From the Moscow Times, January 14:
Russia is building a coastal base for its unmanned underwater “doomsday nuke” to extend its lifespan, the Izvestia newspaper reported Thursday, citing specifications it said it had obtained.
The Defense Ministry had indicated in 2020 that testing of the torpedo-shaped Poseidon drone was nearing completion but its launch was postponed to 2021. Russia was due to test-launch the Poseidon in the Arctic aboard one of two special-purpose submarines carrying it in the fall.
Russia plans to complete a storage and maintenance base with warehouses and workshops where the Poseidon will assume combat duty and conduct launches by June 2022, Izvestia reported.
While the base’s location has not been disclosed, it is known that at least 30 Poseidons are expected to be deployed in the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet and two others in the Pacific Fleet. According to Izvestia, crews of the Belgorod submarine have already begun “practical training” of the new weapon....
....MORE
Previously:
Russia Prepares To Test Nuclear Powered Doomsday Drone Torpedo
Possibly related:
"A Deep-Diving Sub. A Deadly Fire. And Russia's Secret Undersea Agenda"
One of the curious aspects of this event was the comment at the funeral
for the dead officers—mainly Captains with at least two Heroes of the
Russian Federation, very high ranking and curious in itself—the comment:
....Russian servicemen ‘averted planetary catastrophe’ during nuclear submarine accident, military official claims at funeral....We now know the officer who made this extraordinary statement was himself a Captain so probably authorized to speak, whether injudicious or deceptive I do not know.....
****
.....Tragic, and potentially disastrous for the immediate area if the reactor
casing had opened but not something you'd call "a planetary
catastrophe".
Among other reports we've seen (not verified so grain of salt) is that
seven of the dead were captains, meaning whatever they were up to was
pretty important. The fact the Russians are repairing and returning the
boat to its mission would also point in that direction.
So what was the submarine or its submersible—capable of 20,000 foot dives—carrying?
The best guess I've seen is a high-yield, 100 - 200 megaton, cobalt thermonuclear bomb.
A bomb that size, two to four times more powerful than the biggest ever
exploded, the Soviet Tsar Bomba (limited to 50 MT to allow the delivery
plane a chance to escape) a bomb that size is awful enough but if it is
encased in cobalt it becomes the most lethal munition ever built.
Here's MIT physicist Max
Dr. Strangelove Is Back: Say ‘Hi’ to the Cobalt Bomb!
"Now Most Dreaded Weapon, Cobalt Bomb, Can Be Built
It is this type of hydrogen bomb of which Albert Einstein said: "If successful, radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere, and hence annihilation of any life on earth will have been brought with in the range of technical possibilities."Volume 72, 2016 - Issue 4: Security at sea, and under it:
Would Russia’s undersea “doomsday drone” carry a cobalt bomb?
People smarter than I are speculating this might be what's going on up in the Arctic.
