What are "Sarmat" and "Poseidon" At a hearing in the House of Representatives of the US Congress, the head of NORAD Van Herk considers the Russian Sarmat missile to be a highly capable weapon.
The American commander did not forget to mention the giant self-propelled torpedo "Poseidon. Why Russian products arouse the interest of American officials, the military columnist of "Gazeta.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
The Russian heavy intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat is a highly capable strategic weapon. This was stated by the head of the Joint Aerospace Defense Command of North America (NORAD) and the Northern Command of the US Armed Forces, General Glen Van Herk, at a hearing in the House of Representatives of the US Congress.
Van Herk also mentioned the testing of the Belgorod nuclear submarine, which can carry Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicles designed to strike coastal targets from a distance of 1 thousand km.
It is obvious that both Sarmat and Poseidon are seriously concerned about the United States. Both Russian products pose a serious threat to America's national security.
Let's recall their main tactical and technical characteristics.
"Ready to launch"
As the newspaper wrote earlier.Ru", heavy multistage liquid intercontinental missiles RS-28 "Sarmat" will replace the stationary-based complexes R-36M/R-36M2 "Voevoda" in the Strategic Missile Forces.
The new Russian missile will be able to attack targets both through the North Pole and through the South Pole, overcoming the missile defense systems of a potential enemy.
Thanks to the virtually unlimited firing range, the Sarmat ICBM will be able to hit targets in any direction. In addition, the missile has a short upper stage, which makes it difficult to intercept by means of missile defense of a likely enemy in the active section of the ICBM flight.
Sarmat will be equipped with a wide range of high-power nuclear weapons, including hypersonic ones, and the most modern missile defense systems.
The range of effective destruction of enemy objects by Sarmat is 18 thousand km. The launch mass of the rocket is 208.1 tons, the payload mass is more than 10 tons, the fuel mass is 178 tons, the length of the rocket is 35.5 m, the diameter is 3 m, the type of warhead is a separable head with individual guidance units.
The Sarmat ICBM can also be equipped with Avangard hypersonic gliding cruise combat units. This will allow the missile's combat equipment to approach enemy targets at hypersonic speeds and perform unpredictable maneuvers along the course and altitude. Weapons against such weapons will not appear in the likely enemy in the historically foreseeable future.
In the 62nd missile Uzhur Red Banner Division named after the 60th anniversary of the USSR (permanent deployment point - Sunny, Krasnoyarsk Territory), work has already been launched to prepare the main missile regiment for rearmament.
The Russian Defense Ministry plans to equip a training ground near the village of Severo-Yenisei for flight tests of the Sarmat missile complex.
Now the most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles of Russia are the R-36M/ R-36M2 "Voevoda" (more than 40 launchers), developed in Soviet times by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau (Dnepropetrovsk) under the leadership of Academician Alexei Utkin and put on combat duty in the late 1980s.
Products weighing 211 tons are capable of carrying 10 nuclear warheads of 0.5 megatons at a distance of up to 11 thousand km (with a monoblock head - 16 thousand km). At the same time, the accuracy of shooting is plus or minus 500 meters.
The Voyevoda intercontinental ballistic missile is designed to defeat all types of targets protected by modern missile defense systems, and even in combat conditions, including with multiple nuclear impacts on the positional area, providing a guaranteed retaliatory strike.
In Soviet times, the R-36M2 ICBM entered service with three missile divisions of the Strategic Missile Forces: the 13th in the village of Dombarovsky, Orenburg region, the 38th in Derzhavinsk, Turgai region, Kazakh SSR, and the 62nd in the city of Uzhur, Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Now they remain on combat duty in two positional areas in Dombarovsky and Uzhur (Sunny) in a variant with separable individual guidance head units, which are planned to remain on combat duty until the early 2020s.
The development of the promising RS-28 replacing the Voivode was entrusted exclusively to domestic enterprises.
Its creation, in addition to the V. P. Makeev GRC, is carried out by the NGO of Mechanical Engineering from Reutov near Moscow and the NGO Energomash, engaged in the development of engines. The deployment of RS-28 Sarmat missile systems is planned in the former positional areas - Uzhur and Dombarovsky.
"Blow from the abyss"
In January of this year ru/army/2023/01/16/16093759 .shtml" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">it became known that the production of the first ammunition of unmanned underwater vehicles "Poseidon" for the nuclear submarine "Belgorod" has recently been completed. It was also reported that the crew of the submarine completed a series of throwing tests of the mass-dimensional layout of the Poseidon torpedo.
"Poseidon" is a giant self-propelled torpedo, also known as "Status-6" and has the NATO code designation Kanyon. The product is equipped with a nuclear power plant and a thermonuclear warhead.
2M39 "Poseidon" is a fully robotic high-speed (up to 200 km/h) deep-sea low-visibility nuclear submarine of miniature dimensions (diameter 1.8 m, length 20 m, weight - about 100 tons). Poseidon is the largest torpedo in the world, it is 30 times heavier than the standard one.
The Poseidon is so big that it can only be transported by specially converted submarines. These include the K-329 Belgorod nuclear submarine - so far the only representative of the 09852 project.
The Doomsday Torpedo, as Poseidon is also called, has virtually unlimited range. The developers of the system are the Central Design Bureau of Marine Technology Rubin (JSC "TSKB MT Rubin") and the St. Petersburg Marine Engineering Bureau "Malachite" named after Academician Nikolay Isanin (JSC "SPMBM "Malachite"). In government contracts, the project appears under the name "Cephalopod" (from Lat. Cephalopoda - "Octopus").
The Russian Ministry of Defense calls it a multipurpose weapon and claims that this device can be used against aircraft carrier strike groups of the US Navy.
The Belgorod nuclear submarine, the carrier of the 2M39 Poseidon self-propelled submarines, will serve to test the combat use of this type of weapon, as well as to gain experience in operating such carrier boats in the Russian Navy. A revised submarine project based on this submarine is already planned for serial production and deployment in fleets.
The Belgorod nuclear submarine of Project 09852, launched on April 23, 2019, is equipped with six Poseidon devices. Creative development of Belgorod - Khabarovsk nuclear submarine.
The design of the submarine is classic - double-hull. The main power plant of the submarine is nuclear, probably with a water-water reactor with a capacity of up to 190 MW. Khabarovsk will be equipped with a water jet propulsion system, which is installed on all new submarines of the Russian fleet. This decision indicates the desire of the developers to reduce the noise of the submarine to the lowest possible level.
Presumably, the number of crew of the submarine will be about 100 people. Other characteristics of the ship are as follows: the length of the ship is about 113 m; the width is more than 12 m; the diameter of the hull is about 10 m. The underwater displacement of the submarine is about 10 thousand tons. The speed of the underwater course of the Khabarovsk is up to 32 knots. The range of navigation is unlimited. The working depth of immersion is no more than 500 m. Autonomy - 90-120 days.
As for the Khabarovsk's armament, the submarine, like the Belgorod, is equipped with six 2P39 launchers of 2M39 Poseidon self-propelled underwater vehicles. There is reason to believe that the submarine is armed with a certain number of conventional 533 mm torpedo tubes for self-defense. In addition, there is evidence that Khabarovsk will receive both Kalibr-PL missiles and hypersonic Zircons, as well as the Package-PL complex installed on the Borey-M rocket launcher. It allows the submarine to repel the enemy's torpedoes and escape unharmed.
The West, of course, will need a lot of time to create its new weapons capable of competing on equal terms with the Russian "Sarmatians" and "Poseidons".
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.
Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).Mikhail Khodarenok
