Feb 4, 2018 07:39 PM
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2...day-weapon
EXCERPT: . . . Status-6 looks like a giant torpedo about a third the length of a big Russian submarine. According to the slide, it is nuclear-powered, meaning it can roam for months and possibly even years beneath the ocean without surfacing. Its payload is a nuclear warhead "many tens of megatons in yield," Geist says. That is thousands of times more powerful than the bombs dropped at the end of World War II and more powerful than anything currently in the U.S. and Russian arsenals.
[...] "The only possible U.S. targets are large port cities," says Mark Schneider, a senior analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy, wrote in an e-mail. "The detonation of Status-6 in any of them would essentially wipe out their population into the far suburbs." [...] Pavel Podvig, an arms control expert [...] believes the weapon could potentially bathe the entire Northeast Corridor in radioactive soot. Status-6 would probably be used as a "third-strike" weapon of last resort. If Russia fell under attack from the U.S. and couldn't retaliate with its missiles, it might trigger Status-6: a doomsday machine. Or at least a doomsday-ish machine.
Then again, the whole thing might be a fake. Geist says that the "leak" of Status-6 was deliberate. Russia worries that U.S. missile defenses might be able to shoot down its missiles in a nuclear war. By showing a plan for Status-6, Russia is warning the U.S. that if it continues to build such defensive systems, then Russia will find another way to strike, with a missile that can't be intercepted. [...] Podvig agrees that the leak of Status-6 is probably just a warning shot. But the fact that it appeared in the Pentagon's newest report on nuclear weapons shows that some war planners are taking the idea seriously....
MORE: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2...day-weapon
EXCERPT: . . . Status-6 looks like a giant torpedo about a third the length of a big Russian submarine. According to the slide, it is nuclear-powered, meaning it can roam for months and possibly even years beneath the ocean without surfacing. Its payload is a nuclear warhead "many tens of megatons in yield," Geist says. That is thousands of times more powerful than the bombs dropped at the end of World War II and more powerful than anything currently in the U.S. and Russian arsenals.
[...] "The only possible U.S. targets are large port cities," says Mark Schneider, a senior analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy, wrote in an e-mail. "The detonation of Status-6 in any of them would essentially wipe out their population into the far suburbs." [...] Pavel Podvig, an arms control expert [...] believes the weapon could potentially bathe the entire Northeast Corridor in radioactive soot. Status-6 would probably be used as a "third-strike" weapon of last resort. If Russia fell under attack from the U.S. and couldn't retaliate with its missiles, it might trigger Status-6: a doomsday machine. Or at least a doomsday-ish machine.
Then again, the whole thing might be a fake. Geist says that the "leak" of Status-6 was deliberate. Russia worries that U.S. missile defenses might be able to shoot down its missiles in a nuclear war. By showing a plan for Status-6, Russia is warning the U.S. that if it continues to build such defensive systems, then Russia will find another way to strike, with a missile that can't be intercepted. [...] Podvig agrees that the leak of Status-6 is probably just a warning shot. But the fact that it appeared in the Pentagon's newest report on nuclear weapons shows that some war planners are taking the idea seriously....
MORE: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2...day-weapon