"Poseidon" Nuclear-armed Underwater Drone

Thanks to the choices the US made over the INF treaty Russia is now free to make as many IRBMs and indeed IRCMs as they please... they are smaller and lighter and cheaper than ICBMs and you could probably fit a lot more on a train or a use a much smaller truck launcher to carry them...

The demand that China be included is ridiculous... even if they demanded that five years ago there would be not enough time to negotiate that... China has so few nukes compared with Russia or the US what are they going to do... demand China add 1200 new warheads to their nuclear long range rocket forces so they can have parity with Russia and the US... China is an independent country but the US will likely demand that Chinas weapons be added to Russias weapons and that means the US can have more weapons... but of course don't include British or French or Israeli weapons in that equation...

It would take a decade to negotiate a new treaty that includes China even if they are interested and I rather doubt they would be.

But even if they did agree to something in time, why would Russia agree to having Chinese weapons added to theirs for limits... and you can bet the Americans will start making all sorts of demands over new Russian weapons and technologies, but will try to keep their own kill bot drones...

The US is threatening to bury Russia by outspending them... and making them bankrupt themselves... hasn't worked so far, but by all means go ahead America... see if you can out shop the Russians at the weapons store... it is like a gambler threatening to beat another gambler by spending way more money to get the other guy to go bankrupt trying to keep up.

The Russians have not gone bankrupt yet and the US already spends more than 10 times more on their military.

When the US is spending 100 times perhaps they will win.

It is like sanctions... they are not working... in most cases they are making Russia more independent, but they are certainly not making Putin change any of his policies... the answer is obviously more sanctions...

The US is threatening to bury Russia by outspending them... 

Decision makers here know that it won't work this time. Russia has demonstrated that she can field asymmetric systems, & it'll be the US who spends more to catch up- that's why they r working on/getting long range CMs, hypersonics, Virginia SSGNs, naval tanker UAVs, tilt-rotors, & Israeli developed BMD. 

Now they're trying to make a case which thermonuclear megadeath weapons are more morale and humane over others? This argument was postulated by imbeciles!

The Poseidon complex is illegal: the US State Department spoke about Russian weapons

magnumcromagnon wrote:Now they're trying to make a case which thermonuclear megadeath weapons are more morale and humane over others? This argument was postulated by imbeciles!

The Poseidon complex is illegal: the US State Department spoke about Russian weapons

What clowns. They can fine Russia because of Poseidon if they want, once they have been annihilated by it

The USSR was saying similar things about the US neutron bomb, since it was aimed at killing people with radiation but preserving material things.
Having Poseidons insures retaliation- so any 1st strike will be very costly to those who dare launch it. No wonder they labeled it illegal- to them, only the US/NATO can use nukes.

It is morally the best weapon there is currently, because its very existence is a deterrent to the US and the West attempting a preemptive strike with ABM systems to hide behind in the hope of surviving the response of any enemy nuclear weapons that survive.

Essentially it is an attempt to say no matter what you do you will end up being destroyed so don't try it.

In that sense it is the most moral weapon there is, because its existence prevents stupid actions by the west.

Certainly there is no point in expecting them to respect agreements like the INF treaty...

To paraphrase Reagan... we can trust Americas word or Russian technology and weapons... and I would trust Russian technology and weapons every time.

Tsavo Lion wrote:The USSR was saying similar things about the US neutron bomb, since it was aimed at killing people with radiation but preserving material things.
Having Poseidons insures retaliation- so any 1st strike will be very costly to those who dare launch it. No wonder they labeled it illegal- to them, only the US/NATO can use nukes.

The neutron bomb was a precursor of an even deadlier WMD - the IMF economic "aid" programs.

Both kill the people but leave the buildings standing.

This is why the US is shouting, they know the costs the Russians have just stuck them with and know that spending this money will not earn anyone any positive publicity due to the lack of understanding of the issue. Classic Russian reverse Reagan move, make them spend (further) into bankruptcy.

Reshaping Submarine Warfare

Unless there is a change in Russian plans, Khabarovsk will likely be a new focus of Western anti-submarine warfare for the next decade. Particularly in the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy, whose nuclear submarine fleets have a long tradition of stalking Russian boats. The Poseidon-armed boats will present new challenges to these hunters.

Building new weapons to intercept the Poseidon will take time. Its speed (Est. 70 knots) and depth (~1,000 meters / 3,000 feet) might make it virtually untouchable to the current generation of advanced torpedoes. Possibly the U.S. Navy’s Mk.48 ADCAP (Advanced Capability) and the Royal Navy’s Spearfish torpedoes could just reach it. But the angles and ranges involved seem to make it a limited proposition. So new faster, longer ranged and deeper diving torpedoes may be on the cards.

And possibly that is part of the rationale behind Poseidon. Countering it will cost the West vast amounts of money. And it will mean compromises along the way. Other priorities may be sidelined to make way for countering Poseidon, which could weaken capabilities elsewhere.

Today, hardly anyone in the West has even heard of this submarine. But it is the one to watch for.

http://www.hisutton.com/Khabarovsk-Class-Submarine.html

Wouldn't it make sense to make an air droppable version of Poseidon - carried by a modified large transport aircraft? That way the host subs could not be targeted and the weapon could be dropped in any area of the world's oceans. The weight and warhead would have to be scaled down but it would present an intractable problem for defense. They would literally have to build a Maginot line of embedded anti-poseidon torpedos moored to the ocean floor up and down the coasts but even this could be circumvented.

Every ship with a large crane can launch Poseidon. It can be launched from shore installations, too. The west has to keep that in mind. It´s not enough to search for a few subs. You have to keep an eye on a lot of russian vessels, military and civilian.

Sidenote: That´s why Rubezh would be a great thing. Every train in Russia could carry one of these missiles!

I'm wondering if it has a 200 km/h speed ,creating a gas bubble around the Poseidon's hull ,so how the torpedo propellers work in a gas atmosphere ?

Perimeter can be a fantastic system to STOP a nuclear war. If Russia think the US is going tto attemp a first strike they can launch Perimeter and say they have launch it into a "holding pattern" Unless a recall code is sent they will attack in 60 days. They can even be sitting dormant on the ocean floor waiting for their time. Its really pretty ingenius to completely invalidate the US ABM plans. Billions spent by the US turned into some cool toys. The only scary thing about it is it could inspire similar weapons by terrorists. Maybe not Nuclear powered but maybe solar power...much slower but gets there eventually.

I doubt its that fast. There is no real advantage to it being fast and it will generate a lot of noise. We still do not know how its terminal stage works. Nuclear tidal wave? Doubt it. Maybe hit a fault line and trigger a massive earthquake? Possible but not predicable enough. Massive nuke warhead to obliterate coastal cities? Highly possible. Lauching cruise missiles to attack any city? Also possible.

Wouldn't it make sense to make an air droppable version of Poseidon - carried by a modified large transport aircraft?

With two or three dedicated submarines carrying these weapons the west will have to designate task groups to follow these submarines around the world to ensure they can destroy them on command... the irony is that they could be designed so the Poseidon weapons are released silently so those groups could be chasing these subs around long after they have dropped their weapons to the sea floor to quietly head off on a voyage to their primary targets.

The cost of three task groups chasing three subs that don't have any areas they have to remain in... it is not like their target is London and their range is 5,000km so they have to remain within 5,000km of London at all times... they can go anywhere they like... in any ocean... I would expect they would spend most of their time in the southern oceans... once they leave port they are on their own till the food runs out, so zipping over to the South Atlantic for a couple of months sailing around... some times fast sometimes slow and sneaky... constantly practising evading... hell once they have dropped off all their Poseidon missiles they can turn around and try to hunt the ships trying to track them... while their poseidon missiles escape...

I'm wondering if it has a 200 km/h speed ,creating a gas bubble around the Poseidon's hull ,so how the torpedo propellers work in a gas atmosphere ?

What ever its speed is they could easily design it so the tail sticks out the rear so the props have something to do....

Hell they could have some sort of hydrodynamic spike sticking out the front sucking in sea water that gets pumped through the weapon to the nuclear reactor and super heated and blown out the back end as superheated steam for propulsion for all we know...

The only scary thing about it is it could inspire similar weapons by terrorists. Maybe not Nuclear powered but maybe solar power...much slower but gets there eventually.

They would always be able to do that anyway...

But look how long it took to go from cruise missile (V1 Buzz bomb from WWII) to 11/9 using planes as bombs... quite a gap.

I doubt its that fast. There is no real advantage to it being fast and it will generate a lot of noise.

Could turn that around and say with active sonar there is no value in being quiet, but fast is harder to deal with when you are 1km underwater...

We still do not know how its terminal stage works. Nuclear tidal wave? Doubt it. Maybe hit a fault line and trigger a massive earthquake? Possible but not predicable enough. Massive nuke warhead to obliterate coastal cities? Highly possible. Lauching cruise missiles to attack any city? Also possible.

Not every target will be near a fault line... plus how does the weapon position itself perfectly on a fault line to get the effect you want... equally you would need very accurate information on the worlds fault lines... what if you set it off on a fault line that is not under high tension... the purpose would be to force the release of built up tension releasing energy thousands of times more powerful than any bomb we could make...

Even if it just approached coastlines and released a nuclear bomb to drop to the sea bed and detonate... enormous volumes of super heated salt water and mud and sand vapourised and released near a city would be devastating... this thing could carry 100s of small nuclear devices... the smaller the dirtier, so it will be irradiated superheated mud and water.... at a time when the whole country is likely trying to recover from those ICBM and cruise missile and SLBM missile hits...

mnztr wrote:...We still do not know how its terminal stage works....

Just a good old fashioned massive nuclear kaboom

Everything else is a bonus

Isos wrote:No one will see their kabooms because ICBM's kabooms will kill pretty much everyone.

And it's great

But having backup always helps

PapaDragon wrote:

mnztr wrote:...We still do not know how its terminal stage works....

Just a good old fashioned massive nuclear kaboom

Everything else is a bonus

It still has to get to its target. A Kaboom in the middle of the sea is not a big deterrent.

They could load hundreds of nukes on these things.... imagine the 152mm 2KT artillery shells they have right now... that is about 40kgs... I am sure they could make them half that weight and even smaller... so these things sail down the coastline of any enemy dropping these 20kg 1KT nuclear bombs every 2km or so as they travel... imagine what that is going to do to the sea life and the fishing opportunities for any survivors with heavily contaminated material carried by wind inland to irradiate everything... the modern equivalent of putting a dead horse in your enemies water supply... like the US soldiers did to the native Americans...

We will likely know how many subs they make to carry these weapons but we really wont know how many weapons they will make.... even a roll on roll off transport ship could carry a dozen in one corner as well as their standard load and over night could be ordered to drop them in some place where the water is 4km deep... they could have a signalling system where they drop to the sea bed and go dormant for 10 years and if they don't get a signal wait another 5 years and if they don't get any signals after that they can activate and attack their target... these things could be exploding and attack targets for decades after the initial war is over.

Equally some isolated location in Siberia could be building nuclear powered cruise missiles and it could be launching them as it makes them from some hidden location... any surviving SSNs could relay information about the results of attacks and what needs to be hit again... satellites launched to give a world view of what has survived and what hasn't and keep listening for radio signals in enemy territory to attack... they could have an air strip and a MiG-31K and a small cheap low altitude micro satellite with IIR sensors that scans enemy territory and with a passive radio sensor to detect radio communications and as it comes over Russia burst transmission information on new targets to hit...

Just when you thought you survived...

Their power source could be a breeder reactor that gives them unlimited fuel and weapons grade nuclear material...

GarryB wrote:They could load hundreds of nukes on these things.... imagine the 152mm 2KT artillery shells they have right now... that is about 40kgs... I am sure they could make them half that weight and even smaller... so these things sail down the coastline of any enemy dropping these 20kg 1KT nuclear bombs every 2km or so as they travel... imagine what that is going to do to the sea life and the fishing opportunities for any survivors with heavily contaminated material carried by wind inland to irradiate everything... the modern equivalent of putting a dead horse in your enemies water supply... like the US soldiers did to the native Americans...

We will likely know how many subs they make to carry these weapons but we really wont know how many weapons they will make.... even a roll on roll off transport ship could carry a dozen in one corner as well as their standard load and over night could be ordered to drop them in some place where the water is 4km deep... they could have a signalling system where they drop to the sea bed and go dormant for 10 years and if they don't get a signal wait another 5 years and if they don't get any signals after that they can activate and attack their target... these things could be exploding and attack targets for decades after the initial war is over.

Equally some isolated location in Siberia could be building nuclear powered cruise missiles and it could be launching them as it makes them from some hidden location... any surviving SSNs could relay information about the results of attacks and what needs to be hit again... satellites launched to give a world view of what has survived and what hasn't and keep listening for radio signals in enemy territory to attack... they could have an air strip and a MiG-31K and a small cheap low altitude micro satellite with IIR sensors that scans enemy territory and with a passive radio sensor to detect radio communications and as it comes over Russia burst transmission information on new targets to hit...

Just when you thought you survived...

Their power source could be a breeder reactor that gives them unlimited fuel and weapons grade nuclear material...

They don't really even need a lot of carriers for these, they can drop them in deep water and leave them dormant waiting for a VLF activation code. The device can have an anti tamper explosive on it and they can place them in their own cage that looks like a rock or blends with the bottom. maintain every 5 years or so. They can even be in Russian waters, or anywhere really. It would allow them to reduce their SSBN fleet and build more tactically useful SSGNs.