has now retired all of its multimegaton weapons. the Soviets deployed high-yield weapons before mostly shifting to smaller, multiple warheads. Most of the Soviet strategic nuclear capability was in its ICBMs, but like the U.S.

largely abandoned such weapons in favor of smaller nuclear weapons, allowing more flexible delivery of larger numbers of warheads. The United States built the greater number of multimegaton weapons, doing so in the late 1950s and 1960s mostly to equip its bomber force with a massive nuclear capability against the U.S.S.R.

Of the roughly 135,000 warheads ever built by the two superpowers, about 3% had yields over 4.5 megatons. Weapons with yields up to 20-50 megatons were developed and deployed (one Soviet weapon of 150 mt was developed but probably never operational). While most thermonuclear weapons built had yields in the range of several hundred kilotons to a few megatons, some much larger weapons were built. The United States and the Soviet Union, after independently developing thermonuclear weapons, both produced some numbers of such weapons of very high yield. High-yield thermonuclear weapons: overview The R-36M, R-36MUTTKh, and R-36M2 heavy ICBMs.Soviet/Russian nuclear warheads with yield over 4.5 megatons (table).nuclear warheads with yield over 4.5 megatons (table) High-yield thermonuclear weapons: overview.See also Multimegaton Tests: the largest nuclear tests. MULTIMEGATON WEAPONS The Largest Nuclear Weapons

Nuke 9 vs nuke 10