The wave raised by the long-range Poseidons is capable of traversing an entire continentThe arsenal of the Russian Navy continues to be replenished with new types of naval weapons.
According to a TASS report dated January 16, for the Belgorod special-purpose nuclear submarine, the industry has manufactured the "first ammunition set of nuclear super torpedoes" of the Poseidon type, which "in the near future" will be loaded into the carrier ship. At the same time, the state federal news agency refers to an anonymous "source close to the military department," with the caveat that he does not yet have official confirmation of this information. The interlocutor of TASS also reported on the successful completion of "separate tests" of the main components of Poseidon, including a nuclear power plant.
Belgorod is the only ship built according to the project 09852 project in Severodvinsk at the production association "Northern Machine-Building Enterprise" (PO "Sevmash") from the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). The launch of the ship is dated April 23, 2019.
For the first time, the completion of the construction of Belgorod in a new guise was openly discussed in December 2021. At the event dedicated to the anniversary of the enterprise, Mikhail Budnichenko, CEO of Sevmash, told reporters: "Another of our boats, the Belgorod, has started state tests."
It is known that over the past year, the submarine carried out exits to the Barents Sea for testing in the conditions of deep–water polygons of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy, the final trip - in November. This was reported by both foreign media with reference to the intelligence community of their countries, and Russian ones based on information from anonymous sources in the industry.
It was claimed that as part of the state tests of the ship, its crew performed a series of throwing tests of the mass-dimensional layout of the Poseidon torpedo. According to media reports, the Russian Navy finally accepted Belgorod from industry on July 8, 2022.
The scarcity of official information on the project 09852 ship is explained by its special purpose – it acts as a carrier for both inhabited and uninhabited underwater vehicles for various purposes. It is interesting that initially the designers conceived the Belgorod in another way, namely, the submarine cruiser of the 949A project – the carrier of 24 supersonic anti-ship missiles "Bolid" (the development of the seven-ton 3M-45 Granite missile defense system on the submarines of projects 949 and 949A of early construction). They were intended to destroy large surface targets, such as an aircraft carrier and its escort ships. The submarine's hull was laid in 1992, but after a couple of years construction stopped due to lack of funding. At the government level, it was decided to stop the production of nuclear-powered ships under the 949A project due to the high costs of testing, series construction and operation. A total of 13 ships were completed under projects 949 and 949A, of which less than half remain in service.
By the spring of 1994, Belgorod's readiness was about 70%. The decision on his future fate has changed several times. The option of completion in the export version with subsequent leasing to a foreign state was considered, according to the type of how the Project 670 and 971I submarines were operated by the Indian Navy (from 1988 to 1991 and from 2011 to 2021, respectively).
As the systemic crisis in the Russian military-industrial complex was overcome, the interest of the domestic fleet in Belgorod also increased.
The possibility of completing the boat in the 949AM variant with the Kalibr missile system or as a "hidden vessel" for laying protected communication lines along the seabed was studied. However, such an application of a ship with a total displacement of 24 thousand tons (the figure for project 949A) seemed wasteful.
The rapid development of robotics has prompted the sailors to reconsider the views on the unfinished ships of project 949A. This was facilitated by the program of the experimental submarine "Sarov" of the 20120 project, completed in 2008 at the Sevmash software specifically for testing promising types of weapons, primarily underwater drones. As a result, the Belgorod was decided to be completed as a Poseidon carrier ship with the ability to carry an inhabited deep-water station on an external suspension (under the central part of the hull). For this purpose, its hull (the overall length of the project 949A submarine is 155 m) was changed by cutting cylindrical inserts. In any case, so say foreign sources.
There is an increased interest in the Belgorod in the world based on its purpose, the composition of weapons, as well as the dimension – Western experts consider the ship of project 09852 to be the longest (184 m) submarine in history.
For the first time, Russia's program to create a new naval weapon was openly reported on November 10, 2015. Then one of the central television channels got a shot of the page of the presentation of the military commander – a participant in the meeting on defense issues in Sochi chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The page contained text and graphic information on the Status-6 program (later its name was changed to Poseidon) with references to Sarov, Belgorod and Khabarovsk submarines.
The purpose of the system was given as follows. "The defeat of important objects of the enemy's economy in the coastal area and the infliction of guaranteed unacceptable damage to the country's territory by creating zones of extensive radioactive contamination unsuitable for military, economic and other activities in these zones for a long time." Representatives of foreign intelligence agencies considered the above-mentioned TV report to be a deliberate disclosure of information in order to influence the leadership of the United States and other NATO countries.
In March 2018, President Putin confirmed the completion of work in this area, and later the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation released several videos dedicated to the production and testing of a new type of weapon. The analysis of the frames contained in them allowed specialists to estimate the dimension of the super torpedo: the length is more than 20 m, the diameter is about 2 m, the mass is about 100 tons. The parameters are close to the Soviet T-15 project. According to the memoirs of academician Andrei Sakharov, this giant torpedo was supposed to use a "ramjet atomic jet engine" and a thermonuclear warhead, which, in addition to the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion, additionally creates a huge wave tens of meters high.
The Soviet naval commanders abandoned the implementation of the T-15 project in favor of further development of intercontinental ballistic missiles of underwater launch. The Russian expert community believes that Poseidon represents the practical implementation of Sakharov's idea based on the latest achievements of scientific and technological progress in the field of nuclear energy and high-speed hydrodynamics. They made it possible to significantly improve the technical performance of the torpedo in terms of speed, depth, range and striking ability.
Vladimir Karnozov
