Single Most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the world

The first and second world wars created a division in the world that has lasted more than eighty years. There is constant suspicion of the activities of the western Nations against eastern nation's.

There is and endless competition and rivalry amongst the two blocks to outdo each other in all spheres of life.


Apart from the cold war between The United States of America and Russia, there is a long standing and ongoing race to surpass each country's achievements in military technology.

This arms race has helped create some of the most deadly weapons yet. And there seems to be no end in sight.

When it comes to nuclear weapons capability, it is a general believe that the United States of America is leading, both in technology and in the stockpile.

But the title of the single most powerful non-nuclear weapon belongs to the Russian weapon, TOS-1 Buratino.


The TOS-1 Buratino is a unique Russian self-propelled multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS) that has seen action in global hotspots like Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq Android Syria. Like the enormous 240-millimeter 2S4 self-propelledmotar, the TOS-1’s specialty is obliterating heavily fortified positions. Although some of these may be found in rural rebel strongholds and fortified caves, they have often been employed in heavily urbanized environments.


It’s gained a uniquely nasty reputation because of the horrifying effects of its fuel-air explosive warheads.

To put it concisely, these are amongst the most devastating explosive weapons short of tactical nuclear weapons.

TOS stands for “heavy flame thrower,” which is only accurate in a literal sense: instead of projecting a stream of jellied gasoline, the TOS-1 launches a rocket carrying a fuel-air explosive (FAE).


These were first employed by the United States in the Vietnam War because napalm wasn’t destructive enough. Napalm munitions disperse a sticky, flaming liquid over a wide area. By contrast, a fuel-air explosive detonates the very air itself: a small explosive inside the FAE munition spreads a chemical cloud in the air through an aerosol effect. The gaseous cloud seeps effortlessly into buildings and caves, and down into slit trenches. A secondary explosive then ignites the cloud, causing a massive and long-lasting explosion.


While the heat generated by FAEs causes lethal burns in a wide radius (roughly two hundred by three hundred meters) the overpressure created by the sudden combustion of the air is even deadlier. The fiery blasts create a partial oxygen vacuum that kills and maims in a variety of grotesque ways and cannot be mitigated with body armor or hard cover.

The pressure generated by a TOS-1 blast amounts to 427 pounds per square-inch—for comparison, most conventional bomb blasts create roughly half that amount, and regular air pressure is fourteen pounds per square inch. Victims near the center of a TOS-1 blast radius are crushed to death.

Further out, the overpressure can break bones, dislocate eyes, cause internal hemorrhaging, and rupture eardrums, bowels and other internal organs. It also sucks the air out of victims’ lungs, possibly causing them to collapse, leading to death by suffocation.