The second coming of the neutron bomb. Educational program: myths about the “humane” neutron bomb Armor will not protect against the effects of a neutron bomb

The 20th century went down in the history of mankind not only for its achievements in the scientific and technical sphere, but also for the fact that it presented humanity with weapons of such colossal power and destructive force that not just any one state was under threat, but our entire civilization as a whole. One type of such weapon is the neutron bomb.

Brief characteristics of neutron weapons

Much less is known about these weapons than, for example, about nuclear or hydrogen weapons; many developments are still shrouded in state secrets. It can be said for certain that the neutron bomb is a special type of tactical weapon, the main destructive force of which is associated with an ultra-fast flow of neutral elementary particles. Its undoubted advantage over other types of nuclear weapons is its much larger radius of destruction.

Advantages and disadvantages of the neutron bomb

On the other hand, this type of weapon has its own specifics. In particular, the explosion of a bomb with a charge of neutrons has a relatively small power. The thing is that if you increase this parameter, then the neutrons will simply dissipate in the air, and the damage radius will be approximately the same. Due to such a small power, the amount of destruction will be relatively small: for example, even if the most powerful neutron bomb is used, the radius where complete destruction will be observed is unlikely to exceed one kilometer.

The operating principle of a neutron bomb

The creation of the atomic bomb had a huge influence on the emergence of weapons with a neutron carrier. The thing is that at high altitudes the impact of the main damaging factor of a nuclear explosion, which is the shock wave, is reduced to a minimum. At the same time, the neutron bomb and the powerful stream of neutral elementary particles it creates are more than effective even at high altitudes. The action of this weapon is based on the fact that neutrons themselves are capable of penetrating through the skin of any aircraft and have a negative impact on control systems. In addition, the use of these particles can help in analyzing what kind of cargo - nuclear or conventional - is carried by a particular aircraft.

The USA is the undisputed leader in the creation of neutron weapons

It is worth noting that the Americans are the undisputed leaders in this area of ​​weapons of mass destruction. Research on the use of neutrons as weapons began here in the late 1950s, and already in 1974 the first such ammunition was put into service. True, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Americans announced the complete elimination of these weapons, but according to the latest information, a number of countries, including the United States, as well as Russia, China and Israel, have everything necessary to quickly launch the production of neutron ammunition. At meetings at various levels, questions have been repeatedly raised about the inadmissibility of the creation and use of this type of weapons of mass destruction, but it cannot be ruled out that growing tension in the world may prompt a number of states to unfreeze their developments.

Almost all Soviet people remember how the government in the 1980s frightened citizens with new terrible weapons invented by “decaying capitalism.” Political informants in institutions and teachers at school described in the most terrible colors what a danger the neutron bomb, adopted by the United States, poses to all living things. There is no hiding from it in underground bunkers or behind concrete shelters. Body armor and stronger protective equipment will not save you from it. All organisms, in the event of an impact, will die, while buildings, bridges and mechanisms, with the exception of perhaps the epicenter of the explosion, will remain intact. Thus, the powerful economy of the country of developed socialism will fall into the clutches of the American military.

The insidious neutron bomb operated on a completely different principle than the atomic or hydrogen “Tsar Bomb”, of which the USSR was so proud. During a thermonuclear explosion, there is a powerful release of thermal energy, radiation and atoms carrying a charge, bumping into objects, especially metals, interact with them, are held by them, and therefore the enemy forces hiding behind metal barriers are safe.

Note that neither the Soviet nor the American military thought about the civilian population; all the thoughts of the developers of the new ones were aimed at destroying the enemy’s military power.

But the neutron bomb, the project of which was developed by Samuel Cohen, by the way, back in 1958, was a charge from a mixture of radioactive isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium and especially tritium. As a result of the explosion, a huge number of neutrons are released - particles that have no charge. Being neutral, unlike atoms, they quickly penetrated through solid and liquid physical barriers, bringing death only to organic matter. Therefore, such weapons were called “humane” by the Pentagon.

As stated above, the neutron bomb was invented in the late fifties. In April 1963, its first successful test was carried out at the test site. Since the mid-70s, warheads with neutron charges have been installed on the American defense system against Soviet missiles at the Grand Forks base in the state. What shocked the Soviet government when, in August 1981, the US Security Council announced the serial production of neutron weapons? After all, it has already been used for about twenty years!

Behind the Kremlin’s rhetoric about “world peace” was a concern that its own economy was no longer able to “bear” the costs of the military-industrial complex. After all, since the end of World War II, the USSR and the States have constantly competed to create new weapons capable of destroying a potential enemy. Thus, the creation by the Americans led to the production of a similar charge and its carrier TU-4 in the USSR. The Americans responded to the Russian attack - the R-7A intercontinental nuclear missile - with the Titan-2 missile.

As “our answer to Chamberlain,” back in 1978, the Kremlin instructed nuclear scientists at the classified Arzamas-16 facility to develop and introduce domestic neutron weapons. However, they were unable to catch up and overtake the United States. While laboratory development was still underway, President Ronald Reagan announced in 1983 the creation of the Star Wars program. Compared to this grandiose program, the explosion of a bomb, even with a neutron charge, seemed like a child's firecracker. Since the Americans disposed of obsolete weapons, Russian scientists forgot about them.

The "cleanest" bomb. Destroys exclusively enemy manpower. Does not destroy buildings. An ideal weapon for mass clearing of territories from communists. This is exactly what the American developers of the “most humane” nuclear weapon - the neutron bomb - believed.

On November 17, 1978, the USSR announced the successful test of a neutron bomb, and both superpowers once again had parity in the latest weapons. Endless myths began to haunt the neutron bomb.

Myth 1: The neutron bomb only destroys people

That's what we thought at first. The explosion of this thing, in theory, should not have caused damage to equipment and buildings. But only on paper.

In fact, no matter how we design a special atomic weapon, its detonation will still generate a shock wave.

The difference between a neutron bomb is that the shock wave accounts for only 10-20 percent of the released energy, while for a conventional atomic bomb it accounts for 50 percent.

Explosions of neutron charges at a test site in the Nevada desert in the USA showed that within a radius of several hundred meters the shock wave demolishes all buildings and structures.

Myth 2: the more powerful the neutron bomb, the better

Initially, it was planned to rivet the neutron bomb in several versions - from one kiloton and above. However, calculations and tests have shown that making a bomb larger than one kiloton is not very promising.

So, even if it’s not a bomb, it’s too early to write off the neutron weapon itself as scrap.

On July 7, 1977, the United States conducted the first test of a neutron bomb. Once upon a time, Soviet schoolchildren were frightened by a deadly neutron bomb, which was in service with the American army. However, were these types of nuclear weapons really as deadly as they said? And why in the country where the bomb was created, in the United States, was it removed from service earlier than anyone else - in the 1990s?

On November 28, 2010, the American scientist Samuel Cohen, who was called the “father of neutron weapons,” died. It was he who, in 1958, while working at the Livermore National Laboratory, proposed the design of the world's first neutron bomb. Since that time, this type of weapon has turned into a kind of scarecrow, about which many scary stories were told in the USSR. However, were these types of nuclear weapons really as deadly as they were said to be?

What was this type of weapon? Let us recall: a neutron bomb is an ordinary low-power nuclear charge, to which is added a block containing a small amount of thermonuclear fuel (a mixture of radioactive isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, with a high content of the latter as a source of fast neutrons). When it is detonated, the main nuclear charge explodes, the energy of which is used to trigger a thermonuclear reaction.

As a result, a stream of chargeless particles called neutrons is released into the external environment. Moreover, the design of the charge is such that up to 80 percent of the explosion energy is the energy of the fast neutron flow and only 20 percent comes from the remaining damaging factors (that is, shock wave, electromagnetic pulse, light radiation). Therefore, as the creators of the new weapon at that time stated, such a bomb was “more humane” than a traditional nuclear or Soviet hydrogen one - its explosion does not cause serious destruction over a large area and no blazing fires.

However, they slightly exaggerated about the lack of destruction. As the first tests showed, all buildings within a radius of about 1 kilometer from the epicenter of the explosion were completely destroyed. Although this, of course, cannot be compared with what the nuclear bomb did in Hiroshima or with what the domestic hydrogen “Tsar Bomba” could do. Yes, in general, this bomb was not created at all in order to turn cities and villages into ruins - it was supposed to destroy exclusively the enemy’s manpower.

This happened with the help of neutron radiation arising during the explosion - a flow of neutrons that convert their energy in elastic and inelastic interactions with atomic nuclei. It is known that the penetrating power of neutrons is very high due to the lack of charge and, as a consequence, weak interaction with the substance through which they pass. Nevertheless, it still depends on their energy and the composition of the atoms of the very substance that was in their path.

It is interesting that many heavy materials, for example, the metals from which the armor coating of military equipment is made, poorly protect against neutron radiation, while they can well protect against gamma radiation resulting from the explosion of a conventional nuclear bomb. So the idea of ​​a neutron bomb was based precisely on increasing the effectiveness of hitting armored targets and people protected by armor and simple shelters.

It is known that armored vehicles of the 1960s, developed taking into account the possibility of using nuclear weapons on the battlefield, were extremely resistant to all their damaging factors. That is, even the use of a classic atomic bomb could not lead to heavy losses in enemy troops, protected from all its “charms” by the powerful armor of tanks and other military vehicles. So the neutron bomb was intended to sort of eliminate this problem.

Experiments showed that the explosion of a generally low-power bomb (with a power of only 1 kt of TNT) generated destructive neutron radiation that killed all living things within a radius of 2.5 kilometers. In addition, neutrons, passing through many protective structures such as the same metals, as well as through the soil in the area of ​​the explosion, caused the appearance of so-called induced radioactivity in them, since they can enter into nuclear reactions with atoms, as a result of which radioactive isotopes are formed. It remained in the equipment for many hours after the explosion and could become an additional source of damage to the people servicing it.

So, if a neutron bomb exploded, the chances of staying alive, even sitting in a tank, were very small. At the same time, these weapons did not cause long-term radioactive contamination of the area. According to its creators, it is possible to “safely” approach the epicenter of the explosion within twelve hours. For comparison, it should be said that when a hydrogen bomb explodes, it contaminates an area with a radius of about 7 kilometers for several years with radioactive substances.

In addition, neutron charges were supposed to be used in missile defense systems. To protect against a massive missile attack in those years, anti-aircraft missile systems with a nuclear warhead were put into service, but the use of conventional nuclear weapons against high-altitude targets was considered insufficiently effective. The fact is that their main damaging factors when hunting enemy missiles turned out to be ineffective.

For example, a shock wave does not occur in rarefied air at high altitude, much less in space; light radiation strikes warheads only in the immediate vicinity of the center of the explosion, and gamma radiation is absorbed by the shells of warheads and cannot cause them serious harm. Under such conditions, converting the maximum part of the explosion energy into neutron radiation could make it possible to more reliably hit enemy missiles.

So, starting from the second half of the 70s of the last century, the technology for creating neutron charges was developed in the USA, and in 1981 the production of corresponding warheads began. However, neutron weapons remained in service for only a short time - just over ten years. The fact is that after reports appeared about the development of neutron weapons, methods of protection against them immediately began to be developed.

As a result, new types of armor have appeared that are already capable of protecting equipment and its crew from neutron radiation. For this purpose, sheets with a high content of boron, a good neutron absorber, were added to it, and depleted uranium (that is, uranium with a reduced proportion of nuclides, 234 U and 235 U) was included in the steel itself. In addition, the composition of the armor was selected in such a way that it no longer contained elements that gave induced radioactivity under the influence of neutron irradiation. All these developments have negated the danger of using neutron weapons.

As a result, the country that first created the neutron bomb was the first to refuse to use it. In 1992, the last warheads containing a neutron charge were scrapped in the United States.

On November 17, 1978, the USSR announced the successful test of a neutron bomb. There are several misconceptions associated with this type of nuclear weapon. We will tell you about five myths about the neutron bomb.

The more powerful the bomb, the greater the effect

In fact, since the atmosphere quickly absorbs neutrons, using high-yield neutron munitions will not have much effect. Therefore, a neutron bomb has a power of no more than 10 kt. Actually produced neutron ammunition has a yield of no more than 1 kt. The detonation of such ammunition creates a zone of destruction by neutron radiation with a radius of about 1.5 km (an unprotected person will receive a life-threatening dose of radiation at a distance of 1350 m). In this regard, neutron warheads are classified as tactical nuclear weapons.

Neutron bomb does not destroy houses and equipment

There is a misconception that a neutron explosion leaves structures and equipment unharmed. This is wrong. The explosion of a neutron bomb also generates a shock wave, although its damaging effect is limited. If in a conventional atomic explosion approximately 50% of the released energy comes from the shock wave, then in a neutron explosion it is 10-20%.

Armor will not protect against the effects of a neutron bomb

Ordinary steel armor will not protect against the damaging effects of a neutron bomb. Moreover, in technology, under the influence of a neutron flux, powerful and long-lasting sources of radioactivity can be formed, leading to injury to people for a long time after the explosion. However, to date, new types of armor have been developed that are capable of protecting equipment and its crew from neutron radiation. For this purpose, sheets with a high content of boron, which is a good neutron absorber, are added to the armor, and depleted uranium is added to the armor steel. In addition, the composition of the armor is selected so that it does not contain elements that produce strong induced radioactivity under the influence of neutron irradiation.

Materials that contain hydrogen - for example, water, paraffin, polyethylene, polypropylene - best protect against neutron radiation.

The duration of radioactive radiation from a neutron bomb is the same as that of an atomic bomb.

In fact, despite their destructiveness, these weapons did not cause long-term radioactive contamination of the area. According to its creators, it is possible to “safely” approach the epicenter of the explosion within twelve hours. For comparison, it should be said that when a hydrogen bomb explodes, it contaminates an area with a radius of about 7 km with radioactive substances for several years.

For ground purposes only

Conventional nuclear weapons against high-altitude targets are considered ineffective. The main damaging factor of such weapons - the shock wave - is not formed in rarefied air at high altitudes and, moreover, in space; light radiation strikes warheads only in the immediate vicinity of the center of the explosion, and gamma radiation is absorbed by the shells of warheads and cannot cause them serious damage. harm. Therefore, many have the idea that the use of nuclear weapons, including the neutron bomb, in space is ineffective. However, it is not. From the very beginning, the neutron bomb was developed with an eye to use in missile defense systems. Converting the maximum part of the explosion energy into neutron radiation makes it possible to destroy enemy missiles if they are unprotected.