity of these conversions humorous.) This needs clarification. Ian01 (talk) 22:45, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Espionage?

Does the person, who says that soviets received nuclear technology through espionage, understand what he says?

first of all, soviets receiving nuclear technology would require a complete technical documentation to exist on the bomb. That would be a big document. For it to be stolen, it would require that it be left unattended, which is impossible in the view of the fact that it was carefully guarded by americans. Also, technology at the time would not allow the whole document (if it existed at all) to be sent to USSR. Where is legitimate proof of the fact?

Oh, one more thing: let us suppose that the whole document was transmitted to USSR. There is one more problem: physical model of the nuclear charge depends on certain parameters, which, in turn, depend on the uranium in question. In other words, nuclear technology is not interchangeable, you can't just get plans and build your own bomb. So, Soviets would have to be using EXACTLY the same uranium as americans, from exactly the same place, which of course was not possible. So, soviets had to figure out how to build a model for the uranium they had at the time, which is exactly what it means to build an atom bomb.

When non-scientific sources like BBC and others claim soviets were stealing secrets from americans, I would be taking this with a grain of salt. 99.231.50.118 (talk) 04:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)Pavel Golikov.

A confused analysis indicating that this critic, to use his own words, does not understand what he says. For the extent of Soviet knowledge about the US bomb effort see documentation in David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb and the Sovetskii Atomnyi Proekt volumes. Aside from two key ideas - plutonium bomb and gaseous diffusion, Kurchatov did receive fairly detailed blueprints of the bomb in 1945 (see Sovetskii Atomnyi Proekt volumes). This does not in any way diminish the achievements of Kurchatov, Khariton and their team in developing the bomb. Radchenk (talk) 21:10, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You failed to address the most important point. Where was soviet uranium from? US? No. therefore, they could not replicate any US bombs, since they were built for US uranium. Words "Which was a replica of US Fat Man" I believe are out of place here. In nuclear technology, as well as in any other high technology, words like "replica" and "copy" simply are irrelevant.99.231.50.118 (talk) 05:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC)Pavel Golikov.

If you don't trust the western sources, have a look at this very interesting paper: Mikhailov, V.N., Goncharov, G.A., 1999. I.V. Kurchatov and the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR. Atomic Energy, Vol. 86, No. 4, pages 266 - 282. There you find the same statements from Russian nuclear scientists. Geomartin (talk) 03:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

This thread is fairly old now, but to answer the "built for US uranium" comment...

There is no such thing as "US uranium". Uranium is a natural element - U-235 is an isotope of Uranium. Uranium enriched so that it's 90% or 93.5% or some value of U-235 total content is the same no matter whose Uranium mine it came out of.

Further - the first US and Soviet bombs didn't use Uranium, they both used Plutonium for their fissile material. As with Uranium, Pu with particular isotopic constituents is the same no matter where you got it from. Different reactors and processes produce slightly different ratios of isotopes, but it's generally processed into very similiar isotope ratios, because those are the most efficient no matter who looks at the problem.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

This section was quite poorly written so I figured I'd re-write the whole thing to place the right accents. I'll add sources next time I have a chance. Radchenk (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

References, sources, citations?

Hi all. IMHO, this article looks very interesting and coherently written. However I was unable to find adequate inline citations for most of the text. I'll add relevant tagging, to help provide the citations. Kind regards, DPdH (talk) 04:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I added quite a bit of information about the testing of various bombs (RDS-2 3,4,5 9). A very good source of detailed technical information can be found (in Russian) in Andryushin's article "Taming of the Nucleus: Creation of the first models of nuclear weapons". DonPMitchell (talk) 05:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Noticed this myself. In particular, "Beginnings of the Program" and "Administration and Personnel" have no citations at all. Kajabla (talk) 16:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Importance of the captured german scientists?

Wasn't the technological advancements made by the german scientists who were captured by the russians towards the end of WW2 the ultimate reason why the russians became capable of making nuclear weapons? How important was their contribution to Russia's development of nuclear weapons? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.132.30 (talk) 21:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've never read any account of German scientists being involved. The Soviets did use Germans extensively for the development of the R-1 rocket (a copy of the V-2), but since the Germans never made much progress with atomic energy, there would't have been much point in taking the security risk of involving them. DonPMitchell (talk) 05:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia article, "Russian Alsos" particularly the "Von Ardenne, Hertz, Thiessen, and Volmer" section. Note that German/Austrian scientists developed the Zippe Centrifuge: "Goals of Ardenne's Institute A included: (1) Electromagnetic separation of isotopes, for which von Ardenne was the leader, (2) Techniques for manufacturing porous barriers for isotope separation, for which Peter Adolf Thiessen was the leader, and (3) Molecular techniques for separation of uranium isotopes, for which Max Steenbeck was the leader; Steenbeck was a colleague of Hertz at Siemens. While Steenbeck developed the theory of the centrifugal isotope separation process, Gernot Zippe, an Austrian who participated in the German nuclear weapons program, headed the experimental effort in Steenbeck's group.[26] Even after nearly two decades, the work of Steenbeck and Zippe in the development of ultracentrifuges (Zippe-type centrifuges) was recognized in the West as very advanced." Jim.Callahan,Orlando (talk) 00:02, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The captured german scientists were the reason the soviets could build a nuclear weapon. They invented the uranium purification process that is the most difficult and most important part to a nuclear weapon. Without the german scientists the soviets would not have had nuclear weapons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.102.153.66 (talk) 18:17, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

References

Atomic Teminology

I see there is many "Atomic this or atomic that" phrases used in this (and similar). While normally it is incorrect to refer to any of the nuclear weapons or reactions as "atomic", I do understand there are historical reasons to use that term where appropriate. However, I guess it might be overused, and there are contexts where it would be better replaced by "nuclear" which is more correct. Since I do not live in an English speaking country, I won't be changing any of that, but someone coming from such a culture could take a look and decide where would each of these terms be better suited... Arny (talk) 07:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

File:Rsd 37 nuclear test.JPG Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Which test is in the photograph?

The caption for File:Soviet super test.jpg in § Important Soviet nuclear tests says "The mushroom cloud from the first air-dropped bomb test in 1951. This picture is confused with RDS-27 and RDS-37 tests." So is this image actually RDS-27 or RDS-37? DMacks (talk) 19:09, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Igor Kurchatov 1939.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:38, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Eastern vs Western

Under the 'World War II and accelerated feasibility' section, the following sentence is slightly confusing: 'Russia became engaged in a bloody conflict along the Eastern Front'.

We in the west call it the 'Eastern Front', but relative to Russia, the war was to their west.

As Russia is the subject in the sentence, perhaps there's a better way to word this as it might confuse those with less knowledge of geography. JJM0070 (talk) 01:41, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Unrelated

This revert [4]. What is the relevance of Thermobaric weapons and Russian invasion of Ukraine to this page? My very best wishes (talk) 20:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Oleg Lavrentiev

Where is he? Chic McGregor (talk) 19:36, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Who? Drmies (talk) 01:15, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Chernobyl

Did it really have something to do with the subject of the article? Grassynoel (talk) 00:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• It is mentioned in a highly relevant way in this article. Drmies (talk) 01:14, 9 April 2024 (UTC)