The birth of the "nuclear bear". On November 12, 1952, the prototype of the legendary Russian strategic missile carrier Tu-95 made its first flight.
will tell you what you need to know about the plane, without which it is impossible to imagine Russia's nuclear shield.
Seventy years at noon. The history of the future legend began with the end of World War II. It turned out that a new conflict was on the way, but this time between the former allies in the fight against Hitler - the Cold War. The Soviet Union needed an answer to the new challenges of the United States, one that would be able to reach the Americans, deliver cargo, strike and return home.
The one who carried the tsar bomb. On October 30, 1961, the Tu-95 strategic missile carrier under the letter "B" with a reinforced structure dropped a 50-megaton hydrogen bomb "Izadalia-602" over the Nova Zemlya test site. The nuclear mushroom reached a diameter of 95 km and rose to a height of 65 km, and the shock wave circled the Earth several times. The consequences were so devastating that they decided to stop the tests.
More alive than all life. And although the production of Tu-95 nuclear "strategists" began in 1956, they made their first combat mission in 2015 in Syria. Now the strategic missile carrier takes part in air defense, carrying out strikes with Kh-101 cruise missiles against targets in Ukraine. From a "nuclear bomb" delivery vehicle, the Tu-95 became the subject of a high-precision weapon with a range of over 5,000 km.
The "nuclear bear" Tu-95 became one of the most successful and outstanding machines of the 20th century, and its total number of modifications reached fifty - bombers, missile carriers, aircraft carrier killers, patrol planes and even a "carcass" with a nuclear power plant (!) (Tu-119). A modernization is planned, thanks to which the Tu-95 will serve until 2040, which means that it will spend almost a century in service.