Comments on Russia's (possibly) nuclear armed, nuclear propelled torpedo.

                          See the Covert Shores post on the Sarov of September 9, 2014. 

H I Sutton has provided the following description of the SAROV's extraordinary powerplant: the "propulsion arrangement is one of the things that makes [SAROV] so unique and interesting. There isn't even a designation for it. SSKN? How it works (apparently) is that the nuclear reactor on board is much smaller than the ones in regular submarines, and is not used to power the boat directly. Instead it is used to recharge the batteries, which power the electric motors which in turn drive the propeller. This is a form of air-independent propulsion [unlike any] installed on the latest conventional submarines. [SAROV] also has an auxiliary diesel powerplant as back-up."

Status-6 "KANYON" torpedo 

The Status-6 aka KANYON, described as an unmanned midget submarine, is better thought of as a massively-large nuclear powered and nuclear armed torpedo. It is huge 1.6m in diameter and about 24m long. To put that into perspective, it is about 27 times the volume of a regular 533mm  heavyweight torpedo. 


The Status-6 torpedo may be intended to strike coastal cities and strategic targets (eg. Pearl Harbor, Norfolk Virginia, even the SSN base at Guam, the SSBN base in Georgia, US or the SSBN base at Kitsap Washington State). The warhead's high reported yield of 100 megatons sounds excessive and may indicate its fear-deterrent value rather than practical military value. 

The following are excerpts from H I Sutton's comments. Pete has redded some particularly interesting parts.

Depth: The stated running depth of the torpedo of 1,000m is possible as there is no inhabited pressure hull to worry about.is credible and places it below current countermeasures.

Speed: The claimed speed of 100 knots is fast for a torpedo. The leaked cutaway drawing shows that there is a nuclear reactor coupled with a steam turbine driving a propeller shaft.

Range: The leaked document claims that the weapon can be launched from as far as 10,000 km (5,400 nm) away. At 100kt, it would take 4 days to reach its target at maximum range. It also seems likely that some of the distance would be accomplished under ice adding additional complexity both to navigation and to NATO countermeasures.

The speed parameter seems unrealistic and the range is not operationally necessary. To put it nicely, most people exaggerate their projects to their bosses. I’d wager that they are lying to Putin and themselves as much as to the West. This does not mean that the project is not (at his stage) real. 

Status-6 "KANYON" Torpedo Specifications:

Length: 24m (estimated) [4 times longer than a long 533mm heavyweight torpedo]
Diameter: 1.6m [3 times diameter of a standard 533mm heavyweight torpedo]
Weight: TBC - heavy and negatively buoyant
Speed: Stated as 100kt
Endurance: 10,000 km (5200 nm) and ~100 hrs
Maximum Operating depth: 1,000m
Crew: unmanned
Warhead: Nuclear with Cobalt shell. Payload to be confirmed but speculated to be as high as 100 megatons.
Powerplant: 1 x nuclear reactor driving a pumpjet.
Sensors: Long range internal guidance, possibly with external update/abort. Obstacle avoidance sonar.
No decoys?

Trail of radioactive contamination 
It is not feasible that the structure of the torpedo contains shielding for the reactor so the device must leave a trail of radioactive contamination behind it as it runs. This is true even in test runs.

The lack of shielding also means that the reactors cannot be test-run while inside the launch tube. Maintenance is thus much harder than on the ICBMs carried in other strategic submarines, and the weapons are essentially sealed containers. 


KHABAROVSK submarine

The main launching platform of KANYON is likely to be the new Project 09851 "KHABAROVSK" submarine. Similar to but smaller than the Project 955 'BOREI' SSBN. 

The KHABAROVSK:

-  may be 120m long versus 160m for the BOREI. 
-  does not require the missile section behind the sail. 
-  may share components and even hull sections with the BOREI
-  stated displacement of 10,000 tons (surfaced) makes it large but much lighter than the 13,000 ton BOREI.

The leaked graphic strongly hints toward the KHABAROVSK having two side-by-side hulls in the bow. This is a highly unusual arrangement but is similar to the SAROV submarine used to test the Status-6 torpedo. The basic reason behind this arrangement is that the torpedoes have to fire forward, and are carried externally to the inhabited pressure hulls. Therefore a stack of six massive torpedo tubes occupied the space where the forward pressure hull would ordinarily be, thus shifting occupied space into smaller hulls either side.