The military - adherents of the atomic terror strategy - must have been upset that World War II ended so quickly. After all, nowhere, except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, large-scale tests were not carried out. In the case of the atomic third world army, not trained to operate in new conditions, could easily lose this war. Therefore, it was necessary to provide tests with living people at any cost. But how can this be done in peacetime?
Tactics require sacrifice
There was only one answer - to organize large exercises with the use of nuclear weapons. The United States conducted about two dozen tests with the participation of military personnel, and only two - by the Soviet Union. However, these Soviet trials are still touted as the bloody atrocities of the communist regime. Say, in the USSR, the lives of soldiers were worthless, so they were thrown into the atomic furnace. "On September 14, 1954, the [Soviet] state conducted a monstrous experiment on its citizens, which has no equal in world history - testing of atomic weapons on its own people - in the center of a densely populated area of the Orenburg region", - with these words was published in 1999 the collection of the party " An Apple". "How many people died, no one noted," - echoes the magazine Newsweek Polska in the article "The madness of Soviet scientists knew no bounds" … But is it really so?
Totsk polygon
During the existence of the USSR, atomic weapons were tested twice in the country with the participation of servicemen in the explosion zone - after all, the likelihood of an atomic war at that time was considered quite real. The army had to be able to operate in such conditions. On September 14, 1954, the Totsk military exercise took place, where the attacking side practiced a breakthrough by the rifle corps of the prepared tactical defense of the enemy using atomic weapons, and the defenders trained in organizing and conducting defense under the same conditions.
Contrary to the prevailing stereotype, the command was not going to destroy subordinates. To protect against the damaging factors of an atomic explosion, all personnel of the troops involved in the exercises were given special clothing: cotton overalls and caps, underwear soaked in a special solution, gas masks, as well as protective shoe covers and gloves. To carry out sanitization and decontamination, the troops had the required number of decontamination kits. In the pocket of the overalls lay a black, hermetically sealed capsule - a storage dosimeter with an individual number, by which it was possible to find out who it belonged to if something irreparable happened.
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In general, the documents on the exercises indicate that the security measures taken excluded the impact of the damaging factors of an atomic explosion on personnel in excess of the established permissible limits. So, for example, the norms of permissible contamination of personnel and military equipment were reduced several times in comparison with the norms determined by the "Manual on anti-nuclear protection of troops." This has borne fruit - the results of the last radioecological survey of the Totsk test site indicate that the radiation situation on its territory is characterized by the parameters of the natural radiation background. Cancer mortality in that area is not higher than similar indicators in the Russian Federation and European countries.
Semipalatinsk teachings
Two years later, on September 10, 1956. At the Semipalatinsk test site, another exercise took place, which simulated the situation of using tactical airborne assault following an atomic strike in order to hold the affected area of an atomic explosion until the approach of the advancing troops. The main task of the exercise was to determine the time after which it is possible to land an airborne assault near the epicenter of the explosion, as well as to calculate the smallest distance from the landing point.
The second airborne battalion of the 345th regiment, which included the ninth company, famous all over the world thanks to Fyodor Bondarchuk, landed directly in the area of the epicenter of the explosion. To deliver the landing force to the landing area, a regiment of Mi-4 helicopters consisting of 27 combat vehicles was involved, and the dosimetric officers accompanying the paratroopers had the right to prohibit landing in an area where the radiation background exceeds the maximum safe for humans.
43 minutes after the explosion of a nuclear bomb, the landing was thrown out, after another 17 minutes the subunits reached the line and repulsed a counter-attack of the imaginary enemy. Two hours after the explosion, all equipment and personnel were brought in for sanitization and decontamination. There was no information about the victims.
Thus, both times the exercise was conducted with the utmost precautions. Of course, it was impossible to foresee everything. Part of the local population near Totsk ignored the order to hide in the basement and watched the explosion from the rooftops. Some servicemen, contrary to orders, retained rather than destroyed the infected uniform. But the contrast between Soviet teachings and Western teachings is all the more striking, where, despite the loud accusations of the Soviet Union of inhuman experiments. en masse drove their soldiers into a radiation grave.
Unlucky dragon
The United States began to study the effects of radiation on living organisms much earlier than the USSR. On July 23, 1946, in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll (which gave the name to the famous swimsuit - it was first presented to the public four days after the sensational explosion), a nuclear explosion with a capacity of 21 kilotons was made under water at a depth of 27 meters. Two hours after the test, the Joint Marine and Infantry teams entered the lagoon and investigated the destruction and radiation levels in the empty test ships. In the course of these studies, many military personnel were exposed to severe radiation from radioactive water that got on the decks and interiors of target ships. On March 1, 1954, an explosion in the same region brought the first human casualties: 64 inhabitants of the Marshall Islands (Rongerik Atolls. Rongelap,Ailingiae and Utirik) received a dose of 175 roentgens (with the maximum allowable dose of 5 roentgens per year), and the crew of the Japanese ship "The Fifth Happy Dragon - (" Fukuryumaru No. 5 ") of 23 people received a dose of 300 roentgens.
Tests in Nevada
On November 1, 1951, military exercises were held at the Nevada test site, during which a combined detachment (consisting of the 188th airborne, 127th engineer and 546th artillery battalions) performed maneuvers in the territory adjacent to the epicenter of the atomic explosion. After that, according to a special methodology, the behavior of soldiers and officers, who were affected by the damaging factors of the explosion, and their reaction to orders were assessed. The behavioral and psychological characteristics of servicemen after exposure to the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion were studied there and four days after an air nuclear explosion with a capacity of 31 kilotons.
On February 8, 1955, at the same test site, an air nuclear explosion with a capacity of 1 kiloton destroyed the trenches in which the infantry was hiding, and the soldiers themselves had to get out from under the rubble. Two years later. On August 31, 1957, a nuclear explosion with a capacity of 44 kilotons was observed by thousands of soldiers of the units. stationed 29 kilometers from the epicenter. Two days later (September 2, 1957), most of them participated in maneuvers carried out five kilometers from the site of another explosion. A day later, all these soldiers were involved in exercises as close as possible to combat conditions, as well as in the dismantling and transportation of contaminated equipment.
Moreover, newsreels and photographs from the tests show: American soldiers marching briskly near the epicenters. Not equipped with protective suits. Moreover, they don't even have gas masks! So it is not difficult to conclude which state conducted a monstrous experiment on its citizens, which has no equal in world history …
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №39. Author: Yuri Danilov