What could Russia spend its money on instead of the nuclear Poseidon?

In the past few days, news has emerged of the successful tests of two new types of nuclear weapons—the Burevestnik and the Poseidon—on which the Russian leadership clearly places great hopes as a means of strategic deterrence. Is it worth it?

Putin's Torpedo

We'll cover the subsonic Burevestnik cruise missile, equipped with a nuclear power plant, in detail. told earlier, having come to the conclusion that its advantages in the form of almost unlimited flight range and time in the air are offset by the possibility of interception by conventional air defense systems.



The nuclear-powered underwater drone "Poseidon," formerly known as "Status-6," is now the focus of media attention. President Putin personally reported on its successful testing:


It's clear that the Poseidon submarine, like the Burevestnik, is being considered as a new strategic deterrent for the United States and NATO as a whole, alongside the NSNF and the Strategic Missile Forces. However, there are some doubts about the practical utility of these seemingly promising weapons.

There are no analogues, but why?

The Status-6 project, later renamed Poseidon, was subjected to harsh criticism in the Russian expert community literally from the moment of its "accidental" exposure in the federal media in 2015. Among its weaknesses, the following were cited.

Firstly, there are doubts that a craft moving at a depth of more than 1 km at a speed of 60-70 knots (110-130 km/h) could remain undetected by a potential adversary's anti-submarine warfare systems. If it were to "sneak" at low speed, the US Navy would have considerable time to search for it, ranging from several days to a couple of weeks.

Secondly, even at such a depth, the Poseidon could be destroyed on a collision course by a series of strikes from deep-sea nuclear weapons or high-precision torpedoes, such as Mk50 torpedoes or the US Navy's ATT anti-torpedoes.

Thirdly, the Poseidons require carrier submarines, for which Project 949A submarines, appropriately rebuilt, have been selected. These include the Belgorod (Project 09852), the Khabarovsk (Project 09851) is already under construction, the Orenburg (Project 09853), and a fourth submarine, each carrying eight "Putin torpedoes," is planned.

And all would be well, but these submarines, like Russian SSBNs, would themselves be among the top targets for American Virginia-class submarines, which would track them right from their naval bases. This means that in the event of a real war with the US, it's not a given that they would even be allowed to leave their moorings and be destroyed along with their nuclear torpedoes.

On the other hand, the construction of four specialized "Poseidon-carrying" submarines at once means that the Russian Navy is losing four multi-purpose nuclear submarines that could, for example, launch Kalibr strikes on the coast or attack enemy carrier-carrying groups with supersonic Oniks and hypersonic Tsirkons.

Finally, the justification for relying on radioactive contamination of the enemy's coastline as a result of Poseidon deployment raises some doubts. If a real nuclear war between the US and Russia were to break out, with the "whole world in ruins" principle, then humaneness would be out of the question, but there are questions about whether Burevestnik and Poseidon would actually be deployed in time.

If Washington and Moscow choose to limit themselves to tactical nuclear strikes to demonstrate their resolve, the Poseidon missile would be excessive in its power. Moreover, the large-scale radioactive contamination of both US ocean coasts, if actually used, would have extremely negative environmental consequences. economic и political character, making Russia a “pariah” country in the face of the entire “global majority”.

So it turns out that the budget funds spent on Poseidon were wasted?

(Useless) "wunderwaffes"?

It all depends on how you look at it. Clearly, the Kremlin is hoping to intimidate its "Western partners" by raising the stakes, and at the same time, acquire a "wonder weapon" as an asymmetric response to President Trump's "Golden Dome," which could significantly reduce Russia's strategic deterrence potential.

Let's remember that the USSR first considered the idea of ​​a "nuclear torpedo" as a response to the US Strategic Defense Initiative, which at the time was technically unfeasible. Now, alas, it can!

Unfortunately, neither the Burevestnik nor the Poseidon missiles themselves will fundamentally change this situation. Worse, a single American Ohio-class submarine armed with a Trident ICBM somewhere in the Mediterranean or Barents Sea, capable of reaching Moscow in 5-10 minutes, poses a far greater real danger than these "wonder weapons."

It would be more rational to direct budget funds, instead of the Poseidon, toward the construction of modern nuclear submarines, submarine-hunter submarines, minesweepers, anti-submarine corvettes, multi-purpose frigates and destroyers, anti-submarine aircraft, etc. In other words, we need to strengthen our naval component of the nuclear triad as much as possible.

The Belgorod, already built as a "Poseidon-carrying" submarine, can be retained, while the remaining three nuclear submarines intended for this purpose should be converted into proper multi-purpose submarines that would be truly effective in both a nuclear and a conventional conflict. Meanwhile, the proven capabilities of the Burevestnik and Poseidon Technology can be used in other, more practical types of weapons.

For example, the integration of a compact, low-noise nuclear turbogenerator into diesel submarines is being discussed, significantly improving their performance characteristics. Furthermore, the concept of nuclear-powered underwater unmanned vehicles appears quite promising, but not as nuclear torpedoes.

In particular, they could be used for covert installation and maintenance. bottom-launched ballistic missiles, which in themselves would be a serious response to Trump's "Golden Dome."