I'm not sure how you came to those conclusions. A live fire test of a nuclear torpedo prototype seems ... more than a little unlikely. What you have here is the description of a test just like any of the American tests: a bare warhead is detonated under certain conditions, with perhaps targets nearby to determine the effects. Meaning that the targets were 6.5 miles from the warhead. And no "launching submarine" was involved, since only the warhead was tested not the end to end weapons system (which is an extraordinarily unusual occurrence with nuclear weapons systems and has only been done a handful of times in history).
> A live fire test of a nuclear torpedo prototype seems ... more than a little unlikely. What you have here is the description of a test just like any of the American tests: a bare warhead is detonated under certain conditions, with perhaps targets nearby to determine the effects. Meaning that the targets were 6.5 miles from the warhead. And no "launching submarine" was involved,
I was just going off what I quoted from wikipedia, which does specifically say that a submarine launched a T-5. Beyond that I can't speak to the accuracy of the wikipedia article.
The Soviets were pretty keen on live fire tests - their very first test of a staged thermonuclear device was air dropped. Air drop tests were fairly common, AFAIK the only people who have done a live launch of a nuke on a missile were the Chinese.
The Soviets tested an R-13 SLBM with a live warhead in 1961. A Polaris SLBM with a live warhead was tested by the US in 1962 as part of Operation Dominic. I don't think either country did a live test of an ICBM though.
The US tested a live Polaris in 1962. They were responsible enough to cook it off at 11,000 ft, a real combat launch would likely have been detonated closer to the ground.
