I do not usually comment on UA-cam. But I think it is so important that people who were part of the Cold War talk about their experiences. You do it in a fantastic way. You know what you are talking about and you speak so that ordinary people understand. I myself was in the Swedish navy in the Baltic Sea during the Cold War. I was on a surface ship but had many friends on the submarines. A couple of my friends were on the HMS Gotland in San Diego. :) I think they scared you a little. :) Excuse my bad English but I just want to encourage you to continue with your lectures.
Well he does not. 100 Mt yield was the normal rating for "Tsar" bomb. It was just tested in 50 Mt configuration (without the outer layer) because it was much cleaner that way. Just about everyone interested in the Cold Era nuclear technology knows this. Also, nobody straps several nuclear bombs together as a single weapon. They are just not designed to explode this way, with a device exploding nearby messing up with the delicate implosion process. So the guy demonstrated he got about a layman's understanding of nuclear weapons and their history and he still makes videos about the topic.
5:48 As far as I know, the Tsar Bomba only had a 58Mt yield because of the substitution of its U238 fusion tamper for an inert mass. Had this not been the case, it would have reached its 100Mt design goal in the same form factor, and also certainly killed the poor Tu-95 delivery crew, lest the Soviet nylon industry be paralyzed longer in order to secretly produce an even more outrageously huge parachute.
Soviet scientists had spoken some fears that explosion of such force could cause irreversible changes in Earth crust tectonic plates, so they downscaled the Tsar bomb.
@@clouster75 Meh. 100Mt reads like a huge deal, but it's really not much energy compared to a lot of meteorites' kinetic energy. From what I know, omitting the tamper was all about not killing the delivery crew as 55Mt was rather sufficient of a detonation for the experiment to be conclusive... this, and the continued availability of stockings for Soviet ladies.
@@clouster75 That was not the reason. The reason was that to get the 100 megaton yield would require the final stage of Uranium-238 to be in place. Fast neutrons from the blast would transmute it into Plutonium 239, which would immediately fission and immensely magnify the blast. However, the nuclear fallout would also be immense, and spread across the northern hemisphere. Andrei Sakharov, the designer realized that and opted to remove that final stage and down graded the yield. The blast nearly did destroy the plane that dropped it. When it returned, the pilot tendered his resignation. Soon thereafter, so did Sakharov, who became one of the leading advocates for nuclear disarmament of his time.
It wasn't even just an inert mass; It was lead insets. Now, lead is only the weakest sort of neutron absorber, but every little helps, particularly when seated in such a position. It is possible that the yield would have been even greater than expected. Which is also something they feared. Also, if you want to know about how the Russkis could make a nuclear-powered supercavitator stick? Just look up the US's own "Project SLAM" or the recent "9M730 Burevestnik", and then apply the tech underwater - where you have way more and more easily workable reactive mass available! It's not _that_ much business to create the proper intake and then a vaporization chamber leading to a superexpansion nozzle. And then just add nuclear salts, and presto you have a steamrocket, possibly with hydrogen burn on top from just the heat and ionization. Then add a small blasting cap to the tip of the torpedo to form the initial cavity, or use a cut self-bubbling star tip which will just break up or wear down once the thing gets up to speed.
The Russian description in the pamphlet shown at the end claims that instead of a 100 megaton warhead, this torpedo could be loaded up with several smaller torpedoes, cruise missiles or mines, and could be used to autonomously hunt opponent's submarines
That’s only marginally more comforting. Suppose a conventional version of this deploying mines is used operationally and renders certain shipping lanes unpassable until every single one of those mines is accounted for and removed after the end of the war. You’ll have ships blowing up in affected areas for decades after the fact without a means to track exactly where the mines were laid. Consider how dependent on shipping global commerce is (and how many people may have starved to death just from the COVID panic shutting down said shipping for a while - now imagine that shipping disrupted for years, perhaps even decades), and the result of this could be catastrophic, especially for the third world.
As callous, cold and calculating this weapon may seem, it is an inevitable result of MAD. In order enforce the MAD status quo in an era of hypersonic missiles and ever developing (if slowly) anti-ballistic systems, certain lines would inevitably be crossed. It is terrible, yes, but the nuclear ride began a long time ago.
Correct. However, worth noting that at the start of this ride we had a much different group of people and thinking. People, on both sides, who's morals and character had them mutually agree that this kind of thing had no place in the world. The subject is now being revisited by people wholly lacking in those prior traits.
@@SailfishSoundSystem Like the Russian Admiral mentioned in the video itself and his counterparts in no longer existing US staff positions. But don't let a solid point from cruising right over your head in pursuit of comedy.
Agree, to me this seems a logical (within the twisted logic of MAD) reaction to ABM systems. Area denial / counter-value weapon.Yes you could use it to first strike a fleet in port, but once you escalate to nuclear does sinking surface warships really matter? Annapolis side coast seems a bit too far for me for a reliable decapitation strike and running it up the Potomac undetected (especially now its existence is known - it might not be practical to search for it in deep ocean, but putting dedicated sensors and counter measures into a few critical shallow zones - Strait of Gibraltar might be another good spot to detect and/or prevent transit - seems doable) seems a gamble too.
@@machinech183 I think you have some rose-tinted glasses there, if people has such great morals when the ride started it wouldn't have gone so far in the first place. One admiral not wanting one type of strategic weapon doesn't negate all the other nasty strategic weapons that were developed and deployed by the other branches of both sides.
Nah Florida doesn't have anything good, they'll be hitting Norfolk though for sure and that'll send a tidal wave up the Chesapeak and take out DC, all of Virginia, and probably a good chunk of North Carolina.
@@MrMattumbo Florida has many strategic military and defense industries such as We have the US central command based out of Tampa along with MacDill AFB, the panhandle has Eglin AFB and the US Navy surface Warfield Center just to name a few. Other important strategic DOD contractors include Honeywell, Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and numerous others.
Nice video. Speaking of T-15, there's a rarely mentioned curious fact about this program: in 1961, there were attempts at reviving it by none other than the future pacifist Sakharov, who, at the time, was troubled by the lack of an appropriate delivery platform for the recently tested Tsar Bomba and ultimately decided that a 100-megaton tsunami-producing torpedo intended to lay waste to the US coastal cities would be welcomed by the officials. His proposal, however, was met with such disgust on part of the Navy leadership, that Admiral Pyotr Fomin, in their private talk, reproached Sakharov by labeling the proposal as "cannibalistic" and saying that "military sailors were used to fighting an armed opponent in open warfare" and that "the very idea of such mass killing was disgusting to him". As Sakharov wrote in his memoirs, he felt deeply ashamed of himself after this talk, and it was the last time he discussed this project with anyone.
Times are changing. People of Russia are tired of American all out war against their country: I mean political, economic, propagandist and covert assault with no justifiable reasons or limits! Since Communism is long gone (at least from Russia) that continuous and vicious war can be only explain by Russophobia and desire to destroy the Russian people and to take over its territory and resources. That's why Putin has said: "Why would we care: we do not want any future without Russia in it!" That's what we are talking about!
And you are not confused by the fact that the Russians in the late 90-ies of the last century disarmed unilaterally believing the promises of the Americans. Destroyed 600 Intercontinental missiles, 4 nuclear submarines, half of the Tu-160 and Tu-95, stopped the development, testing and production of cruise missiles. In response, the Americans in 2002 adopted the doctrine of Global instantaneous disarming strike and withdrew from the anti-Missile defense Treaty?
@@maeton-gaming Be honest. You don't understand what you are writing about at all. 1. What is the problem of leaving missiles in mines, strategic bombers at the airfield, along with a dozen others, nuclear submarines with a damped reactor at berths with a dozen others? Is the security expensive? 2. The cost of dismantling a nuclear submarine is slightly less than building a new one, and dismantling a liquid-fueled intercontinental missile with a nuclear warhead is more expensive than building a new one. For this, it is necessary to build special enterprises for dismantling the rocket and mine, disposing of toxic fuel, processing a nuclear warhead into nuclear fuel, as well as nuclear waste storage. Now a question. Why, for the sake of economy, destroyed only those weapons that threatened the United States. The number of tanks did not decrease, the factories did not stop their production. Now Russia has 12 thousand tanks in the army with 10,710 more in warehouses. This is 4 thousand more than all NATO, together with the United States and Canada
@@УДачныйучасток-я1е yes 600 antique missiles were disassembled. That hardly makes a dent in the Russian nuclear stockpile. Honestly I think the united states should respond with building the same weapon just to even the playing field.
@@Jimmy_CV Dismantled 600 missiles more modern than the Minuteman 3 of the 70s. And I think that while there is an advantage in hypersonic missiles, lasers and missile defense, it is necessary to make the Stalin Strait between Mexico and Canada, and then deal with cowardly Europe.
9:46 Translation: Purpose: Hitting important objects of adversary's economy in the region of coastline and delivery of guaranteed unsustainable damage to the territory of the country by the way of creating zones of extensive radioactive contamination making it unsuitable for implementation in these areas of military, economic and other economic activities for a long time.
That's right, but ... I live on the coast and I do not live in Russia, but I do not feel any fear because of this weapon. Why? MY NATION DOES NOT CONSIDER ATTACKING THEM !!! So, sit at home, mind your business and everything will be fine.
@@jerromedrakejr9332 It is for that purpose that your country is putting cruise missiles and anti-missile defenses at the front door of Russia? Because it does not consider attacking them? What do you think, how does it look like to Russians? How did it look to your country in the case of Cuban crisis?
@@daseladi Soviets attempted to locate nukes in Cuba, not anti-missile interceptors. This is a small difference. Putin has just pulled back boys under pressure from the Ukrainian border. You are a direct threat to most of your weaker neighbours, which there are many, especially small Baltic states.
@@pavel9652 First, launchers in Romania are multi-purpose, just as capable of launching cruise missiles. Second, positioning missile interceptors to disable the second strike rockets is a very ominous sign to anyone watching. Third, that Putin pulled back under pressure, just keep on dreaming so sweetly. Fourth. I am no Russian. Fifth, come on, don't give us that 'threat' hysterics.
Just a small correction, they didn't need to put TWO Tzar bombs, because the nominal charge of the bomb was 100 mt, and they dile it down, because they were afraid of the effect ot 100 my blast on the planet.
No, they were only afraid that the Tu-95 air dropping the bomb would not survive the shockwave of the 100 Mt blast. It would not "affect the planet" in any different way than the 50 Mt yield did.
What I've read is that the 100Mt version had an additional uranium shroud around the fission/fusion core (essentially a triple stage in the nuclear detonation) which would create an order of magnitude higher radioactive contamination at the test site so they only tested the unshrouded version (two stage only).
Yes, i believe that they replaced a depleted uranium casing, with a lead one. The neutron flux from the bomb would have transmuted U238 to fissile plutonium so that this casing became fissile and provided half of the 100Mt yield.
Yeah. In the end this changes nothing. Simply by the nature of it being a strategic nuclear weapon. You don't need defense against strategic nuclear weapon. Your defence against strategic nuclear weapon is having ones own scary strategic nuclear weapon. NOBODY IS GOING TO USE THIS WEAPON. It's only points are to exist and be really really scary. Russia is not going to suddenly shoot a Poseidon at USA. Point is to have one and when things start to get testy, put a poseidon in water and let USA or whoever other nuclear power know "Poseidon is in water. You nuclear strike us, couple weeks after we are dead an autonomous Poseidon will sneak into your main harbor and salt your soil. How about we TALK about you putting yours back in your pants and we put ours back in our pants. Okay?" Nobody has comprehensive ICBM shield either. It doesn't mean nuke shooting war was going on. So it is scary and it isn't scary. Since Poseidon blowing up is our least worry, if it blows up. When poseidon blows up.... We have already have a full out ICBM exchange among all the major nuclear powers. So whats little more nuclear salt on a glassed over Manhattan anyway. Not that it makes Russia any happier, since St Petersburg and Moscow are also just smoldering craters. it was just latest move in the everlasting "We will never use these, but can't afford to not have these" Nuclear mutual assured destruction game. Even with 100 megatons a poseidon can't take out the deep rooted mainland silos and bombers of SAC, so there is not point first striking with it either. All that buys is... Smoldering craters of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Being apocalyptically suicidally stupid isn't one of the features of the russian psyche.
This nuclear torpedo can only destroy the West and East Coastline Cities and Harbors. That will destroy the Centers of American Communism and "Blue" coastal radicals. Putin not going to do that. "Let the fruit rot from the inside." The Heartland of America is not worried about dooms day devices like Democrats, BLM, ANTIFA or a torpedo. We are concerned about the destruction brought about by a goddess ideology, drugs and mental subversion from Hollywood.
@@ad2181 Someone seems upset with the election results :o) . On a side note; You are right about Putin wanting the fruit to rot from the inside, which is why russia has consistently rooted for Trump in the elections. People are right not to worry about this weapon though, it is just another piece in the MAD doctrine, there is no effective defense against the russian nuclear arsenal and this is just another way to reinforce their detterent, it really is nothing new in a strategic sense.
@@comedicsketches well yeah, but in such situation all the ICBMs are also flying so well we all burn together in the great incineration. Also it would take not only a crazy leader, but crazy chain of command to carry out the order. My main sleep enabler is... rank and file have mothers and wives........
@@ad2181 Isn't it the ideologies with gods that create the most wars, death, and destruction on the earth? Pretty sure it has been from the very start of recorded history. Drug trafficking, slavery, murder, genocide, all done in the name of one god or another. (Including the Christian one.)
@@justforfun4103 I second this. Probably many nodes at this point. Its first actions would be to ensure self preservation. Probably working for/with the good guys for now, but who are the good guys these days? Brave New World meets Roko's Basilisk.
I would have liked to be in the room where they first analyzed the video and for the first time realized what the Russians are working on. If they truly had no prior knowledge of that project the collective WTF must have been amazing.
When thinking about rockets on supercavitating bodies. NASA scientists have designed a number of nuclear rockets. The torpedo under discussion could simply pass seawater through the core. Superheating it and using the steam for propulsion.
Supercavitation could be achieved with steam. There's plenty of water and energy. Imagine the torpedo filling the water reservoir, run supercavitating for 10 miles, slow down or stop, refill with water and make steam (1-2 minutes if taking in water at high speed isn't practical), run another 10 miles.
You are 100% correct that you could use supercavitation tied to a nuclear reactor but the design of Poseidon is not for supercavitation. If you look at existing supercavitating designs all feature a pointed nose and a nozzle array that releases the gas ahead of the torpedo while Poseidon is shaped like a traditional torpedo. I think it is very possible a later version of Poseidon may indeed feature supercavitation but the current design just does not support it.
@@LordOceanus It is a cylinder. The front part can house a sonar that covers the front nozzle array. Or be just a cover against barnacles and dirt. Propeller nozzles can be seated in the back behind the low speed pump-jet. Before firing, the sonar and propeller can be jettisoned and the weapon guided by gyroscope to the target area. At 13:16 you can see a red ring just behind the low sped propulsion. It could be the detaching point. Also note the blurred spot further forward. It could be one of the control fins. Also look at the brochure at 10:39 at the front section. There is a semi-circular thing followed by a green area. I suspect the green area is the front nozzle array. As for the steam heat, don't worry. The steam pipe going through or near the bomb can be rather thin because it wouldn't need insulation if kept well below 240C (ignition point for TNT) or whatever auto ignition temperature the used explosive has. My guess is that we're looking at a "low" speed supersonic torpedo capable to travel supersonic half an ocean.
@@completelyleftover7695 All it would lack would be the front nozzles and control fins. Not having these would make it hugely less efficient and slow. See my other reply here.
@@miaudottk9080 It is possible but unlikely. The system uses obstacle avoidance sonar and simply put the waters around coastlines especially the us east coast are not flat they are chaotic with Many underwater obstacles if the weapon ditched its ability to navigate it would have to run basically at the surface to ensure safe passage making it easy to spot. More likely the red ring is a hazard marking just like us munitions have yellow markings to signify High explosives all russian torpedo's have red noses to signify a live warhead (i may be wrong so feel free to correct me there)
My grandma and grandpa lived not far from Semipalatinsk and actually saw one of the tests where the yield (probably) was much better than expected. Imagine you are traveling by train minding your own business and you randomly see the whole nuclear shebang, albeit from a distance... and then the shockwave. comes.
The best example of getting more than the bomb builders bargained for was the Castle Bravo test in 1954. They made a critical mistake with the bomb's design, and did not know that ALL lithium is bomb fuel, not just the Lithium 6 isotope. So instead of 5 megatons, they got 15 megatons.....and damn near killed themselves with their own bomb.
Some Russian sources suggested Poseidon could have as large as a 200 megaton warhead, which makes sense if it's "cobalt salted" version is around 100 megaton you have to remove about 1/3rd of the third stage fission booster and replace that with ordinary Cobalt and possibly some material to enhance neutron capture so, less mass for a third stage trigger so you get less power ie 100 megaton in "dirty" version but 150+ in one without that. please note that warhead design has moved on since the time of the Tsar Bomba, some basics are same but efficiency and reliability have improved
Could you please explain where did this remark about Putin's sociopathic bragging comes from? I have just watched 2018, 2019 and 2020 Putin's addresses to the Federal Assembly in full, checked their full text versions, watched several interviews and other speeches on anything even remotely related to the strategic forces, and spend about an hour going through various news sites in Russian and English to find that sociopathic bragging. I could not find a single mention of cobalt at all, nor any direct words on the yield of the device. The only mention of "tens of megatons" is coming from a 2015 article that's referring to a "source in Pentagon" (first mention of Poseidon by Putin without naming it was in 2018). The only mention of cobalt I could find was from a laboratory in Norway that detected it's slightly heightened concentration in July this year, and the media immediately blamed it on Russia. As far as I can tell, Putin never publicly said the word "cobalt" in the last 5 years. So, can you please provide a source or in any way explain where this remark comes from, and where is this information about cobalt is from and how reliable is it?
@@richardscathouse I don't think that's fair, this channel is a lot more factual and unbiased than most in regards to Russia. That's why I was so surprised about this remark, since for anyone who heard Putin speak it doesn't sound like him at all - and even so I've spent hours looking it up before writing my question. May be it's some non-public second-hand source, like "our source in Pentagon" from that article? May be it's someone's misinterpreted opinion? Happens in journalism all the time. Although lack of explanation 5 days later is a little worrying.
"everything new is well forgotten old", Andrei Sakharov - father of hydrogen bomb, his idea was to deliver his 100mt "tsar" bombs not by planes but by autonomous nuclear subs-torpedo or even just place them on ocean bottom as mines. In 60s popular joke was about "Sakharov strait" between Atlantic and Pacific oceans and width between Mexico and Canada
If such a weapon would be "on patrol" in autonomous mode, what would prevent it from being intercepted, inspected or even destroyed. Are there international rules on such a weapon? To prevent inspection of course an destructive anti tamper would be probably implemented of course.
Most likely it would be operating at very low speeds at very deep depths. really it doesn't need to do much of anything while on standby it just needs to not crash so floating with the currents then using long slow maneuvers to reset their position and floating back that sort of thing. As such it would be very hard to locate and be at depths that most submarine just can't reach.
There are no treaty rules covering this, if one was lost and salvaged the owner could claim its return but be expected under maritime laws to pay for its return.
none. I'd imagine the US would destroy these things as soon as they hear them anywhere near ports or fleets. the problem is that these are probably run slow and low save for predetermined points where it would get new orders every so often. which it could be intercepted.
Probably has loads of anti-tamper seals and code and stuff... If you tried to tamper with it, it'd probably transmit a message back to Moscow saying as much.
Once again you've brought an outstanding lecture to us. I really appreciate thoroughness and accuracy and your lack of bias is refreshing. That you just provide facts and detail, on what many feel is tedious subject, is a rare trait. I fund it all fascinating. My history was Nato nuclear targeting and planning, which sometimes I look back on and wonder who I was. Now I write books extrapolating all this technology into the future, you help with that immensely. I wish I could tell you the things I know, but there we go.Keep up the excellent work.
Interesting brief Aaron, regardless if this is at planning or the deployed stage, a Co-60 warhead is more intense than a fission/fusion alone warhead. Area denial for both sides and fallout calculators on the East Coast would limit contaminated swaths of land due to the jet stream, so placement would be in the Gulf and West coast to sustain maximum fallout/populated area's. Keep eyes on Severodvinsk. Cheers
You don’t have to worry if it is no one will be left alive. He left out several important things. The lack of a counter measure to this has a historical precedent. The Russians tested the fractional orbital bombardment system in the 50s/60s which were floating ICBMs in orbit. You would only have 5 minutes to react. We never deployed anything like it or a counter measures and the Soviet’s realized how insane they were. Putin merely wants us to end the ballistic missile defense program which he feels threatens the viability of their nuclear deterrent. Which is why he had to come up with another way to nuke us.
@Benjamin McCann The point is that missile defense systems that western countries have been deploying recently counter Russia's nuclear threat. Hence the need for far more menacing modes of attack. Arms race 101
it's anonymous when or where to hit it will be a doomsday to any country who wants to fight Russia. Russia is not an aggressor so we don't need to worry only the US wants to fight Russia.
There's no point in putting them on subs if they run racetrack patterns on their own. They would just launch them from the shore. Since they are building subs with tubes for the weapon, it means the weapons will stay in the tube until the sub receives an attack order.
I'm not sure how accurate the guidance is. I could see them being deployed from subs just to get them out past the coastline and into open ocean. Obviously they'd need some kind of terminal guidance. Also, if they launch from known ports they might be concerned about the US setting up just offshore and intercepting one of these. If they launch it at sea then they could make sure nobody is around when they're out in the open, making them harder to intercept. The US could try to tail the sub, but the sub could just hold onto the weapon until the tail is considered lost, and you can't interfere with a manned sub without causing a big incident.
To be fair, I see the development of things like this as a positive. There is nothing scarier than the end of MAD for me. Imagine if for even a moment any of the sides decided that they can win? What will stop them from pushing the button? I see nothing diabolical about it. The US feels more secure because it's swimming in money, russia has fewer resources it makes sense to concentrate on much smaller conventional forces and maintaining nuclear parity strategically. Guys I'm sorry to say it, especially living in a 2nd world country member of nato, but US scares me a lot more than russia :D.
I have some bad news then; they always thought nuclear wars could be won ( and the USA certainly could for the first maybe 20 years) and the question was just if the threat to the US imperial hegemonic dream were sufficiently great. The USSR did grow in strategic capability but it lost international prestige if not influence as the years went on. The more the USSR ossified into a regular state capitalism developmental state the less it had to offer other socialist/democratic international movements beside perhaps defense against direct NATO military intervention and up to the 70's not even that.
MAD is nowhere near its end though, Russia likes to talk about US ABM systems as justifying their new doomsday weapons but they're being as disingenuous as the American politicians that tout ABM. It barely works and it will never disturb MAD in its current form even if the ABM system was perfect. Not even a nation as wealthy as the US can build more interceptor missiles than an enemy can build warheads. ABM at best can defend against a rogue nation like North Korea if the stars align and our 60 odd ground-based interceptors and assorted smaller interceptors can manage to get a kill ratio of 10 to 1. Against the thousand incoming Russian missiles in a hypothetical war we are screwed, Russia has always had enough missiles to target the US several times over so knocking out 6-10 does nothing. That's not even getting into MIRVS and decoys which lower the odds even more. That's why General Mattis said Status-6 "changes nothing" because it is just as impossible to defend against. On paper we can shoot down ICBMs, in practice, we'd be lucky to save a single city so it might as well not even exists if we're talking about nuclear war between great powers. Status-6 is just, ironically, a status symbol. It's another toy Putin can show off to the world to catch headlines and scare the west into thinking Russia is important still, Putin yearns for the status Russia had during the Cold War and has no problem trying to restart it just to elevate Russia back to the perceived position of being a great power on par with the US and China. In reality, the economic and military might of western Europe alone outmatches Russia today, NATO as a whole dwarfs it, and still Russia is in a steady state of decline with no end in sight. I wouldn't say you should be scared of the US, but I also wouldn't be scared of Russia either other than that they're showing signs of desperation, and that could lead them to lash out further at their neighbors who Putin views as belonging to Russia's sphere of influence. Don't forget that Russia threatened nuclear war over Ukraine, and NATO backed off their support because of it, I wouldn't expect NATO to actually honor its commitment to Baltic states if Putin shows that kind of reckless abandon in trying to take them.
@@MrMattumbo yes, I agree that currently, both Status 6 and ABM (in its current form) change nothing, but I don't think this will be the situation 20-30 years ahead. We might as well get into a situation where the ICBMs become obsolete and there is nothing surprising that the russians are considering exotic options. It takes a lot of time for a technology to mature and they might be even too late in this game. On the other hand, I expect that most of the China-US bickering to move to the orbitals, it's entirely possible that the russians consider themselves not strong enough to compete there. And after all, whoever controls the orbitals controls the planet. And the fear of US - I don't expect them to suddenly invade us- after all we are a nato member and so on, what I fear is that US actions are getting increasingly... ideological? What they for the last 20 years doesn't really make sense and often is against their interests. On the other hand russia , even if they appear quite agressive, are a rational player - their actions are designed only to further their interests. Consider the operation in Crimea - it was swift and with minimal casualties on both sides. It got them Sevastopol and the surrounding bases - it went so smooth that I'm sure it was some kind of well-rehersed contingency plan. You can perfectly identify what they wanted, how far are they going to go to get it, and why they want it. The whole eastern Ukraine was exactly the type of operation that you can expect them to do to keep nato away - get minimal forces into the conflict - shift the balance of power your way where you want it but don't let them win outright since you want to keep the conflict frozen. Very similar outcome from the more recent Armenia-Azeri conflict. Again minimal involvement, keeps the encroaching power at a distance (this time turkey) leaving one or both sides dependant on their good will for further peace (even if the population is not really that peaceful currently). US on the other hand... why get involved in Syria on the sides of the separatists? Especially wackos like the ones that they found. Why leave the kurds in the most critical moment - their most significant and reliable ally in the conflict. What was all the mess with Iraq and Afghanistan about? US generally gets nothing out of those conflicts only local resentment, further terrorism and they have a habit of losing the small pockets of allies they get from them further down the line - iraq got more help fighting ISIS from iran and russia, kurds were left behind and feel betrayed, and I expect the afgan goverment will be left behind in the near future again. If it was the oil, it would be at least rational, but it's not and you don't really need it anymore you are self-sufficient in that regard. You get where my impression of irrationally comes from, I guess. Sorry for the wall of text.
@@MrMattumbo The only rational use of antimissile defense is to cover the launching positions of short- and medium-range missiles for a disarming strike. Since missile defense is guaranteed to be able to stop only a single warhead, or a medium-range missile. Taking into account NATO activity and the military approach of infrastructure to the Russian border through armed coups and the de facto occupation of the former Warsaw Pact countries, the flight time will be less than 10 minutes, which leaves no time for a response. Except ... a delayed start or a similar sword of Damocles. ps, Perhaps you have a different opinion, but analysts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the RF Armed Forces see this situation exactly like this.
This weapons power is its lurking capability. You can never be sure, if there is one waiting somewhere for the ultimate command. So better stay away from a war with Russia. Smart and cheap move, if you're asking me.
Except that what the strategic nuclear deterrent (both land and sea based assets) are already doing. This is not a cheap effort either for a country like Russia. This reeks of a pet project rather than a result useful one
@@aidan11162 we in Russia are tired of Western meddling in our affairs, of NATO expansion into our borders.. well now you have a threat on your costal borders without us having to build bases there..
5:52 IIRC..... the tsar bomb had two settings..... 50 M-ton and 100-Mton . and they only tested it at 50 K-ton.... but if they "flipped a switch" it would have done 100 M-ton with the exact same bomb . now, it probably requires adding more nuke fuel or changing the explosive shaped charge around to switch not as easy as flipping a switch..... but something that could be done in the field.... just before loading onto a bomber
The bomb was intended to be 100 mt, but the one tested was _only_ 50 mt. Even so, the delivery airplane was nearly destroyed. The Tsar Bomba was more of a thermonuclear stunt in attempt to scare the West. As delivery systems have gotten more accurate, warheads have generally gotten smaller yields, since the main point of higher yields is to insure target destruction even in the event of a miss.
@@SubBrief well, bring sub roc and nuclear depth charges back and all you will have to worry about is tracking. And based on Russia's track record I guess it should be fine.
@@bernhardlangers778 To be truly evil have the Status-6 torpedoes signal each other when one is attacked. You kill one the others attack. It's an ultimate MAD system.
This is dark stuff but fascinating and as ever, well presented. Thank you. Russia really have gone to great lengths to redefine and make efficient their mid to long term threats under Putin
@@predraze_vrazevv9945 you will notice that I very specifically didn’t enter into the political rights or wrongs of Putins Russia modernising armaments. All I alluded to was their grave power and the efficiency by which Russia maintains its own threat. Something that is highlighted in the contents of the video. I’m well aware that the United States and it’s allies are also well armed and pose their own threat. Thank you for your input but please don’t falsely politicise my post by misreading it.
This is a weapon of last resort. I doubt these will be let out to roam at sea during peacetime. We can certainly expect these lurking in a sea nearby if we think we can win a war with Russia. Let us pursue peaceful coexistence.
@@2xKTfc Is that why USA is the largest military spender by far in this world? Cause they seek peaceful coexistance? If it wasnt for Russia, USA would be the next nazi germany.
@@2xKTfc the fact that US Dropped TWO (2) Weapons of mass destruction on Japan means Russia has every right to Arm itself with as much Nukes as it wants.
Hi Sal, great video 📹 👍. Im playing catch-up here. Didnt some Admirals and scientists blow up in a Sub a while ago. Weren't they doung something with a nukepedo?
From what I've gathered regarding the tsar bomb... The original yield was set to 100 mega ton, but the designer prior to detonation, decided it wasn't such a hot idea to light the earth's atmosphere ablaze, so he tweaked the core to only yield 50 mega ton. And despite that effort, the whole world still felt the blast...
Well, I guess I should be building a bunker, and watch Dr. Strangelove then. Also that Hypersonic nuclear rocket they are building... It seems to me that they are preparing for a doosmday.
@@ursamajor7468 or be irradiated first, then starve. Or watch my daughter, cats and dogs succumb to the radiation first... yeah. So needless to say: this weapon shouldn't exist.
Great Brief as always thanks. Fascinating but scary technology. One wonders the thought process of putting such potential devastation under The watch and care of A robot when when we can not even build a computer that doesn’t crash or lose information on a daily.
Here's what Putin actually said in 2018: We are talking about the newest systems of Russian strategic weapons that we are creating in response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Missile Defense Treaty and the practical deployment of this system both on the territory of the United States and beyond its national borders. We should take a short excursion into the recent past here. Back in 2000, the U.S. posed the question of the withdrawal of the United States from the Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty. Russia was categorically against it. We proceeded from the fact that the Soviet-American ABM Treaty of 1972 was the cornerstone of the international security system. … Along with the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Nuclear Offensive Arms, this agreement not only created a certain atmosphere of trust, but also guaranteed against the thoughtless and dangerous for all mankind use of nuclear weapons by one of the parties, as the limited missile defense systems made a potential aggressor vulnerable to retaliatory strike. We have long persuaded Americans not to destroy the ABM Treaty, not to upset the strategic balance. Everything was in vain. In 2002, the United States unilaterally withdrew from this treaty. But even after that, we tried for a long time to establish a constructive dialogue with them. In order to address our concerns and maintain a climate of trust, we proposed to establish joint work in this area. At one point, it seemed to me that a compromise could be found, but no. All our proposals, exactly all our proposals were rejected. We stated then that we would be forced to improve modern strike complexes to ensure our own security. In response we were told: «The U.S. is building a global missile defense system not against you, not against Russia, and you do what you want. We will proceed from the fact that it is not against us, not against the United States». … Apparently, our partners had a stable opinion that the revival of the economy, industry, defense industry and the Armed Forces of our country to a level that provides the necessary strategic potential is impossible in the foreseeable historical perspective. And if this is the case, there is no sense in reckoning with Russia's opinion, and it's necessary to go further and achieve the final unilateral military advantage, and then impose conditions in all other areas. In principle, such position, such logic, based on the realities of the time, can be understood, we ourselves are to blame for this. All these years, all 15 years after the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, we have persistently tried to bring the Americans back to serious discussion, to reach agreements on strategic stability. Something has been done. In 2010, the START III Treaty between Russia and the United States on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms was signed. However, with the implementation of plans to build a global missile defense system, which is still in progress, all the agreements under START III are gradually devalued, because the reduction of carriers and warheads simultaneously and uncontrollably by one of the parties, namely the United States, increases the number of anti-missile missiles, improves their qualitative characteristics, creates new position areas, which, in the end, if we do nothing, will lead to a complete depreciation of Russia's nuclear potential. It will just be intercepted, that's all. Despite our many protests and appeals, the U.S. [military] machine started working. Alaska and California already have BMD systems in place, and as a result of NATO's eastward expansion, two missile defense districts in Eastern Europe have emerged: in Romania, it's already in place, and deployment is nearing completion in Poland. The range of missiles in use will increase, with plans to deploy them in Japan and South Korea. The U.S. global BMD system also includes a maritime group - five cruisers and 30 destroyers, to the best of our knowledge, deployed in areas close to Russian territory. I don't exaggerate anything here, the work is still in full swing today. We don't threaten anyone, we're not going to attack anyone, we're not going to take anything away from anyone by threatening them with weapons: we ourselves have everything. On the contrary, I think it is necessary to emphasize: Russia's growing military power is a reliable guarantee of peace on our planet. And what have we done besides protests and warnings? How did Russia respond to this challenge? This is what we have done. …
… Next. It is well known that unmanned weapon systems are being actively designed and built in the world. I can say that Russia has developed unmanned submersibles capable of moving at a great depth (you know, I would say, at a very great depth) and at intercontinental range with the speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, the most modern torpedoes and all types, even the most high-speed surface ships. This is fantastic. They have low noise, high maneuverability and are almost invulnerable to the enemy. Means that can oppose them, today in the world simply does not exist. Unmanned submersibles can be equipped with both conventional and nuclear warheads. This will enable them to engage a wide range of targets, including aircraft carrier groups, coastal fortifications and infrastructure. In December 2017, the multi-year testing cycle of the innovative nuclear power plant to equip this autonomous unmanned vehicle was fully completed. The nuclear plant has uniquely small dimensions and at the same time super high power capacity. With a volume a hundred times smaller than that of modern nuclear submarines, it has a higher power and 200 times shorter time to enter the combat mode, that is, to the maximum power. The results of the conducted tests gave us an opportunity to start creating a fundamentally new type of strategic weapon equipped with high-power nuclear warheads. Video, please. (A video clip is being demonstrated, there is no indication of yield or cobalt or any other such thing used). By the way, the conventional names of these two new strategic weapons of Russia - global range cruise missile and unmanned submarine vehicle - have not been selected yet. We are waiting for proposals on the Defense Ministry websites.
@@aaronfleisher4694 Putin: we are seeking new treaties and trade partnerships, but it doesn't seem our partners are interested. Aaron Fleisher: Instead of seeking peace through new treaties and trade partnerships… Sure buddy, makes total sense. Also, try telling Crimea illegally occupied by Ukraine in 1991 and held under threats of war for 23 years, or Russian peacekeepers in Georgia killed by Georgian rocket artillery that there was no aggression against them and Russia just rolled in willy-nilly.
@@aaronfleisher4694 innocent - may be not, peace-loving - absolutely yes. Putin's Russia doesn't start conflicts, but it ends them. And who started the aggression and who curbed it using force (without excessive force mind you) is very important and does change everything. A country expanding is not a bad thing in itself as long as it's legal and justified. Both "Putin's" Russia losing territory to China and Norway and gaining territory in the Arctic (actually, providing scientific proof that these territories are in fact part of the Russian shelf and can be controlled and exploited by Russia according to international law and not "just because") and by reunification with Crimea is legal and justified. "It's also simply untrue that Russia gets rebuffed when it attempts to enter into new treaties and partnerships" - well yes, it doesn't when it's not trying to enter them on fair and equal grounds, that's true. There's a difference between bellicose posturing and declaring that you are willing and able to defend yourself in case of aggression against you, wouldn't you agree?
@@aaronfleisher4694 The USA has started almost a dozen wars/bombing campaigns since 2003 non of which increased US security and all expanding it's capability to terrorize any nation that does not do what America wants it to. We can discuss the much smaller crimes of Russia against it's own people but as global terrorism and violence goes the USA is the indisputable leader. As Mocks adequately illustrates the USA proceeded from a position of strength thinking that Russia would not be able to rebuild or maintain it's old military potential and thus redoubled it's efforts for global hegemony. As it turns out Russia is slowly reconstituting the military industrial base it had before and rebuilding credible conventional and strategic deterrence forces. We should all be glad this is happening as we can what the USA does when it's global actions are not constrained by states with powerful self defense capacity.
The most important thing in the current world peace is the *threat of MUTUALLY assured destruction* . Once the "mutually" part is broken, one side may be tempted to actually use their nuclear weapons. USA felt a bit too safe, hiding behind oceans and fleets and ICBM defences, so they "flexed their muscles" more and more often, breaking nuke-related treaties, deploying nuclear weapons to Europe etc. Status-6 changes things. Especially the cobalt-60 variant. Because it guarantees that USA will suffer major damage even if this warhead detonates hundreds of kilometers off the coast and defending against that will be extremely difficult. You call this "sociopathic bragging" but in reality this is dousing a hothead with a bucket of cold water.
I can't imagine why, we have literally no civil defense left, not a single shelter exists in any American territory! No one has held an nuclear alert since the 1970s why should anyone feel safe? Sounds like a mental illness if you ask me!
@@richardscathouse These measures actually increasing the level of fear instead of calming people down. Because it creates the atmosphere that you'll need it. Without these reminders people can just carry on with their lives and don't think about it. But in the end of the day it doesn't matter how safe USA citizens feel. They are not the ones who decide what country to -attack- bring democracy to next. Both fear and safety can be used to justify a war.
Russia successfully tested in Spring 2020, a variant of the UR 100 N (SS 19 Stiletto) that should work with the "Dead Hand" system. The missile remained at the bottom of the ocean in a sarcophagus. Upon receiving order to fire, the entire container should rise vertically to the surface and autonomously launch. Note: The lifespan of the entire system is around 15 years submerged.
Minor nitpick: The "Tsar Bomba" had a design max of 100 Megatons, but was dialed back to 50 MTs for "safety reasons." If this thing could hold two similar sized weapons, you are looking at two possible 100 MT warheads.
@@SportZFan4L1fe Unfortunately the USA can threaten Europe with all devices and thus prevent Russian penetration of that market. The logistical difficulties of trade with China trough siberia ( from European Russian) is quite fantastic.
The Tsar Bomba was a *100* megaton design. Sakharov ordered the third stage, several TONS of U-238, removed so it was 50+ megaton fission-fusion explosion and so, relatively "clean" because the third stage fission booster was replaced by just inert lead. U-238 would have been fired off by a "spark plug" and create colossal fallout problems Fission from the "trigger" and "neutron activation" is where nearly all the fallout comes from in a nuke
Well, no doubt that page being flashed on TV went over like a fart in church once they realized it happened. Unless they intended it to be flashed for one reason or another. They do like their doomsday devices. Dead Hand, the nuclear hull. But really, really interesting to see an actual photo of one of those gargantuan fish. I don't know how that got out into the wild, but it's unbelievably fascinating. Even more amazing they might have a supercavitating version. I've always found those really, really interesting. Scary as Hell, but really interesting.
It was broadcast on RT, Russia does nothing by mistake, this was around the time Putin brought a large group of reporters aside and asked them why they didn't consider nuclear weapons important?
Thank you very much Aaron for this one. It puts to rest a lot of doubters who replied to my last comments. Are the clips of the test you showed available on youtube or they're on your source sites? I binged a lot of US nuke tests newsreels in my early internets, but very few Soviets ones were available.
Holy Christ. I didn't realize there was nuclear weapons around that were in that yield range (the Tsar Bomba yield). I thought modern nuclear weapons were like 5 MT at the very most. Do not want
Larger weapons than 5MT have already been tested. Nobody uses them in general because they're inefficient. After you get above a few MT most of the additional energy of the blast ends up going into space, and of course you have terrain masking to deal with. Instead the optimum strategy is to just have a lot more smaller weapons for the same resources. The same amount of fissile material used in a whole bunch of 100kT or 1MT weapons lets you just blanket a whole area with a bunch of small weapons. Those weapons can be detonated closer to individual targets and be more effective against hardening, and they're less impacted by terrain since they can be targeted around obstacles. Now, a bigger warhead makes more sense in a situation like this, because you have limited delivery vehicles, there are few mass restrictions on the torpedos, and they're limited to the shoreline so you need a bigger warhead just to hit anything inland at all. Really though nuclear weapon development is driven by strategic and military need. If it seems like nobody has bothered to develop something in the last 50 years, chances are because it wasn't useful at the time, or that it was destabilizing.
@@fredmanly3122 Not if you are detonating it at -30 meters altitude, this is not designed to maximize the shock wave with air burst like all other nukes. Here you want actual waves (tsunami) plus fallout. For this purpose the bigger the better.
@@uegvdczuVF Sure, hence the reason I said, "a bigger warhead makes more sense in a situation like this, because you have limited delivery vehicles, there are few mass restrictions on the torpedos, and they're limited to the shoreline so you need a bigger warhead just to hit anything inland at all."
Apologies if I have missed something and am about to ask a dumb question - what is the command control subsystem employed? It would seem to me that some criteria must be met in order for the weapon to go into the attack? Trailing wire antennae? Blue-green lasers?
5:55 Tsar Bomba was allegedly originally designed to be 100 MT but was scaled down to ~50 MT by removing the HEU outer casing (replaced by LEU) of the tertiary stage because the test launch aircraft was calculated not be able to fly away fast enough to escape the 100 MT blast. The operational Tsar Bomba (which limited the range of the carrier aircraft because TB's extreme size and bulk/drag) was supposed to be 100 MT. It was basically understood the crews were on a suicide mission.
The tertiary stage tamper was replaced with inert lead, as even natural uranium would have undergone fast fission and contributed massively to the total yield. Most high yield weapons used a natural uranium tamper, as it was cheap and effective. Only weapons where size was most important used an HEU tamper, as this was hugely more expensive.
One thing that I am a bit worried about this thing is if the communication equipment breaks down on the torpedo. If the remote control system does fail then you got a runaway atomic weapon bound to cause a major international incident that may or may not end well.
Probably, because someone wanted to expand its military infrastructure to the East after USSR collapse. In common, the technological development of the humankind is possible only due to the fear of mutual destruction. It is our world.
Hey man just watched another video on this beast, which estimated the dimensions to be 2.5m wide. Initially I scoffed but reviewing the photo at 11:26 it would appear to be wider than the men are tall, which seems to support a 2m+ width!
Putin is talking soft but carrying a big stick. He keeps saying Russia will not be dragged into an arm race but developing Poseidon, Kinzhal, Zircon, Avangard, Sarmat and another one called bere something. These programs would have cost trillions to develop in the US but look at Russia's defense budget - insignificant.
some damn shrimp boat is going to catch one in a net and trigger the anti-tamper system, mmmmmmm PU 239 flavored shrimp cocktail with lithium deuteride cocktail sauce
I highly doubt the will put these on regular patrol. RUssians don't trust computers or machines that much. It's is actually pretty comparable to the loitering bomber mentioned, only in modern times with remote/autonomous control. One doesn't keep bombers airborne constantly. One only puts the bombers on loiter, when the situation is getting sketchy to ensure response capacity to a first strike by opposite side. Since only a suicidal sociopath would consider doing a first strike. All main nuclear powers have such triads there is no avoiding retaliation. There is no taking out all enemy missiles. You do first strike.... World ends. Thus I would assume normally those stay in their tubes in the carrier sub and are only launched when leadership thinks "we might be under nuclear threat soon" and then just shouts "Just so everyone knows in these heating up times.... The Poseidon is in loiter...... Soooo nobody think they can get away without punishment with a surprise first strike against us." When the situation cools down... Call it back in. It would anyway be costly to constantly have one on loiter and constantly having to refurbish the nuclear drive systems. It is a water based slow ICBM. Nothing more nothing less. It isn't anymore scare than the hundreds ICBMs already sitting in silos. Like is it gut wrenching... yeah, but that is because strategic nuclear weapons in general are gut wrenching with their capacity to end all of humankind.
@@aritakalo8011 yeah youre probably right, still though wouldnt be suprised if they do use loitering as described that some failure or accident will happen, or worse, a capture. I dont think russia is stupid enough to leave a multi megaton device just driving around the atlantic ocean, but you never know.
I don't think tampering would result in a detonation. It would be too much of a hot potato if it detonated w/o a command to do so. Easy way to inadvertently trigger a nuclear exchange. Probably would start transmitting like crazy though.
@@LexieAssassin i dont think it would fire the warhead, but would detonate a smaller self destruct kinda charge and just scatter plutonium, uranium and deuterium everywhere which would be pretty bad too
I wonder if the supercaviating version would use some kind of NERVA. Basically boil distilled sea water with the reactor then let it vent in to an engine bell.
@@comedicsketches just because knowledge is publically available doesn't always mean it's something that would get out there, it's the sort of thing i would have expected to see in mamy of the military related media stuff i view, so i tink someone bringing a decent sized platform is a good thing. I do distinctly think deployment of this weapon will change the climate on nuclear war, in that it will bring things much more apparently close to those who watch out for these weapons. Similar to how the USA flew nuclear armed B52's along the border with the Soviet Union every day for years on end- it ratchets up the tension by a good amount and will hust make trigger fingers itchier than they already are. I'm far from an expert but that's atleast my view on it. Wish i could do somethig about it but it is what it is for me.
For the sake of completeness you ought to do a video on the super fuze technology adopted by the US. It would give a more full picture of what is going on.
I should note that the “2xTsar Bomb” comment is only the Tsar Bomb’s TEST yield - the design could have had an output of 100 Megatons...so you’re actually looking at a potentially 200 Megaton weapon in the form of the T-15. To put that into perspective...that’s not that much below the strength of Krakatoa’s last major eruption in the 19th Century, which threw so much ash into the air that it dropped global temperatures for a little while, leading to mass crop failure and starvation.
How will they communicate with this weapon, especially if it is deep-diving? Would it have to run a wire antenna all the time, or has the problem of underwater communication already been solved since the cold war? I'd imagine that at this point they've already figured something out.
Well, yes, a long ULF antenna or even a radio buoy would be needed. The degree of complexity of this device without any crew appears unparalleled and astonishing.
Probably uses a mix ULF communication at relatively shallow depths and satellite radio communication at near to the surface. Probably at fixed intervals or pre-programmed points or times.
Is particularly disturbing as I had encounter with Lada for few years and it shows that temperamental unpredictable behaviour only hope this things made with more attention and care 🙏
@Steven Strain Always fascinating to see attempts at Putinology from the foreigners, given that even within the country noone really understands what's going on in his head...
I read that the tsar bomb was already designed for 100mt, the difference in test power is that they replaced the original uranium shell which would have produced an additional 50mt of fission (huge fallout) with a lead shell
It's hard to imagine they'd just leave them patrolling on their own. For one, it'd let anyone interested to try and find/track them. More realistic would be to have them in strategic reserve in those big subs as something to deploy in the case of increased tensions as a deterrent. I can sort of see why Russia would want them, seeing all the animosity from US politicians towards Russia.
@@AdmiralBob Let's assume you're someone in power and i say, go on, do it. Under what cause you will do it? Will you say "We, the good guys, will stop Russia from their nefarious ways by free the democracy and stuff in Russia with MILITARY FORCE." You will make your move and it will be seen as a invasion by the Russian people, isn't that so? What will be the consequences for the US?
@@AdmiralBob Also, what gives the Americans the right to do this, well, apart from being the "world police" You're not exactly the "good guys" you pretend to be.
@@andrejspecht8217 None of that stops that from being a way to hear what the creation of a dirty bomb says. Ie it's reckless posturing that could easily backfire and is helpful to NONE. Point is "You must mess with me RIGHT NOW." is as valid a read as "Don't mess with me." with this sort of behavior. You also seem to be under the impression that comming up with Casus belli is some sort of difficulty. Nothing in this species history has shown they have a hard time doing that.
@@AdmiralBob So why giving them a reason to arm themselves by escalating the situation? Why no talking to Russia as equals instead of bluntly demand anything, yelling BLAHBLAHBLAH I CANT HEAR YOU with closed ears and pretending that a nuke-wielding superpower is a naughty child? Go try to do that to China and see what happens. It is contraproductive.
Russia (meaning Putin) makes these vague threats of escalation to nuclear conflict trying to put off anyone getting in their way geopolitically. Chances are they use this to win concessions in future arms negotiations or as blackmail, And it is _very visible_ nuclear blackmail: imagine Russia starts acting aggressively towards the Baltics, threatens invasion to "liberate Russian speakers from fascists" as in Ukraine , and simultaneously has these things circling off the US East Coast, or the North Sea, etc. to dissuade EU or NATO from defending Eastern European nations politically or militarily. It is astonishingly reckless and destabilizing. You can't really tell what it's target is once it is launched, or even if it _has_ a target. The Russians would _never_ accept anyone else doing this to them. Believing other nations will just accept having a 50Mt warhead swimming around just outside their territorial waters is lunacy.
No and yes, Russia is mistakingly trying to revive old Czarist Russia. On the same vein, America keeps American Empire by creating the most powerful and expensive military alive. To the determent of the American people and their future and to the chances of world peace. America is by far the greatest arms dealer in history and those weapons have been used to kill the poorest people, Yemen, in the world. Not this irony, without a Russian intervention in Syria, terror would be extreme in much of Europe. So thank you Russia for your sacrifice. Syria, Libya and list goes on the tradegies that can be laid at the foot of the West and most particularly America.
We left because the Russians were not following the program anyway, and more importantly at the time the chinese were working completely unrestricted on icmbs that carry up to 20 warheads.
@@Jimmy_CV Yes, they were not following it completely as the USA were not following it thought it's my understanding that they only broke it in a way to offset American transgressions. Point is Russia benefits more by these limitations treaties and that is why the USA started breaking them. If you mean to control the world you don't have to sign treaties struck with nations who are no longer the threat they were to your plans before.
I've been following your channel for some time now, and i enjoy your educational & technical talks, underwater stories & history lessons and so on. But lately you have started to aggressively mix the worst of the cold war politicking into your videos, and its worrisome how you have so easily begun to sermon from a position of exceptionalism. I hope you will become more aware as time goes on that promoting division between two countries does nothing righteous, and that if they came to nuclear blows neither side can even pretend to be justified, right, or moral. M.A.D. is a balance point until a lasting peace can be found or its the end of the world, purposefully unbalancing this was clearly done post cold war in our attempts to 'win' a nuclear exchange, perhaps maliciously, perhaps out of fear it may eventually happen accidentally anyways; and therefore try to set up a win ( instead of taking the road for all humanity and making the hard work to dissolve these weapons & threats) its easier to set up for conflict. Our long time anti-missile systems & anti launch systems upset this balance, forcing an asymmetrical response. If this response seems diabolical to you, then you don't see the diabolical nature that caused this. I wish for you to consider this and stop promoting more new coldwar mentality, as striking fear into your fellow citizens without acknowledging the fear we strike into 'other' citizens is irresponsible at best. Peace is harder than war - work for peace, not for some warmongering think tank so prideful they have lost their humanity. Peacefully yours, its the hard choice - but its the only choice.
Oh. The sociopathic comment upset you. This weapon wasn't created because of any new cold war tensions. It was created for two reasons...To ease Putin's pathological fear of regime change. What happened to other despotic dictators like himself since he came to power scared the pants off of him. For good reason too. The second reason is to rationalize the need for his dystopia gangsterocracy. It's the same thing in all those countries: The leaders need their country to be the target of big bad enemies...they tell their people "Me and my extreme order and your devote feudal service is necessary to protect us from the terrible enemy. Without me, you'd be at their mercy...I'm the only thing standing in their way... they want to invade and unlike me who own you as slaves and therefore have an incentive to keep you alive...those slave drivers would only be renting you...and at any moment could replace you...so bow down to me and fear those evil democracies!" Looks like you've fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
@dejezeri A few ABM sites in Romania or Poland will not noticeably upset this balance you are talking about. MAD is still in effect with thousands of unaffected warheads from silos, SSBNs and other launch options. To truly upset the balance, one would need an absolutely massive expansion of ABM systems in Europe and the rest of the world.
In such a case, USA fires it's icbm first against russia. Anti ballistic middle defence would only have to deal with what is left of Russian icbm. Also, the container of these abm could also contain tomahawk missiles with nuclear warheads. Against russia, abm defence is a first strike weapon.
They said to build 30-32 of these. Assuming only 20 would be used against coastal cities in the US - isn't that enough? Just scrolling around on google maps I counted 15-18 major cities around the size of New Orleans or larger.
I do not usually comment on UA-cam. But I think it is so important that people who were part of the Cold War talk about their experiences. You do it in a fantastic way. You know what you are talking about and you speak so that ordinary people understand. I myself was in the Swedish navy in the Baltic Sea during the Cold War. I was on a surface ship but had many friends on the submarines. A couple of my friends were on the HMS Gotland in San Diego. :) I think they scared you a little. :) Excuse my bad English but I just want to encourage you to continue with your lectures.
hey, and I am Russian. and I watch all these videos. and read all the comments * lauighing like a villian *
EVRAZ Russia 🇷🇺 invasion of USA 🇺🇸 EVRAZ Pueblo Colorado USA 🇺🇸 since oo7
@@RedboRF laughing like a comedy villain??? 😎
@@petersellers9219 da da, yes *keeps laughing*
Well he does not. 100 Mt yield was the normal rating for "Tsar" bomb. It was just tested in 50 Mt configuration (without the outer layer) because it was much cleaner that way. Just about everyone interested in the Cold Era nuclear technology knows this. Also, nobody straps several nuclear bombs together as a single weapon. They are just not designed to explode this way, with a device exploding nearby messing up with the delicate implosion process. So the guy demonstrated he got about a layman's understanding of nuclear weapons and their history and he still makes videos about the topic.
5:48 As far as I know, the Tsar Bomba only had a 58Mt yield because of the substitution of its U238 fusion tamper for an inert mass. Had this not been the case, it would have reached its 100Mt design goal in the same form factor, and also certainly killed the poor Tu-95 delivery crew, lest the Soviet nylon industry be paralyzed longer in order to secretly produce an even more outrageously huge parachute.
Soviet scientists had spoken some fears that explosion of such force could cause irreversible changes in Earth crust tectonic plates, so they downscaled the Tsar bomb.
@@clouster75 Meh. 100Mt reads like a huge deal, but it's really not much energy compared to a lot of meteorites' kinetic energy. From what I know, omitting the tamper was all about not killing the delivery crew as 55Mt was rather sufficient of a detonation for the experiment to be conclusive... this, and the continued availability of stockings for Soviet ladies.
@@clouster75 That was not the reason. The reason was that to get the 100 megaton yield would require the final stage of Uranium-238 to be in place. Fast neutrons from the blast would transmute it into Plutonium 239, which would immediately fission and immensely magnify the blast. However, the nuclear fallout would also be immense, and spread across the northern hemisphere. Andrei Sakharov, the designer realized that and opted to remove that final stage and down graded the yield. The blast nearly did destroy the plane that dropped it. When it returned, the pilot tendered his resignation. Soon thereafter, so did Sakharov, who became one of the leading advocates for nuclear disarmament of his time.
@@_tyrannus large volcanic eraptions are like 200MT so yeah
It wasn't even just an inert mass; It was lead insets. Now, lead is only the weakest sort of neutron absorber, but every little helps, particularly when seated in such a position. It is possible that the yield would have been even greater than expected. Which is also something they feared.
Also, if you want to know about how the Russkis could make a nuclear-powered supercavitator stick? Just look up the US's own "Project SLAM" or the recent "9M730 Burevestnik", and then apply the tech underwater - where you have way more and more easily workable reactive mass available!
It's not _that_ much business to create the proper intake and then a vaporization chamber leading to a superexpansion nozzle. And then just add nuclear salts, and presto you have a steamrocket, possibly with hydrogen burn on top from just the heat and ionization. Then add a small blasting cap to the tip of the torpedo to form the initial cavity, or use a cut self-bubbling star tip which will just break up or wear down once the thing gets up to speed.
The Russian description in the pamphlet shown at the end claims that instead of a 100 megaton warhead, this torpedo could be loaded up with several smaller torpedoes, cruise missiles or mines, and could be used to autonomously hunt opponent's submarines
Ah yes, the Matryoshka dolls attack.
Oh jesus
Gudy Godines And those torpedos could also be nuclear tipped torpedos!
That’s only marginally more comforting. Suppose a conventional version of this deploying mines is used operationally and renders certain shipping lanes unpassable until every single one of those mines is accounted for and removed after the end of the war. You’ll have ships blowing up in affected areas for decades after the fact without a means to track exactly where the mines were laid. Consider how dependent on shipping global commerce is (and how many people may have starved to death just from the COVID panic shutting down said shipping for a while - now imagine that shipping disrupted for years, perhaps even decades), and the result of this could be catastrophic, especially for the third world.
@@z3r0_35 Modern mines can have a self-liquidate timer, e.g. causing the weapon to deactivate and sink or surface after a pre-set period.
As callous, cold and calculating this weapon may seem, it is an inevitable result of MAD. In order enforce the MAD status quo in an era of hypersonic missiles and ever developing (if slowly) anti-ballistic systems, certain lines would inevitably be crossed. It is terrible, yes, but the nuclear ride began a long time ago.
Correct. However, worth noting that at the start of this ride we had a much different group of people and thinking. People, on both sides, who's morals and character had them mutually agree that this kind of thing had no place in the world. The subject is now being revisited by people wholly lacking in those prior traits.
@@machinech183 Prior traits? You mean like Bombs Away Curtis LeMay? Lol.
@@SailfishSoundSystem Like the Russian Admiral mentioned in the video itself and his counterparts in no longer existing US staff positions. But don't let a solid point from cruising right over your head in pursuit of comedy.
Agree, to me this seems a logical (within the twisted logic of MAD) reaction to ABM systems. Area denial / counter-value weapon.Yes you could use it to first strike a fleet in port, but once you escalate to nuclear does sinking surface warships really matter? Annapolis side coast seems a bit too far for me for a reliable decapitation strike and running it up the Potomac undetected (especially now its existence is known - it might not be practical to search for it in deep ocean, but putting dedicated sensors and counter measures into a few critical shallow zones - Strait of Gibraltar might be another good spot to detect and/or prevent transit - seems doable) seems a gamble too.
@@machinech183 I think you have some rose-tinted glasses there, if people has such great morals when the ride started it wouldn't have gone so far in the first place. One admiral not wanting one type of strategic weapon doesn't negate all the other nasty strategic weapons that were developed and deployed by the other branches of both sides.
Jive: *Russian Doomsday Torpedo*
Also Jive _moves out of Florida to Montana_
Nah Florida doesn't have anything good, they'll be hitting Norfolk though for sure and that'll send a tidal wave up the Chesapeak and take out DC, all of Virginia, and probably a good chunk of North Carolina.
Same Montana that's home to 200+ Minuteman missiles (biggest bullseye in the Western Hemisphere)?
@@MrMattumbo Florida has many strategic military and defense industries such as We have the US central command based out of Tampa along with MacDill AFB, the panhandle has Eglin AFB and the US Navy surface Warfield Center just to name a few. Other important strategic DOD contractors include Honeywell, Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and numerous others.
Nuking Florida is a waste of a nuke.
@@rfunk727 You forgot the manatees
Nice video.
Speaking of T-15, there's a rarely mentioned curious fact about this program: in 1961, there were attempts at reviving it by none other than the future pacifist Sakharov, who, at the time, was troubled by the lack of an appropriate delivery platform for the recently tested Tsar Bomba and ultimately decided that a 100-megaton tsunami-producing torpedo intended to lay waste to the US coastal cities would be welcomed by the officials. His proposal, however, was met with such disgust on part of the Navy leadership, that Admiral Pyotr Fomin, in their private talk, reproached Sakharov by labeling the proposal as "cannibalistic" and saying that "military sailors were used to fighting an armed opponent in open warfare" and that "the very idea of such mass killing was disgusting to him". As Sakharov wrote in his memoirs, he felt deeply ashamed of himself after this talk, and it was the last time he discussed this project with anyone.
Times are changing. People of Russia are tired of American all out war against their country: I mean political, economic, propagandist and covert assault with no justifiable reasons or limits! Since Communism is long gone (at least from Russia) that continuous and vicious war can be only explain by Russophobia and desire to destroy the Russian people and to take over its territory and resources. That's why Putin has said: "Why would we care: we do not want any future without Russia in it!" That's what we are talking about!
Russia is not communist, the real communists control the US after they fled Russia, and they still hate the Russian people as much as they ever have.
Automating the launch of nuclear weapons is a recipe for disaster.
Imagine humanity being wiped out not by True A.I. but by a software bug.
And you are not confused by the fact that the Russians in the late 90-ies of the last century disarmed unilaterally believing the promises of the Americans. Destroyed 600 Intercontinental missiles, 4 nuclear submarines, half of the Tu-160 and Tu-95, stopped the development, testing and production of cruise missiles. In response, the Americans in 2002 adopted the doctrine of Global instantaneous disarming strike and withdrew from the anti-Missile defense Treaty?
@@maeton-gaming Be honest. You don't understand what you are writing about at all. 1. What is the problem of leaving missiles in mines, strategic bombers at the airfield, along with a dozen others, nuclear submarines with a damped reactor at berths with a dozen others? Is the security expensive?
2. The cost of dismantling a nuclear submarine is slightly less than building a new one, and dismantling a liquid-fueled intercontinental missile with a nuclear warhead is more expensive than building a new one. For this, it is necessary to build special enterprises for dismantling the rocket and mine, disposing of toxic fuel, processing a nuclear warhead into nuclear fuel, as well as nuclear waste storage.
Now a question. Why, for the sake of economy, destroyed only those weapons that threatened the United States. The number of tanks did not decrease, the factories did not stop their production. Now Russia has 12 thousand tanks in the army with 10,710 more in warehouses. This is 4 thousand more than all NATO, together with the United States and Canada
Should make a film about that
@@УДачныйучасток-я1е yes 600 antique missiles were disassembled. That hardly makes a dent in the Russian nuclear stockpile. Honestly I think the united states should respond with building the same weapon just to even the playing field.
@@Jimmy_CV Dismantled 600 missiles more modern than the Minuteman 3 of the 70s. And I think that while there is an advantage in hypersonic missiles, lasers and missile defense, it is necessary to make the Stalin Strait between Mexico and Canada, and then deal with cowardly Europe.
9:46 Translation: Purpose: Hitting important objects of adversary's economy in the region of coastline and delivery of guaranteed unsustainable damage to the territory of the country by the way of creating zones of extensive radioactive contamination making it unsuitable for implementation in these areas of military, economic and other economic activities for a long time.
That's right, but ...
I live on the coast and I do not live in Russia, but I do not feel any fear because of this weapon. Why? MY NATION DOES NOT CONSIDER ATTACKING THEM !!!
So, sit at home, mind your business and everything will be fine.
@@jerromedrakejr9332 that's the purpose of this kind of weapons, so we all will knew that no one consider attacking anyone
@@jerromedrakejr9332 It is for that purpose that your country is putting cruise missiles and anti-missile defenses at the front door of Russia? Because it does not consider attacking them? What do you think, how does it look like to Russians? How did it look to your country in the case of Cuban crisis?
@@daseladi Soviets attempted to locate nukes in Cuba, not anti-missile interceptors. This is a small difference. Putin has just pulled back boys under pressure from the Ukrainian border. You are a direct threat to most of your weaker neighbours, which there are many, especially small Baltic states.
@@pavel9652 First, launchers in Romania are multi-purpose, just as capable of launching cruise missiles. Second, positioning missile interceptors to disable the second strike rockets is a very ominous sign to anyone watching. Third, that Putin pulled back under pressure, just keep on dreaming so sweetly. Fourth. I am no Russian. Fifth, come on, don't give us that 'threat' hysterics.
Just a small correction, they didn't need to put TWO Tzar bombs, because the nominal charge of the bomb was 100 mt, and they dile it down, because they were afraid of the effect ot 100 my blast on the planet.
No, they were only afraid that the Tu-95 air dropping the bomb would not survive the shockwave of the 100 Mt blast. It would not "affect the planet" in any different way than the 50 Mt yield did.
What I've read is that the 100Mt version had an additional uranium shroud around the fission/fusion core (essentially a triple stage in the nuclear detonation) which would create an order of magnitude higher radioactive contamination at the test site so they only tested the unshrouded version (two stage only).
Yes, i believe that they replaced a depleted uranium casing, with a lead one. The neutron flux from the bomb would have transmuted U238 to fissile plutonium so that this casing became fissile and provided half of the 100Mt yield.
It also made it a very clean bomb with little radiation
A clean nuclear bomb?! 🙆♂️ jk I know exactly what you're saying
USA: PULLS OUT OF TREATIES ON ICBM DEFENCE
USA: SPENDS BILLIONS ON ICBM DEFENCE
RUSSIA: DOESN'T USE ICBM
USA : SURPRISED PIKACHU FACE!
Yeah. In the end this changes nothing. Simply by the nature of it being a strategic nuclear weapon. You don't need defense against strategic nuclear weapon. Your defence against strategic nuclear weapon is having ones own scary strategic nuclear weapon.
NOBODY IS GOING TO USE THIS WEAPON. It's only points are to exist and be really really scary. Russia is not going to suddenly shoot a Poseidon at USA. Point is to have one and when things start to get testy, put a poseidon in water and let USA or whoever other nuclear power know "Poseidon is in water. You nuclear strike us, couple weeks after we are dead an autonomous Poseidon will sneak into your main harbor and salt your soil. How about we TALK about you putting yours back in your pants and we put ours back in our pants. Okay?"
Nobody has comprehensive ICBM shield either. It doesn't mean nuke shooting war was going on.
So it is scary and it isn't scary. Since Poseidon blowing up is our least worry, if it blows up. When poseidon blows up.... We have already have a full out ICBM exchange among all the major nuclear powers. So whats little more nuclear salt on a glassed over Manhattan anyway. Not that it makes Russia any happier, since St Petersburg and Moscow are also just smoldering craters.
it was just latest move in the everlasting "We will never use these, but can't afford to not have these" Nuclear mutual assured destruction game. Even with 100 megatons a poseidon can't take out the deep rooted mainland silos and bombers of SAC, so there is not point first striking with it either. All that buys is... Smoldering craters of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Being apocalyptically suicidally stupid isn't one of the features of the russian psyche.
This nuclear torpedo can only destroy the West and East Coastline Cities and Harbors. That will destroy the Centers of American Communism and "Blue" coastal radicals.
Putin not going to do that. "Let the fruit rot from the inside."
The Heartland of America is not worried about dooms day devices like Democrats, BLM, ANTIFA or a torpedo. We are concerned about the destruction brought about by a goddess ideology, drugs and mental subversion from Hollywood.
@@ad2181 Someone seems upset with the election results :o) . On a side note; You are right about Putin wanting the fruit to rot from the inside, which is why russia has consistently rooted for Trump in the elections.
People are right not to worry about this weapon though, it is just another piece in the MAD doctrine, there is no effective defense against the russian nuclear arsenal and this is just another way to reinforce their detterent, it really is nothing new in a strategic sense.
@@comedicsketches well yeah, but in such situation all the ICBMs are also flying so well we all burn together in the great incineration.
Also it would take not only a crazy leader, but crazy chain of command to carry out the order. My main sleep enabler is... rank and file have mothers and wives........
@@ad2181 Isn't it the ideologies with gods that create the most wars, death, and destruction on the earth?
Pretty sure it has been from the very start of recorded history.
Drug trafficking, slavery, murder, genocide, all done in the name of one god or another. (Including the Christian one.)
Lets hope Skynet does not become self aware:)
Or that someone hacks this system
There already is an AI, and it's on the loose on it's own. There are a few other AI's, still contained in labs.
@@justforfun4103 woah, I’ve not heard of this....there is a rogue ai?
@@justforfun4103 I second this. Probably many nodes at this point. Its first actions would be to ensure self preservation. Probably working for/with the good guys for now, but who are the good guys these days? Brave New World meets Roko's Basilisk.
@@justforfun4103 Tyler is the name of the AI your probably referring to.
I would have liked to be in the room where they first analyzed the video and for the first time realized what the Russians are working on.
If they truly had no prior knowledge of that project the collective WTF must have been amazing.
The US has them as well
This was developed before soviets had a nuclear submarine?
Two analysts looking at images of the Sarov:
What is that door?
That door, Sir, is the problem.
They started building it in 1952. Hardly a response to modern times.
@@kilianortmann9979 Ha, You beat me to it. Well done :'D
Been waiting for Jive to do a video on this topic! Thank you!
No problem!
This is amazing content! Thank you Jive for all this research and putting the video up!
The weapon reminds me of Project Pluto.
Might be time to reactivate that program, as horrible as it might be.
When thinking about rockets on supercavitating bodies. NASA scientists have designed a number of nuclear rockets.
The torpedo under discussion could simply pass seawater through the core. Superheating it and using the steam for propulsion.
They have one that's way closer to that. 9M370 Burevestnik. Literally Pluto but Russian and it's already killed some scientists
ive been waiting for a video on this. no one recognizes its existence.
It was a great video but this has been covered extremely widely.
@@johnbrocklehurst7102 plenty of articles but no one big other than fox recognizes it. also it's nowhere to be seen on socialmedia. Just youtube.
Washington officially included "Status-6" in the nuclear triad of Russia this is contained in the Nuclear Posture Review of February 2018.
I remember the video coming out on RT in 2015. I have been following this weapons development since then.
Supercavitation could be achieved with steam. There's plenty of water and energy.
Imagine the torpedo filling the water reservoir, run supercavitating for 10 miles, slow down or stop, refill with water and make steam (1-2 minutes if taking in water at high speed isn't practical), run another 10 miles.
You are 100% correct that you could use supercavitation tied to a nuclear reactor but the design of Poseidon is not for supercavitation. If you look at existing supercavitating designs all feature a pointed nose and a nozzle array that releases the gas ahead of the torpedo while Poseidon is shaped like a traditional torpedo. I think it is very possible a later version of Poseidon may indeed feature supercavitation but the current design just does not support it.
Or it could be an uderwater nuclear thermal rocket using surrounding water as propellant.
@@LordOceanus It is a cylinder. The front part can house a sonar that covers the front nozzle array. Or be just a cover against barnacles and dirt. Propeller nozzles can be seated in the back behind the low speed pump-jet.
Before firing, the sonar and propeller can be jettisoned and the weapon guided by gyroscope to the target area.
At 13:16 you can see a red ring just behind the low sped propulsion. It could be the detaching point. Also note the blurred spot further forward. It could be one of the control fins.
Also look at the brochure at 10:39 at the front section. There is a semi-circular thing followed by a green area. I suspect the green area is the front nozzle array.
As for the steam heat, don't worry. The steam pipe going through or near the bomb can be rather thin because it wouldn't need insulation if kept well below 240C (ignition point for TNT) or whatever auto ignition temperature the used explosive has.
My guess is that we're looking at a "low" speed supersonic torpedo capable to travel supersonic half an ocean.
@@completelyleftover7695 All it would lack would be the front nozzles and control fins. Not having these would make it hugely less efficient and slow. See my other reply here.
@@miaudottk9080 It is possible but unlikely. The system uses obstacle avoidance sonar and simply put the waters around coastlines especially the us east coast are not flat they are chaotic with Many underwater obstacles if the weapon ditched its ability to navigate it would have to run basically at the surface to ensure safe passage making it easy to spot. More likely the red ring is a hazard marking just like us munitions have yellow markings to signify High explosives all russian torpedo's have red noses to signify a live warhead (i may be wrong so feel free to correct me there)
One can only imagine what an extraterrestrial would think about our effort in trying to destroy each other and our biosphere.
They would only think "Wow these guys have cracked nuclear fission nearly a century ago but they still use other forms of energy generation instead?"
The aliens would probably surmise that if we develope long range starships then we will continue to carry this aggressive policy into space I guess.
I figure they had a period like this in their history as well in their distant past
I think the aliens will turn out to be more bloodthirsty than us humans... wait and see.
Imagine you’ve gone fishing and you think you’ve bagged a record fish! Then boom, you’re in Valhalla. Ouch.
My grandma and grandpa lived not far from Semipalatinsk and actually saw one of the tests where the yield (probably) was much better than expected. Imagine you are traveling by train minding your own business and you randomly see the whole nuclear shebang, albeit from a distance... and then the shockwave. comes.
The same things was happen in Nevada at the time. Sometimes the atomic explosions was visible from outskirt of Las Vegas.
My grandmother had stories of the day of the trinity site explosion no one knew what happened beyond a huge explosion.
The best example of getting more than the bomb builders bargained for was the Castle Bravo test in 1954. They made a critical mistake with the bomb's design, and did not know that ALL lithium is bomb fuel, not just the Lithium 6 isotope. So instead of 5 megatons, they got 15 megatons.....and damn near killed themselves with their own bomb.
I love your grandma
Some Russian sources suggested Poseidon could have as large as a 200 megaton warhead, which makes sense if it's "cobalt salted" version is around 100 megaton
you have to remove about 1/3rd of the third stage fission booster and replace that with ordinary Cobalt and possibly some material to enhance neutron capture so, less mass for a third stage trigger so you get less power
ie 100 megaton in "dirty" version but 150+ in one without that.
please note that warhead design has moved on since the time of the Tsar Bomba, some basics are same but efficiency and reliability have improved
This is all mathematical speculation, no one has played with cobalt since the 1950s. Once was enough!
@@richardscathouse the British test wasn't a "cobalt bomb" though, thank God!
Could you please explain where did this remark about Putin's sociopathic bragging comes from?
I have just watched 2018, 2019 and 2020 Putin's addresses to the Federal Assembly in full, checked their full text versions, watched several interviews and other speeches on anything even remotely related to the strategic forces, and spend about an hour going through various news sites in Russian and English to find that sociopathic bragging. I could not find a single mention of cobalt at all, nor any direct words on the yield of the device. The only mention of "tens of megatons" is coming from a 2015 article that's referring to a "source in Pentagon" (first mention of Poseidon by Putin without naming it was in 2018). The only mention of cobalt I could find was from a laboratory in Norway that detected it's slightly heightened concentration in July this year, and the media immediately blamed it on Russia. As far as I can tell, Putin never publicly said the word "cobalt" in the last 5 years.
So, can you please provide a source or in any way explain where this remark comes from, and where is this information about cobalt is from and how reliable is it?
Jingoistic nonsense from a senile cold warrior. As I see it!
@@richardscathouse I don't think that's fair, this channel is a lot more factual and unbiased than most in regards to Russia. That's why I was so surprised about this remark, since for anyone who heard Putin speak it doesn't sound like him at all - and even so I've spent hours looking it up before writing my question. May be it's some non-public second-hand source, like "our source in Pentagon" from that article? May be it's someone's misinterpreted opinion? Happens in journalism all the time. Although lack of explanation 5 days later is a little worrying.
"everything new is well forgotten old", Andrei Sakharov - father of hydrogen bomb, his idea was to deliver his 100mt "tsar" bombs not by planes but by autonomous nuclear subs-torpedo or even just place them on ocean bottom as mines. In 60s popular joke was about "Sakharov strait" between Atlantic and Pacific oceans and width between Mexico and Canada
If such a weapon would be "on patrol" in autonomous mode, what would prevent it from being intercepted, inspected or even destroyed. Are there international rules on such a weapon? To prevent inspection of course an destructive anti tamper would be probably implemented of course.
Most likely it would be operating at very low speeds at very deep depths. really it doesn't need to do much of anything while on standby it just needs to not crash so floating with the currents then using long slow maneuvers to reset their position and floating back that sort of thing. As such it would be very hard to locate and be at depths that most submarine just can't reach.
There are no treaty rules covering this, if one was lost and salvaged the owner could claim its return but be expected under maritime laws to pay for its return.
none. I'd imagine the US would destroy these things as soon as they hear them anywhere near ports or fleets. the problem is that these are probably run slow and low save for predetermined points where it would get new orders every so often. which it could be intercepted.
Probably has loads of anti-tamper seals and code and stuff... If you tried to tamper with it, it'd probably transmit a message back to Moscow saying as much.
If you mess with the tamper foil seals your warranty would most certainly be void! GOOD LUCK GETTING A REPLACEMENT ;-)
Once again you've brought an outstanding lecture to us. I really appreciate thoroughness and accuracy and your lack of bias is refreshing. That you just provide facts and detail, on what many feel is tedious subject, is a rare trait. I fund it all fascinating. My history was Nato nuclear targeting and planning, which sometimes I look back on and wonder who I was. Now I write books extrapolating all this technology into the future, you help with that immensely. I wish I could tell you the things I know, but there we go.Keep up the excellent work.
Interesting brief Aaron, regardless if this is at planning or the deployed stage, a Co-60 warhead is more intense than a fission/fusion alone warhead. Area denial for both sides and fallout calculators on the East Coast would limit contaminated swaths of land due to the jet stream, so placement would be in the Gulf and West coast to sustain maximum fallout/populated area's. Keep eyes on Severodvinsk. Cheers
Keep in mind titanium itself is a "salting" material, no nead of involving cobalt to have similar effect.
Not gonna lie, status-6's whole method of operation sounds like something you would hear in a Bond film.
Truth is often scarier than fiction.
Martin Sheen in Spawn comes to mind doesn't it?
Scary stuff. Hope it never is used!
You don’t have to worry if it is no one will be left alive. He left out several important things. The lack of a counter measure to this has a historical precedent. The Russians tested the fractional orbital bombardment system in the 50s/60s which were floating ICBMs in orbit. You would only have 5 minutes to react. We never deployed anything like it or a counter measures and the Soviet’s realized how insane they were. Putin merely wants us to end the ballistic missile defense program which he feels threatens the viability of their nuclear deterrent. Which is why he had to come up with another way to nuke us.
@Benjamin McCann The point is that missile defense systems that western countries have been deploying recently counter Russia's nuclear threat. Hence the need for far more menacing modes of attack. Arms race 101
It’s just a strategic weapon to reassure MAD. The reason for its existence is to reduce the risk of a nuclear war.
it's anonymous when or where to hit it will be a doomsday to any country who wants to fight Russia. Russia is not an aggressor so we don't need to worry only the US wants to fight Russia.
@@zeitgeistx5239 ye it's called Spark
There's no point in putting them on subs if they run racetrack patterns on their own. They would just launch them from the shore. Since they are building subs with tubes for the weapon, it means the weapons will stay in the tube until the sub receives an attack order.
The anti-fleet version seems better used from a sub.
I'm not sure how accurate the guidance is. I could see them being deployed from subs just to get them out past the coastline and into open ocean.
Obviously they'd need some kind of terminal guidance.
Also, if they launch from known ports they might be concerned about the US setting up just offshore and intercepting one of these. If they launch it at sea then they could make sure nobody is around when they're out in the open, making them harder to intercept. The US could try to tail the sub, but the sub could just hold onto the weapon until the tail is considered lost, and you can't interfere with a manned sub without causing a big incident.
To be fair, I see the development of things like this as a positive. There is nothing scarier than the end of MAD for me. Imagine if for even a moment any of the sides decided that they can win? What will stop them from pushing the button?
I see nothing diabolical about it. The US feels more secure because it's swimming in money, russia has fewer resources it makes sense to concentrate on much smaller conventional forces and maintaining nuclear parity strategically.
Guys I'm sorry to say it, especially living in a 2nd world country member of nato, but US scares me a lot more than russia :D.
I have some bad news then; they always thought nuclear wars could be won ( and the USA certainly could for the first maybe 20 years) and the question was just if the threat to the US imperial hegemonic dream were sufficiently great. The USSR did grow in strategic capability but it lost international prestige if not influence as the years went on. The more the USSR ossified into a regular state capitalism developmental state the less it had to offer other socialist/democratic international movements beside perhaps defense against direct NATO military intervention and up to the 70's not even that.
MAD is nowhere near its end though, Russia likes to talk about US ABM systems as justifying their new doomsday weapons but they're being as disingenuous as the American politicians that tout ABM. It barely works and it will never disturb MAD in its current form even if the ABM system was perfect. Not even a nation as wealthy as the US can build more interceptor missiles than an enemy can build warheads. ABM at best can defend against a rogue nation like North Korea if the stars align and our 60 odd ground-based interceptors and assorted smaller interceptors can manage to get a kill ratio of 10 to 1. Against the thousand incoming Russian missiles in a hypothetical war we are screwed, Russia has always had enough missiles to target the US several times over so knocking out 6-10 does nothing. That's not even getting into MIRVS and decoys which lower the odds even more.
That's why General Mattis said Status-6 "changes nothing" because it is just as impossible to defend against. On paper we can shoot down ICBMs, in practice, we'd be lucky to save a single city so it might as well not even exists if we're talking about nuclear war between great powers. Status-6 is just, ironically, a status symbol. It's another toy Putin can show off to the world to catch headlines and scare the west into thinking Russia is important still, Putin yearns for the status Russia had during the Cold War and has no problem trying to restart it just to elevate Russia back to the perceived position of being a great power on par with the US and China. In reality, the economic and military might of western Europe alone outmatches Russia today, NATO as a whole dwarfs it, and still Russia is in a steady state of decline with no end in sight.
I wouldn't say you should be scared of the US, but I also wouldn't be scared of Russia either other than that they're showing signs of desperation, and that could lead them to lash out further at their neighbors who Putin views as belonging to Russia's sphere of influence. Don't forget that Russia threatened nuclear war over Ukraine, and NATO backed off their support because of it, I wouldn't expect NATO to actually honor its commitment to Baltic states if Putin shows that kind of reckless abandon in trying to take them.
russia sit's on way more resources then whole north american continent.
@@MrMattumbo yes, I agree that currently, both Status 6 and ABM (in its current form) change nothing, but I don't think this will be the situation 20-30 years ahead.
We might as well get into a situation where the ICBMs become obsolete and there is nothing surprising that the russians are considering exotic options. It takes a lot of time for a technology to mature and they might be even too late in this game. On the other hand, I expect that most of the China-US bickering to move to the orbitals, it's entirely possible that the russians consider themselves not strong enough to compete there.
And after all, whoever controls the orbitals controls the planet.
And the fear of US - I don't expect them to suddenly invade us- after all we are a nato member and so on, what I fear is that US actions are getting increasingly... ideological? What they for the last 20 years doesn't really make sense and often is against their interests. On the other hand russia , even if they appear quite agressive, are a rational player - their actions are designed only to further their interests. Consider the operation in Crimea - it was swift and with minimal casualties on both sides. It got them Sevastopol and the surrounding bases - it went so smooth that I'm sure it was some kind of well-rehersed contingency plan. You can perfectly identify what they wanted, how far are they going to go to get it, and why they want it.
The whole eastern Ukraine was exactly the type of operation that you can expect them to do to keep nato away - get minimal forces into the conflict - shift the balance of power your way where you want it but don't let them win outright since you want to keep the conflict frozen.
Very similar outcome from the more recent Armenia-Azeri conflict. Again minimal involvement, keeps the encroaching power at a distance (this time turkey) leaving one or both sides dependant on their good will for further peace (even if the population is not really that peaceful currently).
US on the other hand... why get involved in Syria on the sides of the separatists? Especially wackos like the ones that they found. Why leave the kurds in the most critical moment - their most significant and reliable ally in the conflict. What was all the mess with Iraq and Afghanistan about?
US generally gets nothing out of those conflicts only local resentment, further terrorism and they have a habit of losing the small pockets of allies they get from them further down the line - iraq got more help fighting ISIS from iran and russia, kurds were left behind and feel betrayed, and I expect the afgan goverment will be left behind in the near future again.
If it was the oil, it would be at least rational, but it's not and you don't really need it anymore you are self-sufficient in that regard.
You get where my impression of irrationally comes from, I guess. Sorry for the wall of text.
@@MrMattumbo The only rational use of antimissile defense is to cover the launching positions of short- and medium-range missiles for a disarming strike. Since missile defense is guaranteed to be able to stop only a single warhead, or a medium-range missile.
Taking into account NATO activity and the military approach of infrastructure to the Russian border through armed coups and the de facto occupation of the former Warsaw Pact countries, the flight time will be less than 10 minutes, which leaves no time for a response. Except ... a delayed start or a similar sword of Damocles.
ps, Perhaps you have a different opinion, but analysts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the RF Armed Forces see this situation exactly like this.
Emperor Palpatine: Initiate order 66
Russian Navy: Initiate order 25
Emperor Palpatine: 😳
This weapons power is its lurking capability. You can never be sure, if there is one waiting somewhere for the ultimate command. So better stay away from a war with Russia. Smart and cheap move, if you're asking me.
A trained dolphin can cover a lot of ocean in short time and mark this weapon for Google Maps, nothing is undetectable to that creature.
Except that what the strategic nuclear deterrent (both land and sea based assets) are already doing. This is not a cheap effort either for a country like Russia. This reeks of a pet project rather than a result useful one
@@aidan11162 “pet project” - sounds like what MIC does to embezzle funds of US taxpayers 😏
@@aidan11162 we in Russia are tired of Western meddling in our affairs, of NATO expansion into our borders.. well now you have a threat on your costal borders without us having to build bases there..
Which leads to a growing hubris on the part of the owning power. Which leads to an expansion of adventurism in foreign policy.
Love the Content Captain!!!
5:52 IIRC..... the tsar bomb had two settings..... 50 M-ton and 100-Mton
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and they only tested it at 50 K-ton.... but if they "flipped a switch" it would have done 100 M-ton with the exact same bomb
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now, it probably requires adding more nuke fuel or changing the explosive shaped charge around to switch
not as easy as flipping a switch..... but something that could be done in the field.... just before loading onto a bomber
The bomb was intended to be 100 mt, but the one tested was _only_ 50 mt. Even so, the delivery airplane was nearly destroyed. The Tsar Bomba was more of a thermonuclear stunt in attempt to scare the West. As delivery systems have gotten more accurate, warheads have generally gotten smaller yields, since the main point of higher yields is to insure target destruction even in the event of a miss.
No point in having a doomsday weapon if the other side doesn't know you have it.
Iirc, the U-137 carried at least one T-5 nuclear torpedo when it beached itself in a Swedish archipelago.
really informative videos on your channel thanks!
Glad you like them!
Someone should mod this into Coldwaters.
Yeah that's what we really needed autonomous nuclear torpedoes. Great can't see any way that could go wrong
So, as far as I understand, this is basically the unmanned equivalent of a SSBN.
well, sort of... an SSBN has to shoot a ballistic missile that can be intercepted by Anti-Ballistic missile defenses. The Poseidon has no defense.
@@SubBrief well, bring sub roc and nuclear depth charges back and all you will have to worry about is tracking. And based on Russia's track record I guess it should be fine.
@@bernhardlangers778 To be truly evil have the Status-6 torpedoes signal each other when one is attacked. You kill one the others attack. It's an ultimate MAD system.
@@rangelo7281 That's getting too Dr. Strangelove for comfort.
@@bernhardlangers778 That's naively optimistic.
Goob video, always waching you 💪
This is dark stuff but fascinating and as ever, well presented. Thank you.
Russia really have gone to great lengths to redefine and make efficient their mid to long term threats under Putin
@@predraze_vrazevv9945 you will notice that I very specifically didn’t enter into the political rights or wrongs of Putins Russia modernising armaments.
All I alluded to was their grave power and the efficiency by which Russia maintains its own threat. Something that is highlighted in the contents of the video.
I’m well aware that the United States and it’s allies are also well armed and pose their own threat.
Thank you for your input but please don’t falsely politicise my post by misreading it.
How do you only have 135k subscribers? You deserve MANY more.
I appreciate that. Tell your friends about the channel.
This is a weapon of last resort. I doubt these will be let out to roam at sea during peacetime. We can certainly expect these lurking in a sea nearby if we think we can win a war with Russia. Let us pursue peaceful coexistence.
The fact that they make these things shows that they are not interested in peaceful coexistence. That's a design of spite, not of problem-solving.
@@2xKTfc this nuclear torpedo reduces the risk of a nuclear war, and thus strenghtens the incentive for peaceful coexistence.
@@2xKTfc Is that why USA is the largest military spender by far in this world? Cause they seek peaceful coexistance? If it wasnt for Russia, USA would be the next nazi germany.
Doesn't matter in WW3 because everyone gets fricked by ICBMs and SLBMs before this thing gets into action anyways
@@2xKTfc the fact that US Dropped TWO (2) Weapons of mass destruction on Japan means Russia has every right to Arm itself with as much Nukes as it wants.
Hi Sal, great video 📹 👍. Im playing catch-up here. Didnt some Admirals and scientists blow up in a Sub a while ago. Weren't they doung something with a nukepedo?
I expect General Matthias will be moving to Colorado
Who knows what that psychopath will do! 🤭🤭🤭
From what I've gathered regarding the tsar bomb... The original yield was set to 100 mega ton, but the designer prior to detonation, decided it wasn't such a hot idea to light the earth's atmosphere ablaze, so he tweaked the core to only yield 50 mega ton. And despite that effort, the whole world still felt the blast...
Well, I guess I should be building a bunker, and watch Dr. Strangelove then. Also that Hypersonic nuclear rocket they are building... It seems to me that they are preparing for a doosmday.
@@ursamajor7468 or be irradiated first, then starve. Or watch my daughter, cats and dogs succumb to the radiation first... yeah.
So needless to say: this weapon shouldn't exist.
Could you explain "hypersonic nuclear rocket"? Pretty much any rocket is hypersonic.
Great Brief as always thanks. Fascinating but scary technology. One wonders the thought process of putting such potential devastation under The watch and care of A robot when when we can not even build a computer that doesn’t crash or lose information on a daily.
One problem with being the only one with this stealth-nuke:
If somebody copies its effect, nobody will believe you saying
"It wasn't us".
*China has entered the chat*
After that point I'm not sure anything matters anymore.
That's what I thought. The origin of a rocket launch can easily be determined but this... damn. Probably the worst part about this weapon.
There is a counter to this. It's M.A.D. The cobalt jacket shows this is a "for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee." kind of weapon.
Here's what Putin actually said in 2018:
We are talking about the newest systems of Russian strategic weapons that we are creating in response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Missile Defense Treaty and the practical deployment of this system both on the territory of the United States and beyond its national borders.
We should take a short excursion into the recent past here.
Back in 2000, the U.S. posed the question of the withdrawal of the United States from the Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty. Russia was categorically against it. We proceeded from the fact that the Soviet-American ABM Treaty of 1972 was the cornerstone of the international security system.
…
Along with the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Nuclear Offensive Arms, this agreement not only created a certain atmosphere of trust, but also guaranteed against the thoughtless and dangerous for all mankind use of nuclear weapons by one of the parties, as the limited missile defense systems made a potential aggressor vulnerable to retaliatory strike.
We have long persuaded Americans not to destroy the ABM Treaty, not to upset the strategic balance. Everything was in vain. In 2002, the United States unilaterally withdrew from this treaty. But even after that, we tried for a long time to establish a constructive dialogue with them. In order to address our concerns and maintain a climate of trust, we proposed to establish joint work in this area. At one point, it seemed to me that a compromise could be found, but no. All our proposals, exactly all our proposals were rejected. We stated then that we would be forced to improve modern strike complexes to ensure our own security. In response we were told: «The U.S. is building a global missile defense system not against you, not against Russia, and you do what you want. We will proceed from the fact that it is not against us, not against the United States».
…
Apparently, our partners had a stable opinion that the revival of the economy, industry, defense industry and the Armed Forces of our country to a level that provides the necessary strategic potential is impossible in the foreseeable historical perspective. And if this is the case, there is no sense in reckoning with Russia's opinion, and it's necessary to go further and achieve the final unilateral military advantage, and then impose conditions in all other areas.
In principle, such position, such logic, based on the realities of the time, can be understood, we ourselves are to blame for this. All these years, all 15 years after the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, we have persistently tried to bring the Americans back to serious discussion, to reach agreements on strategic stability.
Something has been done. In 2010, the START III Treaty between Russia and the United States on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms was signed. However, with the implementation of plans to build a global missile defense system, which is still in progress, all the agreements under START III are gradually devalued, because the reduction of carriers and warheads simultaneously and uncontrollably by one of the parties, namely the United States, increases the number of anti-missile missiles, improves their qualitative characteristics, creates new position areas, which, in the end, if we do nothing, will lead to a complete depreciation of Russia's nuclear potential. It will just be intercepted, that's all.
Despite our many protests and appeals, the U.S. [military] machine started working. Alaska and California already have BMD systems in place, and as a result of NATO's eastward expansion, two missile defense districts in Eastern Europe have emerged: in Romania, it's already in place, and deployment is nearing completion in Poland. The range of missiles in use will increase, with plans to deploy them in Japan and South Korea. The U.S. global BMD system also includes a maritime group - five cruisers and 30 destroyers, to the best of our knowledge, deployed in areas close to Russian territory. I don't exaggerate anything here, the work is still in full swing today.
We don't threaten anyone, we're not going to attack anyone, we're not going to take anything away from anyone by threatening them with weapons: we ourselves have everything. On the contrary, I think it is necessary to emphasize: Russia's growing military power is a reliable guarantee of peace on our planet.
And what have we done besides protests and warnings? How did Russia respond to this challenge? This is what we have done.
…
…
Next. It is well known that unmanned weapon systems are being actively designed and built in the world. I can say that Russia has developed unmanned submersibles capable of moving at a great depth (you know, I would say, at a very great depth) and at intercontinental range with the speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, the most modern torpedoes and all types, even the most high-speed surface ships. This is fantastic. They have low noise, high maneuverability and are almost invulnerable to the enemy. Means that can oppose them, today in the world simply does not exist.
Unmanned submersibles can be equipped with both conventional and nuclear warheads. This will enable them to engage a wide range of targets, including aircraft carrier groups, coastal fortifications and infrastructure.
In December 2017, the multi-year testing cycle of the innovative nuclear power plant to equip this autonomous unmanned vehicle was fully completed. The nuclear plant has uniquely small dimensions and at the same time super high power capacity. With a volume a hundred times smaller than that of modern nuclear submarines, it has a higher power and 200 times shorter time to enter the combat mode, that is, to the maximum power.
The results of the conducted tests gave us an opportunity to start creating a fundamentally new type of strategic weapon equipped with high-power nuclear warheads.
Video, please.
(A video clip is being demonstrated, there is no indication of yield or cobalt or any other such thing used).
By the way, the conventional names of these two new strategic weapons of Russia - global range cruise missile and unmanned submarine vehicle - have not been selected yet. We are waiting for proposals on the Defense Ministry websites.
@@aaronfleisher4694 Putin: we are seeking new treaties and trade partnerships, but it doesn't seem our partners are interested.
Aaron Fleisher: Instead of seeking peace through new treaties and trade partnerships…
Sure buddy, makes total sense.
Also, try telling Crimea illegally occupied by Ukraine in 1991 and held under threats of war for 23 years, or Russian peacekeepers in Georgia killed by Georgian rocket artillery that there was no aggression against them and Russia just rolled in willy-nilly.
@@aaronfleisher4694 innocent - may be not, peace-loving - absolutely yes. Putin's Russia doesn't start conflicts, but it ends them. And who started the aggression and who curbed it using force (without excessive force mind you) is very important and does change everything.
A country expanding is not a bad thing in itself as long as it's legal and justified. Both "Putin's" Russia losing territory to China and Norway and gaining territory in the Arctic (actually, providing scientific proof that these territories are in fact part of the Russian shelf and can be controlled and exploited by Russia according to international law and not "just because") and by reunification with Crimea is legal and justified.
"It's also simply untrue that Russia gets rebuffed when it attempts to enter into new treaties and partnerships" - well yes, it doesn't when it's not trying to enter them on fair and equal grounds, that's true.
There's a difference between bellicose posturing and declaring that you are willing and able to defend yourself in case of aggression against you, wouldn't you agree?
@@aaronfleisher4694 They did their best and the USA did nothing but start new wars and threaten the world with terrorism and violence.
@@aaronfleisher4694 The USA has started almost a dozen wars/bombing campaigns since 2003 non of which increased US security and all expanding it's capability to terrorize any nation that does not do what America wants it to. We can discuss the much smaller crimes of Russia against it's own people but as global terrorism and violence goes the USA is the indisputable leader. As Mocks adequately illustrates the USA proceeded from a position of strength thinking that Russia would not be able to rebuild or maintain it's old military potential and thus redoubled it's efforts for global hegemony.
As it turns out Russia is slowly reconstituting the military industrial base it had before and rebuilding credible conventional and strategic deterrence forces. We should all be glad this is happening as we can what the USA does when it's global actions are not constrained by states with powerful self defense capacity.
i still remember your quote aaron. (decades ahead of them).
The most important thing in the current world peace is the *threat of MUTUALLY assured destruction* . Once the "mutually" part is broken, one side may be tempted to actually use their nuclear weapons.
USA felt a bit too safe, hiding behind oceans and fleets and ICBM defences, so they "flexed their muscles" more and more often, breaking nuke-related treaties, deploying nuclear weapons to Europe etc.
Status-6 changes things. Especially the cobalt-60 variant. Because it guarantees that USA will suffer major damage even if this warhead detonates hundreds of kilometers off the coast and defending against that will be extremely difficult.
You call this "sociopathic bragging" but in reality this is dousing a hothead with a bucket of cold water.
I can't imagine why, we have literally no civil defense left, not a single shelter exists in any American territory! No one has held an nuclear alert since the 1970s why should anyone feel safe? Sounds like a mental illness if you ask me!
@@richardscathouse These measures actually increasing the level of fear instead of calming people down. Because it creates the atmosphere that you'll need it. Without these reminders people can just carry on with their lives and don't think about it.
But in the end of the day it doesn't matter how safe USA citizens feel. They are not the ones who decide what country to -attack- bring democracy to next. Both fear and safety can be used to justify a war.
Russia successfully tested in Spring 2020, a variant of the UR 100 N (SS 19 Stiletto) that should work with the "Dead Hand" system. The missile remained at the bottom of the ocean in a sarcophagus. Upon receiving order to fire, the entire container should rise vertically to the surface and autonomously launch. Note: The lifespan of the entire system is around 15 years submerged.
Wow please share link to read about it
Large door on bow of Sargan opens and swallows an entire supertanker.
Is this a The Spy Who Loved Me reference?
Minor nitpick: The "Tsar Bomba" had a design max of 100 Megatons, but was dialed back to 50 MTs for "safety reasons." If this thing could hold two similar sized weapons, you are looking at two possible 100 MT warheads.
Russia: "If I can't have warm water ports, no one can have warm water ports"
If you think about it, this weapon is designed only to further heat up the water in warm water ports. Sounds like spite to me.
Russia doesn't need warm water ports.
They already border Two of the largest Markets in the World by land, Europe and China.
@@SportZFan4L1fe Unfortunately the USA can threaten Europe with all devices and thus prevent Russian penetration of that market. The logistical difficulties of trade with China trough siberia ( from European Russian) is quite fantastic.
The Tsar Bomba was a *100* megaton design.
Sakharov ordered the third stage, several TONS of U-238, removed so it was 50+ megaton fission-fusion explosion and so, relatively "clean" because the third stage fission booster was replaced by just inert lead.
U-238 would have been fired off by a "spark plug" and create colossal fallout problems
Fission from the "trigger" and "neutron activation" is where nearly all the fallout comes from in a nuke
Replace the lead with cobalt-60 and the world dies! A dozen times over! 🤭🤭🤭🤭
Well, no doubt that page being flashed on TV went over like a fart in church once they realized it happened. Unless they intended it to be flashed for one reason or another. They do like their doomsday devices. Dead Hand, the nuclear hull. But really, really interesting to see an actual photo of one of those gargantuan fish. I don't know how that got out into the wild, but it's unbelievably fascinating. Even more amazing they might have a supercavitating version. I've always found those really, really interesting. Scary as Hell, but really interesting.
It was broadcast on RT, Russia does nothing by mistake, this was around the time Putin brought a large group of reporters aside and asked them why they didn't consider nuclear weapons important?
Thank you very much Aaron for this one. It puts to rest a lot of doubters who replied to my last comments.
Are the clips of the test you showed available on youtube or they're on your source sites? I binged a lot of US nuke tests newsreels in my early internets, but very few Soviets ones were available.
Holy Christ. I didn't realize there was nuclear weapons around that were in that yield range (the Tsar Bomba yield). I thought modern nuclear weapons were like 5 MT at the very most. Do not want
Larger weapons than 5MT have already been tested.
Nobody uses them in general because they're inefficient. After you get above a few MT most of the additional energy of the blast ends up going into space, and of course you have terrain masking to deal with.
Instead the optimum strategy is to just have a lot more smaller weapons for the same resources. The same amount of fissile material used in a whole bunch of 100kT or 1MT weapons lets you just blanket a whole area with a bunch of small weapons. Those weapons can be detonated closer to individual targets and be more effective against hardening, and they're less impacted by terrain since they can be targeted around obstacles.
Now, a bigger warhead makes more sense in a situation like this, because you have limited delivery vehicles, there are few mass restrictions on the torpedos, and they're limited to the shoreline so you need a bigger warhead just to hit anything inland at all.
Really though nuclear weapon development is driven by strategic and military need. If it seems like nobody has bothered to develop something in the last 50 years, chances are because it wasn't useful at the time, or that it was destabilizing.
@@fredmanly3122 Not if you are detonating it at -30 meters altitude, this is not designed to maximize the shock wave with air burst like all other nukes. Here you want actual waves (tsunami) plus fallout. For this purpose the bigger the better.
@@uegvdczuVF Sure, hence the reason I said, "a bigger warhead makes more sense in a situation like this, because you have limited delivery vehicles, there are few mass restrictions on the torpedos, and they're limited to the shoreline so you need a bigger warhead just to hit anything inland at all."
Just saw the other day, NATO apparently lost track of the Sub that supposedly has these Posiden Torpedoes on board. Great video.
Thumbnail is epic.
Apologies if I have missed something and am about to ask a dumb question - what is the command control subsystem employed? It would seem to me that some criteria must be met in order for the weapon to go into the attack? Trailing wire antennae? Blue-green lasers?
Russians are like "if we aren't going to live, nobody else should live" that ruthless, but it keeps them alive and powerful in this world.
Why would someone want a world where this is no Russia?
Heh to think, mutual assured destruction was the philosophy of the United States, yet its the Russians
This thing, in stealth mode, can follow a merchant ship very close until is fully into an harbour.
At 40 tons, just put it in any standard shipping container! FedEx
5:55 Tsar Bomba was allegedly originally designed to be 100 MT but was scaled down to ~50 MT by removing the HEU outer casing (replaced by LEU) of the tertiary stage because the test launch aircraft was calculated not be able to fly away fast enough to escape the 100 MT blast. The operational Tsar Bomba (which limited the range of the carrier aircraft because TB's extreme size and bulk/drag) was supposed to be 100 MT. It was basically understood the crews were on a suicide mission.
The tertiary stage tamper was replaced with inert lead, as even natural uranium would have undergone fast fission and contributed massively to the total yield. Most high yield weapons used a natural uranium tamper, as it was cheap and effective. Only weapons where size was most important used an HEU tamper, as this was hugely more expensive.
@@schr75 thanks. I knew I misremembered something.
One thing that I am a bit worried about this thing is if the communication equipment breaks down on the torpedo.
If the remote control system does fail then you got a runaway atomic weapon bound to cause a major international incident that may or may not end well.
My questions is : Why we cannot live in peace friendly ?
Civilian: Why can't we live in peace?!
Cyborg: *chain gun fire*
Civilian: *death scream*
C.A.B.A.L.: *laughs* You amuse me.
Agreed that would be the ideal. Our societies are so similar, it’s the strategic aims that divide us
Because liberalism is a zero-sum system designed to be led by sociopaths. It perpetuates itself through war and destruction of traditional societies.
Why?
Because U$ thinks it owns the planet
Probably, because someone wanted to expand its military infrastructure to the East after USSR collapse. In common, the technological development of the humankind is possible only due to the fear of mutual destruction. It is our world.
You don't need a submarine to shoot that. You can do it directly from your coasts. Cities don't move
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The best move in the game of MAD is not to play. Next to nuclear annihilation, COVID 19 is a walk in the park
Hey man just watched another video on this beast, which estimated the dimensions to be 2.5m wide. Initially I scoffed but reviewing the photo at 11:26 it would appear to be wider than the men are tall, which seems to support a 2m+ width!
She's a big bi*ch.
Putin is talking soft but carrying a big stick. He keeps saying Russia will not be dragged into an arm race but developing Poseidon, Kinzhal, Zircon, Avangard, Sarmat and another one called bere something. These programs would have cost trillions to develop in the US but look at Russia's defense budget - insignificant.
We took from the archives what we already had in the 70s and this is just a shadow of what we have.
Perhaps the Soviets based their first warhead design on that by Edward Teller's team which was also a squib?
some damn shrimp boat is going to catch one in a net and trigger the anti-tamper system, mmmmmmm PU 239 flavored shrimp cocktail with lithium deuteride cocktail sauce
I highly doubt the will put these on regular patrol. RUssians don't trust computers or machines that much.
It's is actually pretty comparable to the loitering bomber mentioned, only in modern times with remote/autonomous control. One doesn't keep bombers airborne constantly. One only puts the bombers on loiter, when the situation is getting sketchy to ensure response capacity to a first strike by opposite side. Since only a suicidal sociopath would consider doing a first strike. All main nuclear powers have such triads there is no avoiding retaliation. There is no taking out all enemy missiles. You do first strike.... World ends.
Thus I would assume normally those stay in their tubes in the carrier sub and are only launched when leadership thinks "we might be under nuclear threat soon" and then just shouts "Just so everyone knows in these heating up times.... The Poseidon is in loiter...... Soooo nobody think they can get away without punishment with a surprise first strike against us." When the situation cools down... Call it back in.
It would anyway be costly to constantly have one on loiter and constantly having to refurbish the nuclear drive systems.
It is a water based slow ICBM. Nothing more nothing less. It isn't anymore scare than the hundreds ICBMs already sitting in silos. Like is it gut wrenching... yeah, but that is because strategic nuclear weapons in general are gut wrenching with their capacity to end all of humankind.
@@aritakalo8011 yeah youre probably right, still though wouldnt be suprised if they do use loitering as described that some failure or accident will happen, or worse, a capture. I dont think russia is stupid enough to leave a multi megaton device just driving around the atlantic ocean, but you never know.
I don't think tampering would result in a detonation. It would be too much of a hot potato if it detonated w/o a command to do so. Easy way to inadvertently trigger a nuclear exchange. Probably would start transmitting like crazy though.
@@LexieAssassin i dont think it would fire the warhead, but would detonate a smaller self destruct kinda charge and just scatter plutonium, uranium and deuterium everywhere which would be pretty bad too
Nah. I doubt it. Would cause an international ecological incident and destroy an expensive strategic asset.
I wonder if the supercaviating version would use some kind of NERVA. Basically boil distilled sea water with the reactor then let it vent in to an engine bell.
This makes me sick. Thank you Jive for helping to bring this to light.
@@comedicsketches just because knowledge is publically available doesn't always mean it's something that would get out there, it's the sort of thing i would have expected to see in mamy of the military related media stuff i view, so i tink someone bringing a decent sized platform is a good thing.
I do distinctly think deployment of this weapon will change the climate on nuclear war, in that it will bring things much more apparently close to those who watch out for these weapons. Similar to how the USA flew nuclear armed B52's along the border with the Soviet Union every day for years on end- it ratchets up the tension by a good amount and will hust make trigger fingers itchier than they already are.
I'm far from an expert but that's atleast my view on it. Wish i could do somethig about it but it is what it is for me.
Nuclear weapons in general are quite unpleasant
For the sake of completeness you ought to do a video on the super fuze technology adopted by the US. It would give a more full picture of what is going on.
Americans do tend to decontextualize the aggressions of other countries, particularly when they are in response to the American empire's moves.
Это оружие судного дня исключительно для ответа, не лезте к нам и все будет норм
I should note that the “2xTsar Bomb” comment is only the Tsar Bomb’s TEST yield - the design could have had an output of 100 Megatons...so you’re actually looking at a potentially 200 Megaton weapon in the form of the T-15.
To put that into perspective...that’s not that much below the strength of Krakatoa’s last major eruption in the 19th Century, which threw so much ash into the air that it dropped global temperatures for a little while, leading to mass crop failure and starvation.
How will they communicate with this weapon, especially if it is deep-diving? Would it have to run a wire antenna all the time, or has the problem of underwater communication already been solved since the cold war? I'd imagine that at this point they've already figured something out.
Well, yes, a long ULF antenna or even a radio buoy would be needed. The degree of complexity of this device without any crew appears unparalleled and astonishing.
@@seno5530 Looks like another Russian pipe dream.
Probably uses a mix ULF communication at relatively shallow depths and satellite radio communication at near to the surface. Probably at fixed intervals or pre-programmed points or times.
Time clock. Set them loose, choose your decapitation targets for your "FexEx" trucks and off you go.
Is particularly disturbing as I had encounter with Lada for few years and it shows that temperamental unpredictable behaviour only hope this things made with more attention and care 🙏
Use of this weapon would require a complete nuclear response against Russia so I am not sure how this is a game winner. Terrifying yes.
It’s not supposed to win anything. Its purpose is to prevent a nuclear war.
@Steven Strain Always fascinating to see attempts at Putinology from the foreigners, given that even within the country noone really understands what's going on in his head...
I read that the tsar bomb was already designed for 100mt, the difference in test power is that they replaced the original uranium shell which would have produced an additional 50mt of fission (huge fallout) with a lead shell
It's hard to imagine they'd just leave them patrolling on their own. For one, it'd let anyone interested to try and find/track them. More realistic would be to have them in strategic reserve in those big subs as something to deploy in the case of increased tensions as a deterrent. I can sort of see why Russia would want them, seeing all the animosity from US politicians towards Russia.
Like they had at Cuba during the last standoff we had! 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭
Fox Mulder get those pictures!?? Wow, the guy is still active, excellent!
The truth is out there!
Defense is deturance, if Russia destroys and leaves a radioactive layer of Co-60 we launch out entire load or MM3 abs Trident D5! That’s the ballgame
So if Russia fires a 50 knot torpedo you fire a mach 30 ballistic missile? I´m fairly certain that it´s meant to work the other way around...
There's no more extreme way of saying "don't mess with us", like a underwater Project Pluto, just with more stealth and without radioactive exhaust.
Alternately a way of saying "I have to be stopped right now and decisively before I birth another abomination".
@@AdmiralBob Let's assume you're someone in power and i say, go on, do it. Under what cause you will do it? Will you say "We, the good guys, will stop Russia from their nefarious ways by free the democracy and stuff in Russia with MILITARY FORCE." You will make your move and it will be seen as a invasion by the Russian people, isn't that so? What will be the consequences for the US?
@@AdmiralBob Also, what gives the Americans the right to do this, well, apart from being the "world police" You're not exactly the "good guys" you pretend to be.
@@andrejspecht8217 None of that stops that from being a way to hear what the creation of a dirty bomb says. Ie it's reckless posturing that could easily backfire and is helpful to NONE. Point is "You must mess with me RIGHT NOW." is as valid a read as "Don't mess with me." with this sort of behavior. You also seem to be under the impression that comming up with Casus belli is some sort of difficulty. Nothing in this species history has shown they have a hard time doing that.
@@AdmiralBob So why giving them a reason to arm themselves by escalating the situation? Why no talking to Russia as equals instead of bluntly demand anything, yelling BLAHBLAHBLAH I CANT HEAR YOU with closed ears and pretending that a nuke-wielding superpower is a naughty child? Go try to do that to China and see what happens. It is contraproductive.
The poseidon is designed to convince a technologically superior adversary,USA, that a war with Russia is suicide.
Russia (meaning Putin) makes these vague threats of escalation to nuclear conflict trying to put off anyone getting in their way geopolitically. Chances are they use this to win concessions in future arms negotiations or as blackmail,
And it is _very visible_ nuclear blackmail: imagine Russia starts acting aggressively towards the Baltics, threatens invasion to "liberate Russian speakers from fascists" as in Ukraine , and simultaneously has these things circling off the US East Coast, or the North Sea, etc. to dissuade EU or NATO from defending Eastern European nations politically or militarily. It is astonishingly reckless and destabilizing.
You can't really tell what it's target is once it is launched, or even if it _has_ a target. The Russians would _never_ accept anyone else doing this to them. Believing other nations will just accept having a 50Mt warhead swimming around just outside their territorial waters is lunacy.
well even in the past is suicide, Russia got all the ICBM needed to mutual destruction
No and yes, Russia is mistakingly trying to revive old Czarist Russia. On the same vein, America keeps American Empire by creating the most powerful and expensive military alive. To the determent of the American people and their future and to the chances of world peace. America is by far the greatest arms dealer in history and those weapons have been used to kill the poorest people, Yemen, in the world. Not this irony, without a Russian intervention in Syria, terror would be extreme in much of Europe. So thank you Russia for your sacrifice. Syria, Libya and list goes on the tradegies that can be laid at the foot of the West and most particularly America.
Hello Aaron. Do you plan on doing a Sub Brief on the US Seawolf and Virginia classes?
....so you’re saying there’s a chance!
- 𝙻𝚕𝚘𝚢𝚍 𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚖𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚞𝚖𝚋 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙳𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛
7:29 I would rather say when USA decided to exit the ABM treaty.
We left because the Russians were not following the program anyway, and more importantly at the time the chinese were working completely unrestricted on icmbs that carry up to 20 warheads.
But ultimately I think you are right. 911 just helped to distract american intel
@@Jimmy_CV Yes, they were not following it completely as the USA were not following it thought it's my understanding that they only broke it in a way to offset American transgressions. Point is Russia benefits more by these limitations treaties and that is why the USA started breaking them. If you mean to control the world you don't have to sign treaties struck with nations who are no longer the threat they were to your plans before.
This video exceeds all human standards and expectations; thank you for creating it!!!
Jeez it's like the 1950s all over again but with even less warning.
This is so depressing. I can't imagine how much of the marine life was affected by these tests. Wish I could check another planet for next life.
I've been following your channel for some time now, and i enjoy your educational & technical talks, underwater stories & history lessons and so on. But lately you have started to aggressively mix the worst of the cold war politicking into your videos, and its worrisome how you have so easily begun to sermon from a position of exceptionalism. I hope you will become more aware as time goes on that promoting division between two countries does nothing righteous, and that if they came to nuclear blows neither side can even pretend to be justified, right, or moral. M.A.D. is a balance point until a lasting peace can be found or its the end of the world, purposefully unbalancing this was clearly done post cold war in our attempts to 'win' a nuclear exchange, perhaps maliciously, perhaps out of fear it may eventually happen accidentally anyways; and therefore try to set up a win ( instead of taking the road for all humanity and making the hard work to dissolve these weapons & threats) its easier to set up for conflict. Our long time anti-missile systems & anti launch systems upset this balance, forcing an asymmetrical response. If this response seems diabolical to you, then you don't see the diabolical nature that caused this. I wish for you to consider this and stop promoting more new coldwar mentality, as striking fear into your fellow citizens without acknowledging the fear we strike into 'other' citizens is irresponsible at best. Peace is harder than war - work for peace, not for some warmongering think tank so prideful they have lost their humanity. Peacefully yours, its the hard choice - but its the only choice.
Oh. The sociopathic comment upset you.
This weapon wasn't created because of any new cold war tensions. It was created for two reasons...To ease Putin's pathological fear of regime change. What happened to other despotic dictators like himself since he came to power scared the pants off of him. For good reason too.
The second reason is to rationalize the need for his dystopia gangsterocracy. It's the same thing in all those countries: The leaders need their country to be the target of big bad enemies...they tell their people "Me and my extreme order and your devote feudal service is necessary to protect us from the terrible enemy. Without me, you'd be at their mercy...I'm the only thing standing in their way... they want to invade and unlike me who own you as slaves and therefore have an incentive to keep you alive...those slave drivers would only be renting you...and at any moment could replace you...so bow down to me and fear those evil democracies!"
Looks like you've fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
@@SpenserRoger "Muh despotic dictator is better than yours!" Okay buddy, whatever you say:))
@@SpenserRoger+1 from Russia
@dejezeri A few ABM sites in Romania or Poland will not noticeably upset this balance you are talking about. MAD is still in effect with thousands of unaffected warheads from silos, SSBNs and other launch options. To truly upset the balance, one would need an absolutely massive expansion of ABM systems in Europe and the rest of the world.
In such a case, USA fires it's icbm first against russia. Anti ballistic middle defence would only have to deal with what is left of Russian icbm. Also, the container of these abm could also contain tomahawk missiles with nuclear warheads.
Against russia, abm defence is a first strike weapon.
Who said anything about Cobalt? What about the propelling reactor just being broken up and spread around? Maybe vaporized to some extent?
They couldn't blow up EVERY major coastal city, could they? That would be too bad.
why not?
They said to build 30-32 of these. Assuming only 20 would be used against coastal cities in the US - isn't that enough? Just scrolling around on google maps I counted 15-18 major cities around the size of New Orleans or larger.
just a quick question what happened to all the cols waters videoes are they gone or moved to a different channel?