Doomsday Torpedo Detailed in Pentagon Document

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Megalith

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Leaked Pentagon documents provide detail on “Kanyon,” a Russian undersea autonomous torpedo that is being described as “nightmare fuel”: the payload is a 100-megaton thermonuclear weapon, equivalent to 100,000,000 tons of TNT. It is supposedly capable of penetrating ballistic missile defenses.

Kanyon is designed to attack coastal areas, destroying cities, naval bases, and ports. The mega-bomb would also generate an artificial tsunami that would surge inland, spreading radioactive contamination with the advancing water. To make matters worse there are reports the warhead is “salted” with the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60. Contaminated areas would be off-limits to humanity for up to 100 years.
 
whats that site that shows the potential destruction of various weapons?
 
After reading about this I can't help but realize what a miracle it is we haven't destroyed ourselves at this point. Russia and U.S. have god knows how many other world ending devices gathering dust, not to mention China. It's almost as scary as realizing that the leaders of those countries (Trump/Putin) have their fingers on global reset buttons.
 
infin@ said:
After reading about this I can't help but realize what a miracle it is we haven't destroyed ourselves at this point. Russia and U.S. have god knows how many other world ending devices gathering dust, not to mention China. It's almost as scary as realizing that the leaders of those countries (Trump/Putin) have their fingers on global reset buttons.
Click to expand...

MAD is real, and it's one of the greatest peacekeepers we have ever seen. No majors nations have fought each other for 70+ years.

Don't buy into media hysteria thin skin bullshit. If it was up to the media, Hawaii would be broadcasting alarms 24/7 as long as it terrorizes someone. Guam had one back in August as well.
 
The Hunt for Red October - "Could you launch an ICBM horizontally?" "Sure but why would you want to?"

That said, I'm curious how much damage it really could do. How do nuclear explosions scale up underwater.

That said... it's Popular Mechanics... always at the fore front of hyping the shit out of vaporware future tech.
 
It is scary. The idea of peace through "mutually assured destruction" is contingent upon the sanity of those holding the launch buttons. History has shown that leaders are not always rational when making decisions. We've had a number of close encounters since 1950's, and it's still a very probable scenario to this day. The Cold War may be over, but there's enough nuclear weapons around to destroy civilization if the situation escalated. De-armament and regulation should be a priority for any world leader willing to look past his/her next election.
 
westrock2000 said:
MAD is real, and it's one of the greatest peacekeepers we have ever seen. No majors nations have fought each other for 70+ years.

Don't buy into media hysteria thin skin bullshit. If it was up to the media, Hawaii would be broadcasting alarms 24/7 as long as it terrorizes someone. Guam had one back in August as well.
Click to expand...

MAD does work, but it almost went bad during the cuban missile crisis, if it weren't for that lone dissenting commander who knows what would have occurred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis
 
If it's only a torpedo that means the bulk of the country is safe. Only the super elite can afford to look at the ocean now. </snarky>
 
Silentbob343 said:
MAD does work, but it almost went bad during the cuban missile crisis, if it weren't for that lone dissenting commander who knows what would have occurred.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis
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Don't forget about Stanislav Petrov, the man who saved the world. They even made a movie about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

There have been many other close calls over the years, but none closer than those 2.
 
80 feet long and it goes 100 knots, under freaking water.... would be really hard for the Navy to not notice it's coming. It may have a huge range, but anything going that fast underwater is going to make hella noise.

Still.... this is scary stuff. Dr. Strangelove indeed.
 
sfsuphysics said:
The Hunt for Red October - "Could you launch an ICBM horizontally?" "Sure but why would you want to?"

That said, I'm curious how much damage it really could do. How do nuclear explosions scale up underwater.

That said... it's Popular Mechanics... always at the fore front of hyping the shit out of vaporware future tech.
Click to expand...


It's true that nukes are detonated a good altitude above the target to maximize blast radius, but we're talking about a 100 megaton warhead spiked with cobalt 60 here. Tsar bomba was designed as a 100 megaton and had to be scaled down to 50 just so that the Soviets could detonate it without endangering their citizens. It was also the most powerful nuke ever detonated. This thing is huge! Doesn't matter how efficinet the blast will be underwater, it's just too big to matter.

The cobalt 60 addition is a nice touch. That's s pure gamma radiation isotope and a very powerful one at that. It's often used for cancer treatment and sterilization. Once the bomb detonates, that crap will go everywhere increasing fallout. The tsunami generated by the blast will only serve to spread the love.
 
infin@ said:
After reading about this I can't help but realize what a miracle it is we haven't destroyed ourselves at this point. Russia and U.S. have god knows how many other world ending devices gathering dust, not to mention China. It's almost as scary as realizing that the leaders of those countries (Trump/Putin) have their fingers on global reset buttons.
Click to expand...

Theoretical physicist michio kaku calls it the uranium barrier. As a civilization discovers atomic science, there's two paths. One is to decimate the planet with nuclear weapons. The other is to develop breeder reactors (or close to) to provide near limitless energy for the good of society.

Maybe we're on the verge of deciding which way to go.
 
[21CW]killerofall said:
There have been many other close calls over the years, but none closer than those 2.
Click to expand...

I was floored when I found out that the military has a term for when a atomic bomb is dropped or almost detonates. "Broken arrow" is more than a movie. You are correct about the top two, but dont forget the Titan Missile silo disaster. Seriously close to a "Broken arrow' detonation. Could have took out a corner of Arkansas.

Hard to believe that a nuclear warhead got blown out of a missile silo fire fueled by burning missile fuel and didn't detonate when the missile exploded. Got blown some thousands of feet away and didn't detonate first upon being blown out of the silo and again not when it finally crash landed back to earth.

W'O-f***g-WOW <Double U-OH-F'N-Double U-WOW>

...and as you said, there are others. A few missing, one in Georgia: "Sum of all fears" - anyone.

Missing A-bomb found by unscrupulous folks and sells to the highest bidder. Dont fear the guys that has many nuclear weapons, worry about the guy that has one!

----------> after thought.

had it detonated, what would have been the chance that it may have been thought to be an incoming foreign blast and retaliation against someone had been set in motion.
 
Khahhblaab said:
I was floored when I found out that the military has a term for when a atomic bomb is dropped or almost detonates. "Broken arrow" is more than a movie. You are correct about the top two, but dont forget the Titan Missile silo disaster. Seriously close to a "Broken arrow' detonation. Could have took out a corner of Arkansas.

Hard to believe that a nuclear warhead got blown out of a missile silo fire fueled by burning missile fuel and didn't detonate when the missile exploded. Got blown some thousands of feet away and didn't detonate first upon being blown out of the silo and again not when it finally crash landed back to earth.

W'O-f***g-WOW <Double U-OH-F'N-Double U-WOW>

...and as you said, there are others. A few missing, one in Georgia: "Sum of all fears" - anyone.

Missing A-bomb found by unscrupulous folks and sells to the highest bidder. Dont fear the guys that has many nuclear weapons, worry about the guy that has one!

----------> after thought.

had it detonated, what would have been the chance that it may have been thought to be an incoming foreign blast and retaliation against someone had been set in motion.
Click to expand...

Don't forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash There's the majority of the thermonuclear stage of a bomb still buried in a field lol Both bombs had fail safe malfunctions and nearly detonated during the fall.
 
Khahhblaab said:
I was floored when I found out that the military has a term for when a atomic bomb is dropped or almost detonates. "Broken arrow" is more than a movie. You are correct about the top two, but dont forget the Titan Missile silo disaster. Seriously close to a "Broken arrow' detonation. Could have took out a corner of Arkansas.

Hard to believe that a nuclear warhead got blown out of a missile silo fire fueled by burning missile fuel and didn't detonate when the missile exploded. Got blown some thousands of feet away and didn't detonate first upon being blown out of the silo and again not when it finally crash landed back to earth.

W'O-f***g-WOW <Double U-OH-F'N-Double U-WOW>

...and as you said, there are others. A few missing, one in Georgia: "Sum of all fears" - anyone.

Missing A-bomb found by unscrupulous folks and sells to the highest bidder. Dont fear the guys that has many nuclear weapons, worry about the guy that has one!

----------> after thought.

had it detonated, what would have been the chance that it may have been thought to be an incoming foreign blast and retaliation against someone had been set in motion.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there's a documentary about this incident on PBS (and currently available on Netflix and other streaming services) called "Command and Control". Definitely worth a watch. It all happened due to an errantly dropped wrench socket. The aftermath was poorly handled, though it does at least validate the foresight of the system safety engineers that ultimately prevented detonation of the warhead.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/command-and-control/
 
daringx said:
though it does at least validate the foresight of the system safety engineers that ultimately prevented detonation of the warhead.
Click to expand...

Man! So, so, so true. (y)

Had all of the safety checks failed "BOOM" goes Arkansas!

Cant get much more safety testing than burning in fire for some amount of time, being blasted out of a silo, eventually falling back to earth without a parachute at 32 ft per sec/per sec acceleration, and not detonate. Its a bomb after all. Its designed to go "BOOM". Thats its purpose. They made something go boom only when its supposed too.

Thank you safety engineers! And props to the guys that created the safety course.

Obviously far more training and dedication than the guys that designed the Remmington 700 rifle.

They finally agreed that their rifles can fire with the safety "ON". Things been in production since 1962.
 
Kind of sucks we have to live in a bit of fear caused by really smart people...
 
Here is a test showing a nuke taking out a whole fleet.

Notice the ship that is vertical in the shaft of the mushroom cloud....

nuke_1.jpg
 
THRESHIN said:
It's true that nukes are detonated a good altitude above the target to maximize blast radius, but we're talking about a 100 megaton warhead spiked with cobalt 60 here. Tsar bomba was designed as a 100 megaton and had to be scaled down to 50 just so that the Soviets could detonate it without endangering their citizens. It was also the most powerful nuke ever detonated. This thing is huge! Doesn't matter how efficinet the blast will be underwater, it's just too big to matter.

The cobalt 60 addition is a nice touch. That's s pure gamma radiation isotope and a very powerful one at that. It's often used for cancer treatment and sterilization. Once the bomb detonates, that crap will go everywhere increasing fallout. The tsunami generated by the blast will only serve to spread the love.
Click to expand...
Just had a thought and a quick google got me the answer I needed. And that's the Asian/Indian tsunami from the underwater earthquake that killed about 200k people did 9600 GT of worth of energy as work, or 96,000 of these torpedoes. While I don't doubt the fall out potential could be high, I have a hard time thinking an underwater detonation even of a bomb of this magnitude will be anything except maybe extremely localized as far as tsunami damage.
 
deaedius said:
Kind of sucks we have to live in a bit of fear caused by really smart people...
Click to expand...
We're living the benefits of the culmination of all the smartest people who have ever lived... which is why one must remember why we put value in certain societies and not view all of them as equals. Giving technology of a 1st world people to one that without outside influence would be in the bronze age, that's where our failing will be.
 
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Nuclear torpedo is useful and useless at the same time you spent man power on r&d but the fact still remains our inland missle systems would probably blast the whole planet twice over soon as the first one goes off.
 
There is so much mis- and dis- and non-information in this thread, it's almost impossible to filter the chaff from the wheat.

If the Soviet Union, and its modern descendant, the Russian Federation are seriously investing in this, then they have already lost. No rational weaponologist would consider this a feasible weapon...for anything other than a James Bond movie prop.
 
Some facts and some information.

Waves propagate through a medium, they do not displace the medium.
Tsunamis need a "reflecting" source to focus their energy.
Energy in a wave dissipates at the square or cube (fractal effects, the geometry matters) as the wave expands.
Water is one of the best radiation shields (rivalling lead in efficacy) available.
Cobalt60 is 3 times heavier than water. It sinks.
Cobalt60 has a half-life of ~5 years and decays to a stable isotope of Nickel.
Tests at Bikini Atoll had the ships ridiculously close to one another in very shallow water.
alpha and beta radiation are very easily protected against.
gamma and xray radiation are stopped by dense metal...or water.
Half-lives: that which burns bright, burns fast. Granite has one of the longest half-lives known. Yet, we don't put our pots on top of granite counters and watch our food cook.

It would be more effective to place a nuclear mine in a harbor than to try to use this against a nation's waterfront. Heck, it'd be simpler for Iran to stick a nuke in a container and hide it on a container ship and sail it in.
 
c3k said:
There is so much mis- and dis- and non-information in this thread, it's almost impossible to filter the chaff from the wheat.

If the Soviet Union, and its modern descendant, the Russian Federation are seriously investing in this, then they have already lost. No rational weaponologist would consider this a feasible weapon...for anything other than a James Bond movie prop.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Some of the misinformation on the thread is worth a chuckle.

I prefer the Austin Powers version. "We get the warhead and we hold the world ransom for... ONE MILLION DOLLARS!"
 
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