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Pentagon Document Confirms Existence of Russian Doomsday Torpedo (popularmechanics.com)
Popular Mechanics reports that "a key U.S. nuclear weapons document confirms that the Russian government is developing the most powerful nuclear weapon in more than a half century...a 'new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo'" with a range of 6,200 miles.
But what really makes "Kanyon" nightmare fuel is the drone torpedo's payload: a 100-megaton thermonuclear weapon. By way of comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 16 kilotons, or the equivalent of 16,000 tons of TNT. Kanyon's nuke would be the equivalent of 100,000,000 tons of TNT. That's twice as powerful as Tsar Bomba, the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever tested. Dropped on New York City, a 100-megaton bomb would kill 8 million people outright and injure 6 million more.
Kanyon is designed to attack coastal areas, destroying cities, naval bases, and ports. The mega-bomb would also generate an artificial tsunami that would surge inland, spreading radioactive contamination with the advancing water. To make matters worse there are reports the warhead is "salted" with the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60. Contaminated areas would be off-limits to humanity for up to 100 years.
Slashdot reader schwit1 adds that "being sea-based makes it immune to ballistic missile defense."
Kanyon is designed to attack coastal areas, destroying cities, naval bases, and ports. The mega-bomb would also generate an artificial tsunami that would surge inland, spreading radioactive contamination with the advancing water. To make matters worse there are reports the warhead is "salted" with the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60. Contaminated areas would be off-limits to humanity for up to 100 years.
Slashdot reader schwit1 adds that "being sea-based makes it immune to ballistic missile defense."
Our missile defense systems are designed to deter the guys who can launch one, or a handful of missiles (read: Iran or, until recently, North Korea). They were never seriously expected to defend against a full-scale Russian attack.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
At first thought, it would appear that this wouldn't be suited at all as a first strike weapon. Despite the immense damage it would cause, it would not directly cripple a retaliatory strike. The U.S.'s bombers and missiles are far inland and it would only sink the nuclear subs that happened to be in port nearby.
However, it COULD be used to decapitate much of the the political "leadership" (if one were to call the Trump administration that) and also much of the military leadership if it were detonated right off of Washington D.C. In fact, assuming that it could get close enough to be used (which of course is the only way it could be useful) it would be an almost instantaneous first strike weapon. Unlike a ballistic missile launched from a sub offshore on a depressed trajectory (5 min.?) or a nuke disguised as a satellite that suddenly de-orbits (20 min.?) it would be able to wipe out its target with too little time to escape. That, coupled with a "normal" first strike that would take out the land based bombers and missiles might be enough to keep the retaliation to a minimum. Or in the words of General 'Buck' Turgidson, "10-20 million (casualties) tops. Sure (they'd) get their hair mussed but (they'd) win".
Insane? Well so is the idea of an autonomous (meaning I presume there's no way to call it back) doomsday torpedo. Sounds like one could remake "The Hunt for Red October" with just a few changes; a robotic submarine capable of ending the world (or just the coast of many large nations) is accidentally launched and it must be found and destroyed before it gets within range (or becomes sentient).
Since Russia isn't nearly as vulnerable as the U.S. from coastal attacks but seems to be way behind and falling further in space technology (thanks Elon!); why not put a big rock in the sky that, with just a little nudge, would fall down the gravity well and give a non-radioactive 100MT blast? Or, if the Russians are going to go ahead and violate the nuclear arms treaty (I'm pretty sure developing a whole new strategic nuclear weapon system is not allowed), use America's lead in new biotechnologies that could target specific regions or exact populations (I'd tell you how but probably not best to talk about such things publicly).
How about by not fucking meddling & fixing my own domestic problems?
Russia's been playing games a long time, long before Obama was elected.
Aside from oil, Russia has nothing America wants & they can get it in trade. If they should be worried about anyone, it should be the 2 very large nearby nations filled with billions of brown & yellow people and who also have nukes.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
SDI was part of the Strategy of Technology. It was an economic strategy, not a military one. The wikipedia page is awful, by the way. I only link to it to show that it was a real thing that people took seriously. To learn about it, it is better to go straight to the source.
The goal here isn't to demoralize us, it is to force us to spend money to develop underwater anti-drone technology.
Unfortunately for them, I think it will backfire. We can afford it. We'll end up with underwater drones and underwater anti-drones and our economic growth will still outpace Russia.
See that "Preview" button?
The Tsar bomb was detonated, and the scientists went against orders and made it smaller than it was supposed to be. As I recall the original design called for 100MT. The scientists were concerned at 100MT, it would set the atmosphere on fire. I completely believe both the US and Russia are more than capable of building 100MT nuke. The torpedo I don't know. But again, seems like fairly old tech. Frankly the real problem I see with stopping nuclear proliferation is it has become old tech. Like most tech, stuff that used to be very expensive and only in the hands of a few becomes old and available. Consider people doing CRISPR in their garage. Imagine that 70 years ago when we dropped our first nuke.
Because of it's yield, minimum safe distance to fire that thing would be like 500 miles, and with a range of 6000 miles, the torpedo must look more like a small submarine. On top of that, the top speed of something that size is only going to be 30 knots or so. A few hundred sonar buoys/beacons up and down each coast in a grid from 100 miles offshore to 400 miles offshore (ideally a moving grid, so you never know where a buoy will be) and you can intercept this behemoth with anti sub weapons deployed from a helicopter within 10 miles of it's launch point (10 minutes after launch). Contrary to Hollywood, nuclear bombs do not detonate when you explode them, they implode to trigger the nuclear detonation, any other form of explosion just breaks the bomb apart.
Given all that information, this looks like a last gasp of an irrelevant regime at trying to reclaim superpower status. Furthermore, I think we should tell the Russians that we are fine if they want to build that, but if they chose to, we will deploy a sonar defense net and sink any unidentified or Russian sub within 400 miles of US coastline, because we can't be sure if it is a sub or their nuclear torpedo, and if we do have to sink something Russian made in that safety barrier and we get a radiological response from the detonation, we will be firing 10% of our ICBMs (about 190 missiles) to vaporize every major city in Russia, while at the same time using missile defenses deployed in Eastern Europe to shoot down any Russian ICBMs over Russian airspace. If they don't like that they can cool their shit and stop trying to threaten the US and behave like the second tier country that they are.
They had 8 years of dickless in chief reset button and hot mic "more flexibility" B. Hussein Obama, but that ended, and regardless of the tin foil hat wearing alt left conspiracy nuts, Trump is not going to take shit from the Russians any more than the Chinese or the North Koreans.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like