Dmitry Litovkin-what is currently known about a powerful underwater drone
Recently, assistant Secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation Christopher Ford suddenly recalled the Russian Poseidon torpedo equipped with a"multi-megaton nuclear warhead". According to him, the drone is able to freely cross the world's oceans and, having blown up near the coast of the United States, cause a tsunami that will destroy coastal cities. He does have cause for concern. Russia is preparing to put to sea the second carrier of the drone-the Khabarovsk submarine. Together with the previously built Belgorod nuclear submarine, they will be able to deliver up to 12 such vehicles to the coast of the United States.
Discharge echo
The appearance of Poseidon in 2018 during the address to the Federal Assembly was announced by Vladimir Putin. It was presented in a number of other systems: the Sarmat heavy ballistic missile, the Avangard hypersonic maneuvering nuclear unit, the Kinzhal aeroballistic complex, the Burevestnik cruise missile of unlimited range and duration, and the Peresvet laser system. In the sparse video footage provided to confirm the existence of Poseidon, then we were shown the" gray " cylinder of a giant torpedo, and then the tail section with a propulsive engine allegedly installed on it. A little later, the Ministry of defense showed footage of tests of the complex from an unnamed submarine.
Poseidon Complex"
Image source: © Snapshot from video/The press service of the defense Ministry of the Russian Federation/TASS
According to the head of state, the appearance of such weapons should activate the negotiation process with Washington in the field of arms control. For example, to extend the start-3 strategic arms limitation Treaty. However, the desired effect was not achieved. The Americans continued to set counter-conditions, making it more and more difficult to find a compromise. In fact, they are simply delaying negotiations, since they themselves are on the verge of serious changes in the field of armaments and do not want to bind themselves to any obligations.
However, with all this, the Americans did not stop reading the mantra that Russia's actions are destructive. Especially in terms of creating a cruise missile and an underwater drone with nuclear power plants. The us President's special representative for arms control, Marshall Billingsley, complained that "they are dangerous and too expensive." In turn, foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that " Russian development of missiles with nuclear power plants Poseidon and Burevestnik do not fall under the start-3 Treaty." Indeed, under the terms of all previous agreements in the field of nuclear weapons restrictions, Moscow and Washington declared and controlled only those systems that are in the arsenals of both States and are comparable in their technical capabilities. In the case of Poseidon, America doesn't have anything close to it.
Unreal " Poseidon"
At the same time, little is known about the drone itself. It is believed that this is a modern reincarnation-a re-incarnation of the "supertorpeda of academician Andrei Sakharov", a product of the T-15. It was supposed to have a caliber of 1550 mm, a length of 24 meters and weigh 40 tons. Of these, one-tenth accounted for the thermonuclear warhead-58 megatons in TNT equivalent. The USSR in October 1961 tested a similar charge, later called the "Tsar bomb", at the nuclear test site of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. A top secret, or, as they say, "for official use", documentary was made about those events.
The explosion of the product was very strong. The shock wave from it reached Arkhangelsk, located 1.5 thousand km from the place where the bomb was used. According to eyewitnesses, the Windows were broken in the city. Whether this fact or technical problems with the content of such weapons put an end to both the aviation version of the bomb and the Andrei Sakharov torpedo. In any case, its size was almost half of the carrier - a nuclear submarine. Compared to submarines armed with ballistic missiles, this was extremely unwise. After all, instead of a single torpedo warhead, they carry 16 missiles that can carry up to 96 individual-guided nuclear warheads.
The only thing that can be discussed today in the case of Poseidon is that it is much more compact than the Soviet ancestor. Otherwise, six pieces of such products in a ship measuring just over 150 m would not physically fit. Although there is a nuance here. The lead Poseidon carrier boat, the Belgorod, surpasses the project 941 Typhoon heavy missile cruiser listed in the Guinness Book of records as the largest nuclear-powered boat in terms of size and displacement.
How is this possible? It turns out that during the modernization of Belgorod, the Central part was redesigned. Instead of the rocket compartment, a new one was embedded, almost 30 m in size. It can accommodate special equipment for performing deep-sea operations, and has airlock chambers for sailors to enter deep-sea vehicles, as well as for divers to exit. As a result, the area increased from the original 154 to 184 m. This is 11 m more than the "Typhoon".
And one more detail about the new underwater drone. A TASS source specified that the new torpedo will have "various nuclear charges, the maximum power will be a monoblock thermonuclear warhead similar to the Avangard charge - up to two megatons in TNT equivalent," he told the Agency. And here it is important to explain that, according to open sources, the YARS-type Intercontinental ballistic missile has 150 kiloton nuclear warheads. Now we're counting. The standard nuclear warhead dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had a capacity of 20 kilotons and destroyed everything within a radius of more than 10 km...
Poseidon's Kingdom
American Forbes writes that the Western military is constantly monitoring from space "Sevmash" in Severodvinsk, where the Khabarovsk nuclear submarine is being built, in the hope of not missing the ship's departure to sea. Unlike strategic submarines, we will not leave it under the supervision of satellites for several days, as required by the Russian-American agreements in the field of strategic offensive arms restrictions (start). However, this is not the worst thing for the US. As they say, out and out. You can still track where. The world's oceans are literally riddled with sonar devices that do not allow any submarine to covertly enter the strategic expanse. During the Soviet era, and even today, the ships of the Northern fleet need to overcome the so-called Faroese-Icelandic border. This is the NATO anti-submarine defense line in the North Atlantic between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom.
For its passage, submariners use associated bulk carriers and tankers. You stand under the keel of such a mastodon and merge with the noise of its propellers. The latest strategic missile carriers of the Borey-A type have additional screw-steering electric columns of the Azipod type. They are installed outside the ship's hull and rotate 360 degrees around the vertical axis using a hinge mechanism. This allows the boat to get not only better maneuverability both on the course and speed compared to conventional propulsion systems, but also to move at least the nose, even the stern, even the side. That is, to perform maneuvers in those conditions when a ship with a conventional propulsion system would have long stood still, and at the same time be absolutely silent.
Well, then the most interesting thing. In the summer of this year, the expedition of the vessel "Photius Krylov" to the Mariana trench took place in the Pacific ocean. On Board, he carried an uninhabited underwater vehicle "Vityaz-D". During the trip, the drone sank several times in the Japanese, South China seas and near the Philippines. The result was the conquest of the Mariana trench - 12 thousand m. the Foundation for advanced research then said that the device collected purely scientific information, one of which was mapping the bottom relief. The General Director of "Rubin" Igor Villeneuve said that he did it "according to the program-a task" that was entered by the operator of the apparatus before diving. But there was another nuance - "Vityaz" constantly communicated with the surface. And he did it not via fiber-optic cable, but via an Autonomous communication channel.
About the "Poseidon" they say that it can not only maneuver independently at depth, but also lie down on the ground. If there is a nuclear reactor, it can sleep for years, which creates a serious problem for Americans. It is almost impossible to get it when detected from a depth of even 6 thousand meters (the main depths of the world ocean). When opened, it can come to life and change the " den "in anticipation of the"call". And that can come at any time from a passing ship, a ship that has flown a liner, or through the low-frequency channel of the Zeus radar-a transmitter of coded signals for combat control of submarines anywhere in The world ocean. Actually, this is exactly what Vityaz-D showed.