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Russian unmanned nuclear submarines.
Source: Pravda.Ru photo archive
Source: Pravda.Ru photo archive
Source: Pravda.Ru photo archive
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During the 1950s, academician Andrei Sakharov offered Nikita
Khrushchev to deploy tens of super powerful nuclear warheads along US
maritime borders. According to Sakharov, the USSR would have been able
to keep an eye on the ball without getting involved in the arms race.
However, Khrushchev did not listen. Nowadays, this idea attracts
attention again.
The Washington Free Beacon has recently published an article by Bill
Hertz on the subject of a hypothetical Russian unmanned nuclear
submarine: “
Russia Building Nuclear-Armed Drone Submarine.”
Let’s go back to the beginning of the nuclear era and see what projects of nuclear weapons existed at the time.
The Germans were working hard to build a nuclear bomb, or rather,
admitted the possibility of its creation. Yet, according to German
scientists, a nuclear bomb would have to be built on a vessel because of
its size. How could such a ship cross the Atlantic?
In the era of the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed the project of
a super powerful nuclear torpedo almost 1.5 meters in diameter. The
torpedo could destroy any port city or any naval base of the USA. Yet,
the torpedo would have to be carried on board a submarine, although it
was easier to mount such a warhead on a missile.
As a result, both the
USSR, the USA and then other countries developed underwater missile
cruisers. The power of such warheads was limited to their size, whereas
the size of missiles was limited to the size of submarines. What was the
way out?
People tried to make a bomb, the explosive power of which would be
unlimited. The first test of a hydrogen bomb was conducted by the United
States on February 1, 1952 on the island of Elugela, Eniwetok Atoll in
the Pacific Ocean. The three-storey structure was named Mike, and it was
completely non-transportable.
The explosion surpassed all expectations:
its strength was equal to 10 million tons of TNT.
Unmanned nuclear submarines to trigger giant tsunami waves along US coasts
Shortly after the test, academician Sakharov offered Nikita
Khrushchev to deploy tens of super powerful nuclear warheads with the
capacity from 200 or 500 megatons along the US maritime borders.
According to him, it would have been enough to push the button to
explode them all near the US. The explosions would have also triggered
massive tsunami waves to wash away US coastal areas into the ocean.
Khrushchev refused from the offer.
Nowadays, there are reports from Western publications saying that
Russian scientists are supposedly revisiting the idea. No one knows yet,
whether such reports are based on factual data or plain rumors. There
is no agreement that would outlaw the creation of unmanned submarines,
Nor is there an agreement on the limitation of the power of nuclear
weapons.
Such a submarine should be a robotic submarine capable of traveling
under the water at a large depth, escape from enemy vessels and maintain
combat readiness for years.
The hull of an unmanned submarine should be made of titanium. The
material would ensure a diving depth of more than 1,000 meters (this
depth is a guarantee of almost total invulnerability and stealth for a
nuclear submarine).
The biological protection of the reactor on board an unmanned
submarine can be decreased considerably. The construction will thus be
lighter, whereas the warhead will be more powerful. The size of the
submarine will be smaller (in comparison with manned submarines), and
the walls of its hull can be thicker, thus increasing the immersion
depth from 1,000 to 3,000 meters.
An unmanned submarine would thus be able to approach the coast of the
United States in strategic areas and rest on the bottom of the seafloor
awaiting orders. An order via deep-sea communication system will cause
their simultaneous explosion and trigger giant tsunami waves along the
coast.