[HN Gopher] Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System (Poseidon)
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       Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System (Poseidon)
        
       Author : eth0up
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2022-03-16 12:11 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | chiph wrote:
       | How would it navigate? GLONASS signals won't penetrate the water
       | to the depths mentioned. The 1.6 and 1.2 Ghz bands it uses won't
       | even go through 1 meter of seawater [0] A star tracker would also
       | be worthless. An inertial reference might be "good enough", as in
       | "close enough for nuclear war"
       | 
       | [0] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Radio-wave-
       | attenuation-b...
        
         | SkittyDog wrote:
         | This is very much a solved problem, for several decades now. US
         | and Russian naval submarines routinely patrol for thousands of
         | miles over weeks or months, without surfacing.
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_navigation
         | 
         | It's not mentioned in the article, but I believe US subs also
         | have a long-tether communications buoy that can float to the
         | surface, but not expose itself vertically, to communicate with
         | satellites. I would be surprised if it did not also have a GPS
         | antenna.
        
         | RobertMiller wrote:
         | Instead of thinking of this like a missile, instead think of it
         | like a submarine. Submarines don't use star tracking, they use
         | inertial navigation systems to inform dead reckoning. This
         | accumulates error over time, but my impression is they work a
         | lot better than you might expect.
        
           | chemeng wrote:
           | You also don't need perfect accuracy for something that is a
           | weapon of last resort with a 1km blast radius and 500,000
           | km^2 fallout radius.
        
       | will_walker wrote:
       | With the size of Russia's SLBM stockpile, this doesn't seem to
       | change the deterrence equation, according to the Wikipedia
       | article.
       | 
       | It seems like this allows more orgs within Russian military
       | industrial complex to grab development money. It probably reduces
       | their perceived need to pay for the manned submarine leg of the
       | nuclear tripod in the upcoming decades.
        
         | RobertMiller wrote:
         | > _With the size of Russia 's SLBM stockpile, this doesn't seem
         | to change the deterrence equation_
         | 
         | Status-6 seems like a hedge against the possibility of those
         | SLBMs being rendered obsolete by a theorized missile defense
         | program like Brilliant Pebbles:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles
         | 
         | Brilliant Pebbles called for thousands of satellites in LEO,
         | which was impractical when it was originally proposed. But
         | SpaceX has since demonstrated their ability to launch
         | constellations this large on a relatively small budget.
        
       | sudosysgen wrote:
       | Status-6 is terrifying. Yet one more reason why trying to defend
       | against MAD is a horrible idea.
        
         | ranger207 wrote:
         | Well, the point of MAD is that you can't defend against it
        
           | sudosysgen wrote:
           | Exactly, but for a few decades now the US has been trying to
           | do so.
        
             | pbourke wrote:
             | MAD implies rational/peer actors. Some of the US moves in
             | recent decades have been to deter and counter rogue nuclear
             | states such as NK.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | I am talking about SDI and it's continuation under the
               | Trump presidency, which actually was aimed at peer
               | states.
               | 
               | Also, it's not about rationality at all, North Korea has
               | so far behaved perfectly rationally.
        
             | liamwire wrote:
             | Didn't Russia beat the USA to hypersonic glide missiles?
             | I'd be interested to know what measures are deemed trying
             | to defend against/defeat MAD.
        
               | SkittyDog wrote:
               | It's not clear whether Russia actually has an operational
               | HGV capability, or not.
               | 
               | For the record, it's also not clear with Status-6 is
               | operational, either. But the technology behind Status-6
               | is pretty much all stuff that we already know they have
               | working, whereas HGVs maybe not so much.
        
               | maxfromua wrote:
               | It was a disinformation campaign about hypersonic
               | missiles.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | Hypersonic glide vehicles are measures that strengthen
               | MAD, not try to defeat them. And yes, they did beat the
               | US to it. The purpose for HGV development was to evade
               | ballistic missile defences.
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-16 23:01 UTC)