International writing (EFE).- North Korea affirms that it has added to its military arsenal a nuclear submarine drone capable of generating radioactive tsunamis, penetrating coastal waters, eliminating entire fleets and destroying ports and infrastructures.
The system, dubbed the “Haeil Nuclear Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (Tsunami in Korean)”, has been in development since 2012 and would be similar to the Russian system known as Poseidon, unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018.
What is the poseidon
The autonomous underwater weapon known as Poseidon, called Canyon in the United States, is essentially a torpedo powered by nuclear energy and the capacity to carry a nuclear warhead of up to 100 megatons, although according to other information it would be 2 megatons, still around a hundred times the destructive power of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
It is considered a drone because it is capable of autonomous navigation or remote control, which makes it possible for it to be redirected or even stopped before reaching its objective.
Technically it is one of the largest torpedoes ever built with a length of 24 meters, about twice the length of a ballistic missile and about thirty times the size of a standard torpedo.
It is estimated that it has a range of at least 10,000 km, a speed between 70 and 108 knots (129 and 200 km/h) and the ability to dive to a depth of a thousand meters.
Is the Poseidon so lethal?
The Poseidon is one of the strategic weapons that Vladimir Putin unveiled in a speech in 2018.
In his address, the Russian president noted that the torpedo’s range would be unlimited, that it could operate at extreme depths and at speeds many times higher than any submarine or other torpedoes.
The official Russian news agency TASS noted in January this year that the Poseidon is the first set of “unstoppable” nuclear-capable super torpedoes.
For his part, the television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov, close to Putin, graphically pointed out that the underwater drone was capable of causing a tsunami that could drown the United Kingdom under a tidal wave of 500 meters of radioactive seawater.
An apocalyptic image that does not hide one of the great advantages of the weapon, its ability to circumvent the ballistic missile systems deployed in Europe.
According to experts, deploying underwater weapons creates an imbalance that allows Russia to bypass the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System.
The US satellite network is geared toward locating and tracking ballistic missiles, and has little ability to detect what is happening under the sea.
In addition, according to reports, the Poseidon’s design allows it to emit low heat and travel quietly, which also allows it to evade microphone and ship systems deployed to protect the territory from submarine attacks.
On board the Belgorod
The K-329 Belgorod nuclear submarine, which has been serving the Russian Army since July 2022, is the ship that can carry the Poseidon underwater drones. This makes it, in addition to the largest submersible in the world, also the most lethal.
The Belgorod is a variant of the Oscar-II class of the Russian submarine fleet, designed for special operations. Its incorporation into the Russian submarine fleet occurred in July of last year, coinciding with the war in Ukraine and a major military concentration in the Arctic region.
Its dimensions are 178 meters in length (length), 15 meters in beam (width) and a tonnage of about 30,000 tons. She can reach a speed of 130 km/h and carry up to six of the massive Poseidon drones.
It is estimated that with its deployment, the Russian Navy could have a total of 73 nuclear submersibles in the near future, more than those of the United States and China.