Nuclear weapon loading procedures were practised on 7 Regiment’s Su-20s in the hardened aircraft shelters at Powidz.

Instead of the KKR reconnaissance pod carried by Su-20R Yellow 6262, the aircraft could be armed with an RN-24 10 kiloton bomb.

Red 6131 was one of the very first Su-20Rs to be delivered to Poland and is seen here still in bare metal finish, with a KKR reconnaissance pod under the fuselage. This particular aircraft was used for clandestine reconnaissance sorties over the Baltic Sea near the Danish coast.

This Su-20 (Yellow 6265) of 7 Regiment, Powidz, is armed with a pair of OFAB-250-270 fragmentation bombs on the inboard underwing stations and OFAB-100-120 bombs on multiple ejection racks under the fuselage and on the outboard underwing stations.

Su-22UM3 Yellow 102 of 7 Bomber-Reconnaissance Regiment. This unit’s two-seaters were to be kept in reserve for retaliatory nuclear attack, should the need arise.

Rare photograph of the 30 kiloton RDS-4 Natasha, which entered service in 1953. It weighed 1,200kg and was carried by a modified Yakovlev Yak-26.

An Su-7BKL of 5 Pomorski Fighter-Bomber Regiment, Bydgoszcz. Su-7 pilots from this unit were trained to deliver Soviet 6U-57 nuclear weapons by toss-bombing from low-level.