https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/russia-launches-sub-that-will-carry-doomsday-nuke-drone-torpedo/
Only in Russia would the Search and Rescue submarine be armed with a hundred megatons of first strike weaponry
Nothing says a helping hand like the threat of total nuclear obliteration.
Experts fear the 79ft-long torpedoes – dubbed Poseidon or Kanyon – could be detonated underwater to cause a radioactive tsunami and threaten coastal cities with waves up to 300ft high.
The Poseidon isn't the only special project that the Belgorod will play a part in. Part of the sub's mission will likely be the deployment of Harmony, a submarine detection sensor network the Russian military is seeking to deploy in the Arctic—similar to the US Navy's SOSUS sonar network. The Belgorod will be able to ferry sensors out under the ice and deploy mini-subs to put the sensors, powered by undersea nuclear power units, in place.
wtf, that's wild.
It's just an Oscar II with a probable docking bay, basically.
Oh look, that's me tax money.
Is it owned by a guy named Bogdan?
This has worrying implications for when it inevitably explodes due to improper maintenance and operation.
Yeah like the several hundred (if not thousand) nuclear subs around the world that have been in use by most nuclear powers the world over since the nineteen sixties have, right?
The ones in Russian service have. The K-27 was dumped in the Kara sea with her ballasts ruptured and her reactor still active, the K-8 caught fire and sank in Biscay bay taking not only her leaking reactor but also four nuclear torpedoes down with her, the K-219 blew itself up when sea water leaked into her missile fuel, K-278 caught fire and is currently at the bottom of the Barents Sea with both its own reactor and two nuclear warheads aboard, K-429 flooded and sank, K-141 "Kursk" suffered a particularly infamous sinking in August of 2000 when a torpedo exploded on board although she's actually one of the better stories as her wreck was fully recovered within two years, in 03 K-159 was decommissioned by sinking it along with 800 kg of spent nuclear fuel.
Also although it was ultimately an averted disaster there was also an infamous incident where multiple Russian submarines at port almost went critical because the electric company had cut off power to their base, causing their cooling systems to shut down.
...the weapon now called Poseidon is reportedly capable of carrying a
warhead with a yield of at least 10 megatons. That number could possibly
be as great as 100, though the payload may vary depending on the type of mission.
Larger-yield bombs were gradually phased out since the earlier half of the "old" Cold War. There's a point where the weapon's yield-to-mass ratio becomes impractical, because you could deliver the same amount of hurt for less trouble, and since some mad bastard inverted the MIRV cluster missiles, the
super large 10 to 50 megaton bombs became obsolete, as you don't need to worry about delivering one big bomb when you can just have a bunch of smaller ones peppering the general area (or the same single target if you want to ensure that they hit).
And now these absolute crazies have found a way to bring back the multi-ten-megaton range not just to the drawing board, but into active deployment. It's a torpedo, a fission-powered one, so you basically have no limit to the warhead yield as long as you can cram it into the tube, you don't need to worry
about the praticalities of air delivery, and the opponent has basically no countermeasures for it (yet). Even if you don't use it to cause a cobalt-salted radioactive death tsunami, which would maximize the intended casualties, you can just pop the 100 mt banger into an enemy harbor and let the blast take care of the rest.
Fucking Christ. How's that for a little bit of MAD disruption?
I don't think many serious nuclear weapon experts actually think these nuclear torpedoes are a real threat.
Also lol at claims of radioactive tsunamis. The amount of energy in a tsunami dwarfs that of a nuclear weapon. At any distance where a wave from a nuclear weapon is a real that, you'd be destroyed by the blast wave.
American military analysts were first spooked by "leaked" info about a possible Russian "radioactive tsunami" nuke years ago. If the pros are concerned about what would essentially be a water-based strategic neutron bomb, I'm not exactly in a hurry to second-guess them.
We're also possibly talking about a 100-mt firecracker here, something completely unprecedented. Can we know for sure that the tsunami tactic doesn't (or, on the contrary, does) work without seeing the thing in action?
The point isn't destruction and outright long-term irradiation, but area denial. Just enough to move civilians out and still allow for Hazardous Environment troops to operate.
The media was spooked, not analysts. Also, you don't get neutron bomb effects in weapons above a few kilotons, let alone megaton yield weapons.
While they may not have actually tested 100 Mt weapons in making waves, they do have plenty of data from smaller weapons they suggests the effect is basically non existent.
You're not going to get effective area denial over outright destruction with a weapon as large as this. The area dangerously irradiated is far smaller than the blast damage area.
Don't need many troops to station over a land mostly emptied by a wave. We're talking mostly garrison of cleared/occupied area, not actual combat troops. Again, the point isn't to irradiate the ground to leave nothing behind. Just wash away civilians and any fortifications that were not build to withstand such a non-standard approach.
How the fuck are the russians going to set up a supply-line all the way to the mainland USA? With an economy smaller than Italy's.
Incredibly poorly.
They'll cork their Ladas and float across the Bering Strait.
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