Totskoye Nuclear Exercise: History

8/20/2018 Totskoye nuclear exercise - Wikipedia
Coordinates: 52°38.54′N 52°48.55′E
Totskoye nuclear exercise

The Totskoye nuclear exercise was a military exercise undertaken by the Soviet Army to explore defensive and
offensive warfare during nuclear war. The exercise, under the code name "Snowball", involved an aerial detonation of a 40
kt[1] RDS-4 nuclear bomb. The stated goal of the operation was military training for breaking through heavily fortified
defensive lines of a military opponent using nuclear weapons.[2][3] An army of 45,000 soldiers marched through the area
around the epicenter soon after the nuclear blast. The exercise was conducted on September 14, 1954, at 9.33 a.m.,[4][5]
under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov to the north of Totskoye village in Orenburg Oblast, Russia, in the South
Ural Military District.
History
In mid-September 1954, nuclear bombing tests were performed at the Totskoye proving ground during the training
exercise Snezhok (Russian: Снежок, Snowball or Light Snow) with some 45,000 people, all Soviet soldiers and officers,[3]
who explored the explosion site of a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima nine years earlier. The
participants were carefully selected from Soviet military servicemen, informed that they would take part in an exercise
with the use of a new kind of weapons, sworn to secrecy and earned a salary for three months ahead.[6] A delegation of
high-ranking government officials and senior military officers arrived to the region on the eve of the exercise, which
included First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Generals Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Konstantin Rokossovsky,
Ivan Konev and Rodion Malinovsky.[4] The operation was commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov and
initiated by the Soviet Ministry of Defense.[7] At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a 40-
kilotonne (170 TJ)[3] atomic weapon - RDS-4 bomb, which had been previously tested in 1951 at the Semipalatinsk Test
Site,[3][8] - from 8,000 metres (26,000 ft). The bomb exploded 350 metres (1,150 ft) above Totskoye range, 13 kilometres
(8 mi) from Totskoye.[3]
The exercise involved the 270th Rifle Division,[9] 320 planes, 600 tanks and self-propelled guns, 600 armoured personnel
carriers, 500 artillery pieces and mortars and 6,000 automobiles.[3]
Following the explosion, a Li-2 airplane was put to use on a reconnaissance mission to report the movement of a
radioactive cloud produced by the blast,[10] and the most dangerous areas were explored and marked by special
reconnaissance troops.[11] After the reconnaissance was complete and the Soviet command gained enough information on
the level of radiation, the army moved in. Much attention was paid to personal safety: the participants were provided with
personal protective equipment, tinted glasses or lenses for gas masks and had individual radiation dosimeters.[12] Gamma-
roentgenometers measured the level of radiation exposure in the epicentre, dosimeters were used to estimate the radiation
dose deposited in an individual wearing or a vehicle after the troops completed their task, and the troops received a
'chemical alert' signal if the radiation was too high.[13] The soldiers wore gas masks, protective suits and respirators,[11]
special gloves and capes[13] and moved around the territory in armoured personnel carriers, holding the distance of
400[10]-600 metres from the hypocentre and avoiding the most dangerous areas of the explosion site.[4] A relatively low
level of radiation, strong wind and the extensive use of personal protective equipment allowed them to move 400–500
metres from the epicentre, whereas tanks and armoured personnel carriers could safely get even closer.[10] The degree of
radiation exposure on the armored vehicles, clothes and military personnel was measured immediately after every combat
mission.[14] According to the data of remote control and measuring equipment installed at 730 meters from the epicenter,
the level of radiation reached 65 R/h two minutes after the blast, dropped to 10 R/h after 10 minutes, 2.4 R/h after 25
minutes, and 1.5 R/h after 47 minutes.[14][15]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totskoye_nuclear_exercise 1/5
At the time when the military forces entered the devastated area, two and a half hours following the detonation, the
radiation level did not exceed 0.01 R/h at a distance of 400 meters, as measured by military reconnaissance units. Moving
on foot, with an average speed of 4-5 kilometres per hour, the troops were exposed to a level of radiation of only 0.02-0.03
R/h, while the impact on those moving in armored personnel carriers and tanks was eight-nine times lower.[15]
Sergey Zelentsov (1927—2017), a military officer who was the first to reach the middle of the epicenter, described his
experience in the following words: "Not reaching the area of strong radioactive contamination, we crossed the road which
the columns of advancing troops had passed before us. It was empty and quiet around, only the radiometers were clicking,
noting us of the increased level of radiation. The troops proceeded past the epicenter, outside of the area of severe
radioactive contamination. Directly in the zone adjacent to the epicenter of the explosion, the ground was covered with a
thin glassy crust of melted sand, crunchy and breaking underfoot, like a thin ice on spring puddles after a night frost. And
there were no footprints on it, except for my own. I walked quietly along this crust, since the radiometer registered a level
of radioactivity not exceeding 1 R/h."[16]
For the purpose of deactivating the military troops, their vehicles and equipment, the High Command formed a chain of
special deactivation stations in pre-planned areas around the blast site, but soon had to disband them due to the low,
insignificant radioactive contamination of the area and military personnel.[17]
According to declassified documents, the troops were forbidden to enter any areas on the ground where the level of
radiation exceeded 25 Roentgens per hour. Such areas were identified and marked by intelligence patrols including
officers of the Radiation Safety Service of the Semipalatinsk proving ground before they could be reached by the rest of the
military forces. The team of dosimetrists used a tank to cross the hypocenter, which allowed them to minimize the
radiation exposure.[18]
In comparison with the rest of the army, the number of troops crossing the actual site of the explosion was tiny and
consisted of only 3,000 soldiers and officers, amounting to only 5-7 percent of the overall number of military forces
involved in the exercise.[19]
Marshall Georgy Zhukov, along with Defense Minister Bulganin, Generals Konev, Rokossovsky, Sokolovsky, Petrov,
Vershinin and high-ranking foreign guests witnessed the blast from an open wooden pavilion on the Medvezhya
mountain, 268,6 metres above the ground and about 10,000 metres from the epicenter.[20] The airplanes were ordered to
bomb the explosion site five minutes after the blast, and three hours later (after the demarcation of the radioactive zone)
the armored vehicles were ordered to practice the taking of a hostile area after a nuclear attack.[3] The residents of villages
(Bogdanovka, Fyodorovka and others) that were situated around 6 km (4 mi) from the epicenter of the future explosion
were offered temporary evacuation outside the 50 km (31 mi) radius and given instructions. They were evacuated by the
military and temporarily accommodated in military tents. During the exercise, the residents received daily payment, while
their property was insured. Those of them who decided not to return after the operation was complete, were provided with
newly built four-room furnished houses near the Samarka river or obtained financial compensation.[4]
The nearest villages were generally not affected by the blast,[4] except for a number of houses located less than 8 km
(5.0 mi) from the explosion site that caught fire and burned down.[10] Their owners received new housing.[21]
Three days after the exercise, the guard around the restricted area was finally removed, though the hypocenter of the blast
remained under guard and closed for access for a few more weeks. For a period of time, research groups were stationed
there for studying the impact of the nuclear explosion in detail. Two weeks after the explosion, the maximum radiation
levels decreased significantly, making the territory safe for people to enter.[22]
A few days afterwards, Soviet scientists received detailed reports on the test and began to study the impact of the nuclear
blast on model houses, shelters, vehicles, vegetation and experimental animals affected by the explosion.[11] On 17
September 1954, the Soviet newspaper Pravda published a report on the exercise: "In accordance with the plan of
scientific and experimental works, a test of one of the types of nuclear weapons has been conducted in the Soviet Union in
the last few days. The purpose of the test was to examine the effects of nuclear explosion. Valuable results have been
obtained that will help Soviet scientists and engineers to successfully solve the task of protecting the country from nuclear
attack".[23] These results were discussed at a large scientific conference at the Kuybyshev Military Academy in Moscow and
for many years served as the basis for the Soviet program of defense against nuclear warfare.[24]
Not all of the damage at Totskoye was caused by the nuclear explosion, as two additional non-nuclear bombs were
exploded shortly after the main blast in order to imitate a second-wave nuclear strike. These bombs used massive TNT
charges, gasoline and oil as explosives and did not produce any radioactive fallout. Prior to the exercise, the area around
them was fenced and marked with red flags within a radius of 200 meters. At a distance of 1.500 meters, the dangerous
zone was additionally surrounded by guard posts and warning signs.[14]
In the late 1980s and 1990s, following the disastrous Chernobyl accident, Soviet and post-Soviet media launched a
campaign against nuclear exercises, presenting them, and the Totskoye exercise in particular, as also disastrous and
publishing a number of "eyewitness" reports consonant with that idea, as well as stories of people claiming to have been
affected by the blast. Such publications have nowadays been criticized by scholars and actual participants as often false
and including fantastic details, as well as bringing harm to the psychological state of the real veterans.[14][25][16]
Sergey Zelentsov, himself an important participant of the operation and the first man to reach the epicenter of the
explosion, spoke out against conspiracy theories surrounding the exercise: “In the army, as required by the exercise plan,
there were dosimetric control, decontamination of equipment and sanitary treatment of personnel. All this was done for
real, for working out and fixing time norms and the consumption of aids. And now, when non-specialists and people not
familiar with that situation express doubts that all this was safe, they bring great harm to the psychological state of the
former participants of the Totskoye exercise".[16]
Recent studies based on declassified documents and the evidence of surviving veterans point out that, contrary to the
scandalous stories that circulated in the late Soviet and post-Soviet press of the 1980s and 1990s, the low degree of
radiation and strict implementation of safety measures in accordance with preconceived plans, memos and instructions
minimized the risk of radiation-induced damage, while the documentary evidence shows that the High Staff made
significant efforts to ensure that the exercise was carried out without violating radiation and hygiene standards of the
day.[22]
On 20 August 1991, reacting to rumors of a possible radioactive threat in the Orenburg Oblast, the Altai Krai and the Altai
Republic, and in response to inquiries of people's deputies, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR appointed a large
commission to examine the radiation situation in the aforementioned regions. The investigation led the commission to
conclude that in all settlements of the Totsky, Sorochinsky and Buzuluksky Districts the radiation level was within normal
limits, the estimated degree of radiation exposure in 1954 could not affect the local population, and that the medical and
demographic characteristics of the population of the surveyed regions, including cancer incidence and congenital
malformations, were not above the average level.[26]
A year before, in June 1990, experts of the Leningrad Scientific Research Institute of Radiation Hygiene conducted their
own radioecological investigation of the area around the blast site. It included measurements of gamma radiation,
radiochemical analysis of environmental objects, samples of locally produced food and animal feed. The study concluded
that the accumulation of technogenic radionuclides in the environment was low, and that most beta activity in soil samples
could be accounted for by potassium-40, a beta emitter that occurs naturally.[26]
Finally, after these investigations failed to stop the spread of alarmist rumors and publications in the press, in 1994-1995
four Russian and four American experts formed a joint commission for studying the impact of the explosion on the blast
site and the surrounding territories. They examined 38 soil samples, as well as air samples taken in the surface layer of the
atmosphere, and measured the fluxes of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation on the soil surface and at a depth of up to 20
cm. Their research confirmed the data obtained earlier by the Leningrad Research Institute and established that the
amount of radiation spread in 1954 could not have a serious impact on the inhabitants and that the radiation level in the
region was average.[27]
See also
Desert Rock exercises, the United States's closest counterpart.
Operation Plumbbob
References
1. Memoirs of Colonel V. I. Levykin published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 19 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadern
ye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,19/)
2. Totskyoe exercise. Measures of safety (Russian) (http://actualhistory.ru/tozk_nuclear) by Sergei Markov
3. Nuclear Exercises, V. II. 2006. P. 19 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,19/)
4. Memoirs of Lieutenant-Colonel N. V. Danilenko published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 144 (http://elib.biblioato
m.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,144/)
5. Memoirs of Colonel V. I. Levykin published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 141 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yader
nye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,141/)
6. Memoirs of M. A. Kutsenko, a participant of the operation Snowball, published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p.
122 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,122/)
8. Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 11 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,11/)
9. V.I. Feskov et al., "The Soviet Army in the Cold War 1945–90", Tomsk, 2004, p. 94
12. Memoirs of Colonel Professor M. P. Arkhipov published in Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 132 (http://elib.biblioatom.
ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,132/)
14. ''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II. 2006. P. 68-69 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,68/)
15. ''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II. 2006. P. 38 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,38/)
21. Nuclear Exercises, V. II, 2006, p. 65 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,65/)
23. Pravda, 17 September 1954

Генерал-лейтенант С.А. Зеленцов. Ядерные испытания. Книга 2. Тоцкое войсковое учение (научно-
публицистическая монография). Под общей редакцией научного руководителя РФЯЦ ВНИИЭФ акад. В. Н.
Михайлова (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,0/) [Totskoye Military Exercise (Nuclear
Exercises, V. II, 2006), Scientific Monograph published by RosAtom, ed. by Academic V. Mikhaylov, head of the All-
Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics] (in Russian). Retrieved 2018-03-24.
"Nuclear Testing in the USSR. Volume 2. Soviet Nuclear Testing Technologies. Environmental Effects. Safety
Provisions. Nuclear Test Sites", Begell-House, Inc., New York, 1998
A. A. Romanyukha, E. A. Ignatiev, D. V. Ivanov and A. G. Vasilyev, "The Distance Effect on the Individual Exposures
Evaluated from the Soviet Nuclear Bomb Test in 1954 at Totskoye Test Site in 1954", Radiation Protection Dosimetry
86:53-58 (1999) online abstract (http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/1/53)
Wm. Robert Johnston (2005-05-05). "Totsk nuclear test, 1954. Database of radiological incidents and related events--
Johnston's Archive" (http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html). Retrieved 2011-03-05.
In the Zone of Nuclear Blast (Russian) (http://scbist.com/blogs/admin/494-v-zone-yadernogo-udara.html) Memoirs of
Lieutenant General of Aviation (Retired) Nikolay Ostroumov
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Coordinates: 52°38.54′N 52°48.55′E

Totskoye nuclear exercise

25. ''Nuclear Exercises'', V. II. 2006. P. 69 (http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/yadernye-ispytaniya_kn2_2006/go,69/)

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