3/11/2023 0 Comments Poseidon torpedo![]() torpedo-and barely credible even with nuclear propulsion. Initially, Russia tossed out estimates of speeds up to 115 mph, but this is incredibly fast for an underwater vehicle-about twice the speed of any U.S. Poseidon’s supposed speed is also another unknown. The threat then is less likely to be from long-distance waves, but from a more orthodox type of nuclear blast. The phenomenon of giant waves breaking while still far out at sea has since become known as the Van Dorn effect and has been validated by later studies using advanced computer techniques. Van Dorn in his final report on “ Explosion Generated Water Waves” for the Office of Naval Research. ![]() "Most wave energy is dissipated by breaking on the continental shelf before reaching shore,” concluded lead scientist W.G. military carried out studies in this area in the 1950s and 60s and found that waves generated out at sea, whether by a nuclear blast or a meteor impact, were not efficient weapons. However, in May 2018 a military source told the Russian TASS news agency that Poseidon’s warhead would actually be " up to two megatons." That’s far more realistic, but not enough to create an effective tsunami-if it could create a tsunami at all. ![]() In the 1950s, the Soviets planned a similarly giant nuclear torpedo, known as the T-15, to carry a warhead in the Tsar Bomba class, mainly because there was no other means of delivering it. Poseidon’s size makes the 100-megaton capacity just about possible, though it’s a squeeze. The idea is that this explosion could produce a giant tsunami far offshore, meaning the Poseidon would not even need to get close to the target and could destroy coastal cities from long range. Just how large? Initially Poseidon was described as having a yield of 100 megatons, even bigger than the Soviet’s record-breaking air-dropped bomb, Tsar Bomba. “People were exploring the idea of a large nuclear torpedo back in the Cold War,” Justin Bronk of British military think tank RUSI told Popular Mechanics. Well, such a weapon is certainly possible, at least in theory. As is the case with all hyped Russian military hardware, the big question comes down to how much of it is real. ![]()
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