>multi-megaton yields push the serious-damage band (∼1 MPa) out to tens of kilometers in many cases
What is all the radioactive tsunami media noise is primarily a distraction?
Everyone else but Russia is extremely vulnerable to a coastal attack. The UK and the US are stereotypical maritime empires, but even China has most of its key stuff right at the coast or close to it. Russia, however, only has St. Petersburg on the coast, and it is in the Baltic, which is very shallow and it would be hard for a large nuclear torpedo to travel all the way through it. So it makes perfect sense for Russia to develop that kind of a weapon, and coastal attack is indeed likely one of its main purposes.
But what if it can also tail enemy SSBNs from a distance in stealth mode, and then detonate from very far away and disable them? Russia has the strategic problem of being outnumbered 2:1 to 3:1 in SSBNs and attack subs by NATO, plus NATO owning the Atlantic and potentially making it hard for Russian subs to even get out of the Arctic. But if you have an autonomous platform with unlimited range that can serve the role of an attack sub without being a manned attack sub, then you address that problem.
It could also presumably take out whole carrier groups too, without surface fleets, submarines or jets/bombers having to strike them.
Of course, tracking enemy subs from a distance by an autonomous unmanned vehicle is a formidable technical challenge, and I have no idea how feasible that really is. But this has always struck me as the real game changer application here. Because coastal attack just to make sure everyone is dead even after the ICBMs have already struck doesn't really change all that much. But the potential ability to disable SSBNs would be a real game changer.
FWIW, aside from experience in metal cooled, compact reactors, the USSR also had extensive experience with highly advanced submarines.
Aside from some of the subs mentioned here, there was also Project 685 class submarines. That were specifically designed to operate at depths of 1000 meters and below, where neither American submarines nor torpedoes can operate.
The submarine class was considered a success and regularly dove to such depths.
It stands to reason that if Russia inherited at least some of the USSRs expertise, that they’d be eminently capable of creating a weapon like Poseidon/Kanyon.
As a former submariner, I thoroughly enjoyed this write up. Of note: cavitation gets suppressed with deeper depths. I'm not sure what RPM of a rotor is for the formation and subsequent collapse of bubbles occurs at 1 km. As you mentioned: speed and depth tend to negate the necessity of being quiet.
Its not the size of warhead but where its detonated that creates the Tsunami event.
A 100MT Poseidon set off underwater on the western flank of Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Isles, would be enough to destabilise the whole side of the volcano, and sent several cubic miles of rock crashing into the ocean.
The resulting Tsunami has been modelled as wiping out the eastern US seaboard, and drowning London
I speed read; I like "pictures"; I grasp some, terrified a bit. But then, what is an old gal to do. Smile the sky wide, the Love Revolution continues. Your gasp of subject matter is such a gift; thank you for sharing your prose. The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. All the best, all-ways! Old lady with a virtual cat.❤️🐈⬛ Family as well!
Although it could be used as a carrier group killer, I've always envisaged that it is an alternative/secondary strike asset which would be used to cut the US off from its port facilities. One Poseidon for each of its major ports, and then watch the US suffer collapse from the inability to import (or export) food, hydrocarbons, raw materials and of course all the overseas manufactured components its own industrial base relies on.
Area denial of shipping ports for only three months (about the time for the worst silt-locked radioactive isotopes to break down and be cleared - remember they are not as readily dispersed by wind and rain like air-burst fallout is) should be enough to bring the country to its knees... especially if used as a follow-up to a conventional strike on the US mainland by ICBMs. It would also allow Russia to horde more of its second strike capacity if both sides haven't come to their senses by that point.
Of course sea-based transportation could potentially be redirected via Mexico or Canada, but I wouldn't have high hopes that those facilities could handle the volume, let alone organise rail/road delivery of materiel.
In a total nuclear exchange, there are so many weapons and delivery means on all sides - and this is just one more - that even if only one out of ten were to slip through, the whole planet would be dead. One more piece in the puzzle of good old Mutual Assured Destraction.
In a limited exchange (at all possible??) neutralising the US ports would also leave their armies in Europe or Asia without supply for any residual war of attrition. Not sure how this would change the nuke/diplomacy chess games for better or worse.
Limited nuclear war is a nonsense theory. What nuclear power is just going to take a nuke and not escalate, or worse, go to a full salvo immediately? About the only scenario where it works is an attack on a isolated place that takes out only military assets. Now that I think about it, an attack on a carrier group at sea fits the bill. On the other hand, American doctrine threatens nuclear response to even conventional attacks on carriers, reinforcing my first point... 🤔🤪🚀💀
Thank you, very interesting and enlightening. I have a couple of questions. The Russian already have low megaton warheads on missiles, so why Poseidon if it doesn't give them much more power? Poseidon seems more likely to me to be in the higher megaton numbers rather than the 2-10mt range. Maybe 50Mt like the Tsar Bomb? Second can it be used to deliver a large conventional sea mine? e.g it could loiter around the sea bed and as a carrier task group passes above, release a conventional mine? Can it be used as a first strike or surprise attack weapon to confuse and delay the enemy's response. Would a detonation out at sea be immediately understood to be a nuclear attack?
Detonating Poseidon under a carrier battle group would end it in one shot. Imagine detecting the torpedo coming UP from beneath the thermoclines at 100kts towards you after it's been silently lurking in the area for weeks. That's a true gamechanger weapon.
"Russian claims imply yields on the order of 100 megatons - roughly fifty times the commonly cited Western estimate - underscoring the large and unresolved discrepancy between official Russian messaging and independent technical appraisals."
I believe we call that NATO lies their teeth off, Mike. 😉😁😅 As we've seen with casualties and production numbers in the Ukraine war. Also with the capabilities of Patriot. 🧐🤣🤣
Thank you for always setting apocalyptic scenarios into perspective. Weapons are already terrifying enough. Only people who have become inhuman can ignore deterrence.
There are so many options for launch vehicles . Any large maritime vessel could carry a number of these weapons under or inside its hull and release them when required . Any ship could be converted into a nuclear device by installing one . Pandoras box was opened a long time ago...
>multi-megaton yields push the serious-damage band (∼1 MPa) out to tens of kilometers in many cases
What is all the radioactive tsunami media noise is primarily a distraction?
Everyone else but Russia is extremely vulnerable to a coastal attack. The UK and the US are stereotypical maritime empires, but even China has most of its key stuff right at the coast or close to it. Russia, however, only has St. Petersburg on the coast, and it is in the Baltic, which is very shallow and it would be hard for a large nuclear torpedo to travel all the way through it. So it makes perfect sense for Russia to develop that kind of a weapon, and coastal attack is indeed likely one of its main purposes.
But what if it can also tail enemy SSBNs from a distance in stealth mode, and then detonate from very far away and disable them? Russia has the strategic problem of being outnumbered 2:1 to 3:1 in SSBNs and attack subs by NATO, plus NATO owning the Atlantic and potentially making it hard for Russian subs to even get out of the Arctic. But if you have an autonomous platform with unlimited range that can serve the role of an attack sub without being a manned attack sub, then you address that problem.
It could also presumably take out whole carrier groups too, without surface fleets, submarines or jets/bombers having to strike them.
Of course, tracking enemy subs from a distance by an autonomous unmanned vehicle is a formidable technical challenge, and I have no idea how feasible that really is. But this has always struck me as the real game changer application here. Because coastal attack just to make sure everyone is dead even after the ICBMs have already struck doesn't really change all that much. But the potential ability to disable SSBNs would be a real game changer.
FWIW, aside from experience in metal cooled, compact reactors, the USSR also had extensive experience with highly advanced submarines.
Aside from some of the subs mentioned here, there was also Project 685 class submarines. That were specifically designed to operate at depths of 1000 meters and below, where neither American submarines nor torpedoes can operate.
The submarine class was considered a success and regularly dove to such depths.
It stands to reason that if Russia inherited at least some of the USSRs expertise, that they’d be eminently capable of creating a weapon like Poseidon/Kanyon.
As a former submariner, I thoroughly enjoyed this write up. Of note: cavitation gets suppressed with deeper depths. I'm not sure what RPM of a rotor is for the formation and subsequent collapse of bubbles occurs at 1 km. As you mentioned: speed and depth tend to negate the necessity of being quiet.
Its not the size of warhead but where its detonated that creates the Tsunami event.
A 100MT Poseidon set off underwater on the western flank of Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Isles, would be enough to destabilise the whole side of the volcano, and sent several cubic miles of rock crashing into the ocean.
The resulting Tsunami has been modelled as wiping out the eastern US seaboard, and drowning London
Coordinates 28°34′N 17°50′W
Thanks for your great work!
We've restacked and shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
This is another fascinating and awesome analysis, thank you so much, Mike! Hvala!
I speed read; I like "pictures"; I grasp some, terrified a bit. But then, what is an old gal to do. Smile the sky wide, the Love Revolution continues. Your gasp of subject matter is such a gift; thank you for sharing your prose. The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. All the best, all-ways! Old lady with a virtual cat.❤️🐈⬛ Family as well!
Thank you!
Although it could be used as a carrier group killer, I've always envisaged that it is an alternative/secondary strike asset which would be used to cut the US off from its port facilities. One Poseidon for each of its major ports, and then watch the US suffer collapse from the inability to import (or export) food, hydrocarbons, raw materials and of course all the overseas manufactured components its own industrial base relies on.
Area denial of shipping ports for only three months (about the time for the worst silt-locked radioactive isotopes to break down and be cleared - remember they are not as readily dispersed by wind and rain like air-burst fallout is) should be enough to bring the country to its knees... especially if used as a follow-up to a conventional strike on the US mainland by ICBMs. It would also allow Russia to horde more of its second strike capacity if both sides haven't come to their senses by that point.
Of course sea-based transportation could potentially be redirected via Mexico or Canada, but I wouldn't have high hopes that those facilities could handle the volume, let alone organise rail/road delivery of materiel.
In a total nuclear exchange, there are so many weapons and delivery means on all sides - and this is just one more - that even if only one out of ten were to slip through, the whole planet would be dead. One more piece in the puzzle of good old Mutual Assured Destraction.
In a limited exchange (at all possible??) neutralising the US ports would also leave their armies in Europe or Asia without supply for any residual war of attrition. Not sure how this would change the nuke/diplomacy chess games for better or worse.
Limited nuclear war is a nonsense theory. What nuclear power is just going to take a nuke and not escalate, or worse, go to a full salvo immediately? About the only scenario where it works is an attack on a isolated place that takes out only military assets. Now that I think about it, an attack on a carrier group at sea fits the bill. On the other hand, American doctrine threatens nuclear response to even conventional attacks on carriers, reinforcing my first point... 🤔🤪🚀💀
Thank you, very interesting and enlightening. I have a couple of questions. The Russian already have low megaton warheads on missiles, so why Poseidon if it doesn't give them much more power? Poseidon seems more likely to me to be in the higher megaton numbers rather than the 2-10mt range. Maybe 50Mt like the Tsar Bomb? Second can it be used to deliver a large conventional sea mine? e.g it could loiter around the sea bed and as a carrier task group passes above, release a conventional mine? Can it be used as a first strike or surprise attack weapon to confuse and delay the enemy's response. Would a detonation out at sea be immediately understood to be a nuclear attack?
Detonating Poseidon under a carrier battle group would end it in one shot. Imagine detecting the torpedo coming UP from beneath the thermoclines at 100kts towards you after it's been silently lurking in the area for weeks. That's a true gamechanger weapon.
I wonder if one could mine waters with small nukes.
Or we could have worked to eliminate nukes but Trump tore up the most important treaty with Russia in response to the Russiagate hoax.
If we'd have managed to shut down that russiagate hoax, we might still have an intermediate nuclear Forces treaty with the russians.
Thanks Hillary. I'm saving a bottle for your parting.
A variable-yield warhead would be even more flexible.
A big heavy expensive toy
for deterrence just like a petrel, I hope it will cool the heads of the hawks. Let us doves live in peace
"Russian claims imply yields on the order of 100 megatons - roughly fifty times the commonly cited Western estimate - underscoring the large and unresolved discrepancy between official Russian messaging and independent technical appraisals."
I believe we call that NATO lies their teeth off, Mike. 😉😁😅 As we've seen with casualties and production numbers in the Ukraine war. Also with the capabilities of Patriot. 🧐🤣🤣
Thank you for always setting apocalyptic scenarios into perspective. Weapons are already terrifying enough. Only people who have become inhuman can ignore deterrence.
What if inhumanity of some kind is a heritable trait?
Hard not to believe it, isn't it?
Aceh and Fukushima demonstrate the additional power of Clathrates.
Cheaper devices are available: Old freighters stuffed with explosives, sink in a storm ....
Add in the effects of clathrates!
There are so many options for launch vehicles . Any large maritime vessel could carry a number of these weapons under or inside its hull and release them when required . Any ship could be converted into a nuclear device by installing one . Pandoras box was opened a long time ago...