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Joe 4
EntityQ2582085· pop 13· linked from 71 articles

RDS-6s (; American codename: "Joe 4") was the first Soviet test of a boosted fission weapon that occurred on August 12, 1953, that detonated with an energy equivalent to 400 kilotons of TNT.

Key facts

Nuclear weapons test.name
Joe-4 RDS-6s
Nuclear weapons test.picture
RDS-6s fireball.jpg
Nuclear weapons test.country
Soviet Union
Nuclear weapons test.test_site
Semipalatinsk Test Site, Kazakh SSR
Nuclear weapons test.period
August 1953
Nuclear weapons test.number_of_tests
1
Nuclear weapons test.test_type
Atmospheric test
Nuclear weapons test.device_type
Boosted fission
Nuclear weapons test.max_yield
Total yield
Nuclear weapons test.previous_test
RDS-3
Nuclear weapons test.next_test
RDS-4

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explosive energy equivalent
400
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  • References
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RDS-6s (; American codename: "Joe 4") was the first Soviet test of a boosted fission weapon that occurred on August 12, 1953, that detonated with an energy equivalent to 400 kilotons of TNT.

RDS-6 utilized a scheme in which fission and fusion fuel (lithium-6 deuteride) were "layered", a design known as the Sloika (, named after a type of layered puff pastry) or the so-called layer cake design, model in the Soviet Union. A ten-fold increase in explosive power was achieved by a combination of fusion and fission, yet it was still 26 times less powerful than the Ivy Mike device tested by the US in 1952. A similar design was earlier theorized by Edward Teller, but never tested by the US, as the "Alarm Clock".

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