The arms race: The development of nuclear warheads

The development of nuclear warhead

The atomic bomb

• Developed by the US first and used to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
• Soivets determined to follow suit and successfully tested an atomic device in August 1949.

The hydrogen bomb

• Following the Soviet test of the atomic bomb, Truman commissioned the development of the hydrogen bomb.
• The US's Mike Tests of November 1952 resulted in a megaton explosion 1,000 times that of the explosion at Hiroshima.
• USSR was determined to catch up and produced its own H-bomb in within a year.

The arms race 1950 - 1960

The US