SPA "Poseidon" / "Status-6". To the detriment of real defenses
Behind the shaft News military and political topics have almost lost their "top" events on the underwater system "Status-6" / "Poseidon". At the same time, the large-scale development of budget funds to satisfy scientific curiosity by a group of interested persons continues, and at the expense of the country's defense capability.
Money going nowhere
The fleet has already lost two multipurpose nuclear submarines on this. The same "Belgorod" had every chance to strike at ISIS (prohibited in Russia) in Syria with its 72+ cruise missiles (subject to modernization according to Project 949AM).
Today we have in service (in the Aerospace Forces) only 5 (five) relatively modern AWACS aircraft, and even fewer 5th generation fighters. Actual rates of new procurement programs aviation weapons are demonstrated by official footage of exercises with the massive use of the Soviet reserve weapons (already pretty outdated and out of date for a long time beyond the assigned terms of technical suitability). We have a lot of real and serious problems in the country's defense capability, for the solution of which there was a chronic lack of funds. Now sequestration has been added to this ...
From the latest news:
It should be emphasized that this reduction (and without that modest costs) is including research and dual-use technologies, which both directly and indirectly concerns the country's defense capability. Moreover, it is necessary to honestly understand that since the end of the 2000s. Our Ministry of Defense has discovered such a source of "saving" financial resources as the maximum transfer of research topics (R&D) from the "diocese" (and funding) of the Ministry of Defense to outside organizations. This "economy" (yes, in quotes) is not even saving on matches, it is a stranglehold around the neck of promising weapons!
Even in the most difficult 90s, when the Ministry of Defense was cutting a lot for the living, they tried to preserve promising research projects as much as possible. As a matter of fact, this allowed today to bring a number of breakthrough weapons systems. However, now the Ministry of Defense in terms of perspective and science is held hostage by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Academy of Sciences (and a number of other organizations). There are simply critical technologies (for example, mass highly efficient power supplies based on domestic raw materials), but they are “optimized” to zero from year to year.
At the same time, something happens next that cannot be called anything other than a feast during the plague:
"The boat will enter the factory sea trials approximately in April 2020, as soon as the ice conditions in the White Sea allow," he said. According to him, “at the end of the same year it is planned to transfer“ Belgorod ” the fleet».
As a matter of fact, this "information message" (also in quotation marks) is a clear illustration of all the lies under the "Status-6" program. After all, the fact that the announced terms of work on the "Status" and its carriers would be disrupted (and significantly disrupted) was clear long before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Accordingly, all applications for the admission of the Navy "Belgorod" at the end of 2020 " and so on had the "value" of the trash can level beforehand. There is only one question about the alleged readiness and testing of the "Status-6" products themselves: what tests? I address those interested in GOST RV 203: ROC stages (public citation in the media of the provisions of the document "for official use", even if it is freely available, is inappropriate). There is something to think about there. Starting with the "tests of the models".
Note: the publication of this TASS statement is an unconditional sign that this information (regardless of its reliability) was actually voiced to a TASS correspondent by a high-ranking official of the defense industry. Those. It was very important for some high-ranking Mr. N to carry out once again "processing (in fact, deliberate deception) of public opinion" through the media (TASS), obviously, in order to ensure further tasty development of budget funds on this topic.
It should be understood that phrases like “just about, now”, “at the end of the year”, “next year will be transferred to the fleet” on this topic will accompany the entire topic of “Status-6” and its carriers for many years ...
It is worth recalling once again the chronology of the project with the code name "Status-6".
On March 23, 1983, US President Ronald Reagan announced the "Strategic Defense Initiative," which declares complete freedom of strategic action for the United States through the creation of effective space assets and a supposedly reliable US missile defense system.
From the standpoint of today, this initiative should be considered the most effective example of information warfare (and the impact on the military-political leadership of the enemy). In the USSR, SDI was perceived extremely uncritically and painfully sharply, as an "almost real" system capable of practically neutralizing the strategic nuclear forces of the USSR of the 80s.
And it was precisely as an "anti-SDI" that the development of "Status-6" began (first at the research stage). In November 1983, the Office of Anti-Submarine Weapons of the Navy (UPV of the Navy) drew up an appeal to the government to create strategic nuclear super torpedoes. We were in a hurry to catch up on the subject of scientific research the next year. The details of these events were left by the former deputy chief of the Navy's UPV, Gusev R.A. (including his professional personal extremely negative assessment of what is happening).
"Expansion of work" according to Gusev is nothing more than a transfer of work from the category of research and development work to the category of R&D (development work).
Here is the answer to the question of how realistic the indicated characteristics of "Status-6" are. One of the goals of research and development is precisely the justification of the requirements for R&D and the technical ways to achieve them. As for the numbers of the characteristics of "Status", they are quite correlated with those published in stories "Chernomorsudoproekt" (for "especially vigilant" - the enterprise is located in Nikolaev, now Ukraine).
Complex R&D projects usually involve the creation of stands, incl. shipboard. The experimental submarine B-90 (which became "Sarov") was laid down at the very end of the 80s.
During the Cold War, we and the United States had a lot of excessive military spending, the struggle was "on all fronts", including scientific ones. However, by the end of the 80s. all advertising and unreality of the American SDI became absolutely clear.
Moreover, the collapse of the USSR led to the end of not just excessive military spending, in the 90s. reached the point that the anecdote "the army is switching to three meals a day: on Monday, Wednesday and Friday" had quite real reasons.
And in these conditions, the continuation of the mass development of budgetary funds on this topic continued (although it slowed down).
In principle, this was not particularly hidden. And here you can only quote the blogger Yevgeny Maksimov, who revealed a large amount of publications on official resources on this topic:
Publicity
The informational "breakthrough" took place in the fall of 2015. during a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation on defense issues in Bocharov Ruchei (Sochi).
Due to the actual circumstances of what happened from the Kommersant journalist Andrei Kolesnikov who was present there “Torpedoing consciousness. How the presentation of the new Russian superweapon actually went on the air ":
Let's call a spade a spade. Up to this point, the "stakeholders" were quietly assimilating a very fat budgetary funding, being covered by a veil of secrecy. At the same time, they were absolutely not bothered by the fact that almost everyone in the subject area knew what they were talking about, read about these works not only on the public procurement website (like blogger Maximov), but also in the ceremonial anniversary editions of enterprises.
The fact that the enemy, of course, knew about these works, did not bother them either (especially since there was a direct push from the United States to these works). For if a question was raised publicly (for example, in the media) about the essence and meaning of such works, the author could immediately be “crucified” under the pretext of “secrecy”.
And then there was a "light" in the "Bocharov Ruchey" ...
We must pay tribute to the resourcefulness of the "interested persons" in overcoming this confusion. It turned out really loud and “beautiful” (in quotes) - with the participation of the president. To whom, however, they hardly reported all the real ins and outs and problems of this project.
Media resonance
Undoubtedly, the disclosure of such weapons caused a violent reaction in the media, both domestic and foreign. There is no need to speak about the tonality of the overwhelming majority of domestic ones, these were the usual "unparalleled", "the enemy will be destroyed", etc., without any hint of analytics. The reaction of domestic experts was not just cautious: calling things by their proper names, they all clearly understood that a tough and objective public review of the issue would have extremely unpleasant consequences.
The first objective article by a Status specialist was published on March 11, 2019 on the Military Review portal: "Status" dead end ".
In fact, the article was written in early January 2019, but a significant number of media outlets refused to publish it, as they say, out of fear ... It turned out that we have defense issues that need to ring the alarm, but the situation is such that even as if to say scary.
Note: Taking into account the “acuteness of the topic”, despite the fact that the topic of “Status-6” was considered comprehensively and in detail, the author deliberately rude some technical estimates (their accuracy).
It should also be noted that the article by A. Timokhin, published earlier on the Voennoye Obozreniye portal (January 16, 2019) Poseidon Nuclear Drone: A Useless Superweapon.
The second article was published in the "Independent Military Review" on March 22, 2019, but in the form of a dispute: "Is Poseidon's invulnerability a myth?".
Conclusions and facts
1. Statements on the alleged secrecy of the "Status-6" products have no basis at all. On the contrary, a high power requirement and a huge overweight of the "Statuses" will mean a significant external acoustic field (both primary and secondary - for sonars), and the indicated cruising depth in the region of 1 km is located near the axis of the deep underwater sound channel in the ocean, where the detection conditions "Statuses" will be close to ideal.
2. Products "Status-6" can be hit even with standard anti-submarine weapons of the 80s. - nuclear depth charges, with target designation from aviation search and sighting systems. Today the arsenal of means of destruction has been significantly expanded, incl. torpedoes of the Mk50 type (stored in the warehouses of the US Navy) and the new anti-torpedoes ATT of the US Navy.
3. The ability to break through "Statuses" to targets can only be ensured in the event of a massive nuclear destruction of anti-submarine warfare elements in a theater of operations ("boil the sea"). The question arises as to the expediency of such a solution to the problem, taking into account the fact that in the foreseeable future, strategic warheads will reliably hit their targets with classical means.
4. Creation of the "Status-6" system requires extremely high material costs, which significantly limits the financing of much more relevant, demanded and effective programs.
5. "Status-6" / "Poseidon" does not have any military meaning (other than negative), it is highly questionable politically.
6. Despite all this, the program continues to be implemented.
7. It is necessary to talk about all this, write in the media! The question needs to be shaken, for a drop is hammering a stone, and the lobbyists of this topic do not have sane reasonable arguments for "Status-6". Actually, the very reaction (extremely nervous and painful) to critical analytical materials in the media on this topic is indicative. The power is in truth, and experts in satisfying scientific curiosity for huge budgetary funds understand this.
8. Together with dirty water, you cannot throw out a child: the topic of small-sized nuclear power plants is very relevant both for large-sized combat submarines and for ensuring long-range diving of our diesel submarines with small-sized special power plants of the "special period".
Information