A 100-megaton nuclear monster. How to stop a Russian torpedo killer
Military columnist Michael Peck, in an article for the National Interest, cites hypothetical ways by which, in his opinion, it is possible to stop the Russian Poseidon torpedo.
Michael Peck
How can you stop a nuclear-powered torpedo designed to wipe other people's cities off the face of the Earth with a tsunami? The Russian Poseidon system provokes fear and excites the rich imagination of those whom Russia considers an enemy. But it is wrong to call this armament a torpedo. While its real capabilities remain mostly a mystery, it can be said for sure that its length reaches 24 meters. And therefore, it is a mini-submarine or an underwater ballistic missile.
Poseidon is moving with the help of a nuclear engine at a speed of about 200 kilometers per hour. It is capable of operating at a depth of up to a thousand meters. It is armed with a warhead with a capacity of 100 megatons. And this is enough to create such a giant wave that can destroy all the cities on the coast. How useful such a weapon is in combat is an open question.
Poseidon is too slow a weapon for its effectiveness to be compared with the effectiveness of intercontinental ballistic missiles or bombers during a first strike or a rapid retaliatory strike. In addition, it creates so much noise that the means of combating submarines will very easily detect it. And the autonomous nature of Poseidon suggests the question of armed robots, especially if they have super-powerful bombs under their control.
At the same time, the torpedo copes with the role of a psychological weapon perfectly. She seems like a monster from Hollywood movies, which, along with a powerful bomb, crawls along the seabed, preparing to make a tsunami. But for every vampire there is an aspen stake with which you can stab him in the heart.
Naval analyst H. I. Sutton offers some options for how, with the help of existing technologies, NATO can stop the Russian Poseidon. According to the expert, the operational modes of the Russian torpedo are likely to be simple and relatively straightforward. They will depend on speed and depth to achieve the survival of the weapon. If this is the case, then as an "antidote" it would be possible to "sow" the seabed with a whole network of sensor mines that would identify and destroy Russian "Poseidons".
"In an ideal scenario, sensor networks would include proprietary solutions, such as torpedo mines, to minimize the delay between the detection point and the moment of neutralization. Because the target is mobile and much faster than traditional submarines," Sutton explained.
He also admits that Poseidons could be destroyed by supersonic surface projectiles that would be launched from American submarines. "These could be light torpedoes of the next generation, similar to decommissioned Sabroks. The short flight time and long range of such systems allows you to destroy targets outside the realistic area of action of torpedoes. Thus, submarines could serve in the North Atlantic Ocean to respond to Poseidon launches and destroy them while they are still close enough to the sensors that detected them," the expert explained.
