Poseidon is Putin’s showpiece. First revealed in 2015, this nuclear-powered underwater drone—one of Russia's next-generation nuclear weapons—is nicknamed the "tsunami apocalypse torpedo" for its multi-megaton warhead that could create city-smashing waves.

A succession of news reports have carried wildly disparate accounts of Poseidon’s capabilities. So is this another example of overblown Russian military vaporware or is there something more to it?

Here's what we can say: At more than six feet in diameter and 65 feet long, weighing perhaps a hundred tons, Poseidon is the largest torpedo ever developed, coming in at thirty times the size of a heavy torpedo. In fact, the torpedo is so big it can be carried only by specially modified submarines.

Powered by a miniature nuclear reactor, the apocalypse torpedo also has effectively unlimited range. Unlike an ICBM or one of Putin's new hypersonic missiles, it would take Poseidon hours to reach its target. On the other hand, it would bypass current missile defenses. Because of this, Poseidon—at least according to the Russians— is unstoppable.

Making Waves

Tsar Bomba TASS Getty Images

As is the case with all hyped Russian military hardware, the big question comes down to how much of it is real. Well, such a weapon is certainly possible, at least in theory.

“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.

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. 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.

Poseidon’s size makes the 100-megaton capacity just about possible, though it’s a squeeze. 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. 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.

The U.S. 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.

"Most wave energy is dissipated by breaking on the continental shelf before reaching shore,” concluded lead scientist W.G. Van Dorn in his final report on “Explosion Generated Water Waves” for the Office of Naval Research. 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.

The threat then is less likely to be from long-distance waves, but from a more orthodox type of nuclear blast.

Super-Speedy Supercavitation

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Poseidon’s supposed speed is also another unknown. 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. torpedo—and barely credible even with nuclear propulsion. A later leak, again to the TASS news agency, downgraded the speed claim to a more credible (but still swift) 68 to 81 mph.

However, the latest leak to TASS pushes the speed up to over 124 mph. The information, from an unnamed military source, says that Poseidon uses the same supercavitating technology as Russia’s current high-speed torpedoes, Shkval and Khishchnik. These are propelled by underwater ramjets rather than propellers and travel inside a bubble of gas to reduce friction, achieving speeds in excess of 200 mph.

But the claim that Poseidon uses supercavitation is unconvincing, according to sub expert H.I. Sutton, who runs the Covert Shores website exploring submarine technology. Sutton told Popular Mechanics that several features, including the size of the steering fins, the shape of the nose, and Poseidon’s length, make supercavitation unlikely with this design.

Also, Sutton notes that a previous video released of Poseidon being tested shows that it is driven by a pump jet, which is a form of propulsion that would not work within the gas cavity around a supercavitating torpedo. And it would make a lot of noise.

“A supercavitating nuclear weapon would be very loud, sacrificing the stealth which is its main advantage,” says Bronk. “It doesn’t make any sense on a tactical level."

Steel Beneath the Vaporware

Sarov, an experimental Russian Navy submarine designed to carry Poseidon. H.I. Sutton

Other questions linger. Why is Poseidon always called a drone rather than a torpedo? Are its real targets cities, naval bases, or carrier groups as shown in the video? Given so much contradictory information, it would be easy to doubt whether Poseidon even exists.

Certainly, many people have questioned that fact. Its first appearance was in a Russian news report in 2015, when a military commander talking to Putin could be seen holding what appeared to be plans for the top-secret weapon, then called Status-6. This was such a clumsy "leak" that is looked like a case of obvious disinformation.



“There’s no reason to believe these Poseidon reports wouldn’t be information ops by Russian intelligence."

However, a 2016 Pentagon report appeared to confirm that the weapon was real. In 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense held a public vote and Status-6 was renamed Poseidon, making it one of the most high-profile secret weapons ever.

Then there are all those leaked stories to TASS from "military sources." Now, TASS isn't an independent news organization, but a state media outlet wholly owned by the Russian government. What they print is what Putin’s people want—and what they want the West to read. “There’s no reason to believe these Poseidon reports wouldn’t be information ops by Russian intelligence,” says Bronk.

Russian military theory places great emphasis on what they call maskirovka, deceiving the enemy. As we have seen before, many hyped Russian weapons were never actually built. “Such a weapon system is needed only for nuclear deterrence,” notes the Russian defense website MilitaryRussia.Ru. “But here is a seditious thought—it is not obligatory for the system to exist, just for there to be some chance that it does exist.”

That said, Sutton doubts the entire Poseidon project is a scam to get the West to waste money on defending against a nonexistent threat. “Basically, the verified elements are too expensive and too long-term to be fake,” says Sutton. “Mainly the submarine Sarov, which was built specifically to test the weapon. It cannot be explained by any other project or plausible other purpose.”

The Sarov is a one-off nuclear-powered submarine, with no missiles or torpedo tubes. Instead it has an underwater hangar door where tubes would normally be. It looks to be a purpose-built carrier for Poseidon.

“Think about how expensive building and running Sarov is," Sutton says. "It's not a ruse."

Impressing the Neighbors

Russia is now building two more nuclear submarines, Khabarovsk and the Belgorod, which look like Poseidon carriers. If it’s a fake, it is costing as much as the real thing. Bronk says Putin might be trying to reassure Russians that they are still a great power and partly to remind the rest of the world as well.

“Putin needs to keep raising the profile of Russian nuclear weapons on the world stage, because they are literally the only thing that Russia has that puts it in the same class as the U.S.,” says Bronk. “Otherwise it’s just another backward and corrupt middling power.”

In other words, Poseidon is less a doomsday torpedo, more a vanity project to impress the neighbors.

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