In the picture: Fighting units in the conditions of the use of atomic weapons
(from the album for official use 1959 of the year, based on the materials of the military exercise 10 September 1956 of the year at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site).
16 September 1956 at the Semipalatinsk special polygon of the USSR Ministry of Defense held a military exercise with the use of nuclear weapons called "Parachute paratrooper battalion on helicopters following an atomic strike in order to prevent the enemy from restoring defense in the area of the gap formed by the atomic explosion." Before that, no one, never anywhere, sent people to the epicenter after the explosion of a nuclear device.
General guidance on the coordination of a nuclear explosion and the actions of the troops was carried out by the Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR on special equipment Marshal of Artillery M. Nedelin. The explosion and nuclear-technical support were assigned to Colonel General Balatko. The control of units and subunits was under the command of Lieutenant-General S. Rozhdestvensky, Deputy Commander of the Airborne Forces (VDV) (Commander of the Airborne Forces - Lieutenant-General V. Margelov).
In total, one and a half thousand servicemen were involved. Directly to the epicenter of the explosion landed 272 man.
Nuclear scientists headed by Academician I. Kurchatov, who occupied an observation post at a specially equipped high-rise building, attended the exercise.
In late August, paratroopers - participants of the exercises in the strictest confidence arrived at the Semipalatinsk training ground. Most of the soldiers on the way were not aware of where they were brought and for what kind of work. Information about the upcoming actions in a real situation was brought to the officer staff in the exercise area by Lieutenant-General S. Rozhdestvensky, to which the paratrooper officers reacted calmly. “We accepted,” recalls Army General M. Sorokin (during the exercises, the deputy commander of the airborne division, the head of the task force), “we are on the territory of a nuclear test site, and this contributed to increased responsibility for the upcoming actions and the fulfillment of the tasks set. there was not a single incident during the training and during the exercise. "
Officers of the task force and personnel were present on the eve, in August and September, with several explosions at the Semipalatinsk test site, where, in addition to the nuclear test site, a hydrogen bomb was also tested. According to M. Sorokin, these explosions were observed by all personnel, which was a kind of preliminary running-in for the test participants.
In addition, memos and instructions were studied. The officers in the "classroom" and tactical-drill classes told the fighters about the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion, worked out practical issues of protection against it, based on the available literature and the level of their personal training.
And yet, from the point of view of the majority of the now living participants in those events, the actions of the personnel and the possible consequences of the experiment for its participants were presented both by themselves and by the command rather vaguely. The exercise in this regard was conducted blindly.
The exercise was conducted using an experimental atomic bomb with a TNT equivalent of thousands of tons of thunders, which was discharged with the expectation of an explosion at an altitude of 40 meters. The landing was planned half an hour after the explosion in the area of the third position of the main defense zone of the conditional enemy at a distance of 300 meters from the epicenter. These conditions were determined so as to prevent the paratroopers from receiving a radiation dose over 500 X-rays.
In the process of preparing and landing the airborne assault, the initial region was chosen for landing 23 kilometers from the conventional front line and 36 kilometers from the planned atomic bomb explosion. The span of helicopters with equipment and people on board was checked, but with landmarks about 3 kilometers wide, clearly visible from the air and the ground. However, as the practice of the 1954 exercises showed, even well-established guidelines for aviation in an emergency, the battle could have been swept away by an air tornado of an atomic strike.
In addition, after the atomic explosion, artillery began to "work", finishing off the remaining "pockets" of resistance of the enemy, and also went into the attack of the self-propelled guns, leading fire along the way, and the infantry rose from the shelters. So, if pilots were mistaken one iota, the bombs would be sent to the battle formations of the attacking vehicles and people. And only thanks to the highest flight and tactical training of airmen and paratroopers at the September 1956 exercise, there were no failures.
The flight of the helicopter column with the landing force through the battle formations was carried out during a half-hour artillery preparation attack. The defense of the enemy was marked by trenches to the placed targets. Attacking side (on a plan Infantry Division) was represented by a rifle company of paratroopers, battery 82-mm recoilless guns B-10, batteries 82-mm mortar battalion 85-mm guns firing indirect fire, two batteries 85-mm guns, leading direct fire and battery ACS-57.
The second parachute battalion (without one company) of the 345 th parachute regiment, reinforced with a squad of 57-mm guns of the regimental battery, six recoilless B-10 guns, a squad of 82-mm mortar battery and chemical were thrown into the landing. separation of the regiment with the means of radiation and chemical reconnaissance.
The military leadership, commanders and specialists made calculations and made a decision according to which the landing of an assault force would begin 40 minutes after a nuclear explosion, in order to allow time for a radioactive dust cloud to settle.
The explosion of the atomic bomb dropped from a Tu-16 from a height of eight kilometers gave a significant deviation from the intended epicenter.
Within less than ten minutes, the troops landed a cloud of dust that had not yet settled in the most complicated tactical and radiation environment - half a kilometer from the epicenter of the explosion and immediately began to perform a combat mission. Unloading equipment and weapons, and bringing them into combat-ready condition, paratroopers and dosimetric intelligence on the move turned into battle formations.
According to predetermined azimuths, guided by their commanders who designated their location and direction of movement with rockets and sent commands over the radio, the guards and vigorously, according to management, without confusion and loss of orientation, captured a given object, organized a defensive attack on the survivor. after the atomic strike of the enemy.
But that was not all. The airborne troops were assigned the task of not only retaining a given area, but also facilitating the entry into battle of troops advancing from the front for the final and complete destruction of the enemy, who was in a well-prepared engineering defense.
With the approach of the advancing forces, the direction of the main attack of which passed through the epicenter of the atomic explosion, the artillery turned to artillery support for the attack using the firing shaft method. The airborne troops, together with the approached units, attacked the enemy, and then began to pursue. All these actions, of course, required tremendous moral and physical tension: it was necessary not only to keep up with the attacking self-propelled guns, but also not to fall under the fragments of their artillery. And it is in a continuous mist of dust created by the caterpillars of machines, falling atomic mushroom and artillery breaks.
Everyone experienced and adequately survived the warriors of the winged infantry, who only had a gas mask and an all-arms protective kit were the “salvage” shell that during the 6-9 hours of “training” battle “protected” the exercise participants from all-pervasive radiation ...
“The movement of the paratroopers to the epicenter of the explosion was stopped by specialists of the test site for security measures a few dozen meters from the epicenter,” recalls M. Sorokin, “we did not have individual dosimeters, then the radiation reconnaissance devices were imperfect, and the personnel did not sustainable practical skills of using them: after all, educational sources of infection do not exist. However, after completing the combat mission in the area of the explosion, about thirty kilometers from the epicenter, I stopped the convoy of troops for meals. But Captain K. Mokhov, the head of the chemical service of the regiment, carried out the measurements and reported on the impossibility of feeding because of the high level of radiation. The same thing happened again after an hour of heavy traffic. We could have lunch only in the area of deployment on the banks of the Irtysh (the territory of the Maisky District) ... "
From the report of Marshal M. Nedelin, Lieutenant-General S. Rozhdestvensky, to Minister of Defense Mr. Zhukov:
"According to the results of the defeat of the atomic bomb used in the exercise, it can be concluded that the enemy’s field defense units will be reliably suppressed, and this will allow the landing of airborne assault forces after the explosion. With an 200-300 explosion height of radiation levels, far from the 400- epicenter 500 meters, i.e. in the area of reliable destruction of the enemy, the airborne troops can be landed from helicopters in 15-20 minutes, subject to the exposure dose to 5 X-rays ... "
According to the results of the exercise, it was planned to present 60 officers and generals of the Airborne Forces and military transport aircraft to the Minister of Defense for the announcement of gratitude and awarding valuable gifts.
The Order of the USSR Ministry of Defense on encouraging the participants of the exercise was listed under the heading "Top Secret". The results of the atomic exercises were carefully hidden and hushed up, the documents were destroyed, and their participants were “recommended” to forget about what they saw and knew.
“When I took over the duties of Lieutenant-General S. Rozhdestvensky in 1956,” retired Colonel-General A. Rudakov recalls, “no one personally told me anything about these exercises. I worked with V. Margelov for six years, but and he never mentioned it. "
“During my service in the Airborne Forces, I heard about this teaching when I was a cadet,” says Major General S. Rudakov. In 1981-1983, he worked with historical the form of the 345th paratrooper regiment, but did not see the record of the experimental exercises. If it were, it was simply impossible to ignore such information. "
According to the testimony of a senior researcher at the Ryazan Museum of the Airborne Forces, Lieutenant Colonel S. Gorlenko, who has given the museum over twenty years of active creative work, there are no materials on that teaching in the museum archives. The information was behind seven seals.
The experience of the local "nuclear war" acquired by orders of over thousands of people, thank God, no one else was useful. But we must know and remember the people who, sacrificing their health, fulfilled their duty.
"We did not serve for rewards, incentives and benefits. We did our job, firmly believed in its necessity and were ready for any tests," says V. I. Reznik - in winter quarters when summing up the results of military and political training for 1956, we We heard from the lips of the commander of our unit the words that "units and subunits of the division showed an increased training of commanders and all personnel and are ready to carry out the complex combat tasks of modern combat. This was confirmed by the experimental exercise of the 2 th battalion of the 345 regiment, the 1 th and 2 th battalions of the 165 th AP, the batteries of the 76 th separate self-propelled artillery battalion and other units. The teaching was highly appreciated "
“We, the participants of this doctrine, were pleasantly aware at that time that the command remembers us, sets an example. At that exercise, I was the commander of the 2 artillery division of the 165 regiment,” said retired Colonel Petr Petrovich Pospekhov - we We moved forward behind the advancing infantry, passed through the epicenter, where there was charred and tormented land, burned dogs, destroyed buildings, overturned equipment. We did not know the danger we were threatened. The radioactive cloud seemed to haunt us. vyr occupied almost the entire stomach. I attribute their illness to this hellish experiment "
"In the 11929 military unit, Major M. Orlov was the Chief of Staff of the 2 Battalion," Major-General E. Semenov, senior lecturer at the General Staff Academy, recalls that they were landed from Mi-4 helicopters in 40 minutes. the field of the explosion. They completed the task completely. I remember that he himself looked very painful at that time in 1968, there was not a hair on his head ... "
“The time then was not easy, the Cold War was going to threaten us from abroad,” adds a retired colonel, Ya. Samoylenko, and the West, and we were testing a new weapon. It was impossible to do otherwise. Of course, it was heartless. to send living people to the experimental teaching, and with little or no information, on what they are sending. I had a friend A. Tsyganok, a participant, of those tests. He quickly died from an illness. "
"In 1952- 1957, and studied at the Artillery Academy," says Lieutenant-General Retired P.G. Kalinin - in connection with the emergence of atomic weapons, in 1954, we studied the theory of preemptive strike, in which an important place was given to airborne troops. Knowledge about the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion was not enough. The current reference books and assessment methods were born at that time. The managers themselves put themselves at risk without knowing the possible consequences. And now it’s easy to judge all this.
I remember well that the participants of the exercises told that they gave a subscription. Everything was done under the heading "top secret", maybe that's why today many are silent. In my memory, my fellow paratroopers, Major I. Rusin, and Colonel A. Lebedev, were participants of the landing to the epicenter, who left for another world at a young age.
I remember well that the participants of the exercises told that they gave a subscription. Everything was done under the heading "top secret", maybe that's why today many are silent. In my memory, my fellow paratroopers, Major I. Rusin, and Colonel A. Lebedev, were participants of the landing to the epicenter, who left for another world at a young age.