Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System

The Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle

Estimated diameter of the Poseidon, about 2 meters

The Poseidon is intended as an asymmetric counter to U.S. missile defense systems, such as anti-ballistic missiles, railguns, or laser weapons, ensuring Russia's capability to overcome such systems.[16][17][18]

The Poseidon warhead can contaminate a large area with radiation. According to NukeMap simulations, the size of the radioactive area will be about 1700×300 kilometers.[19][20] For this purpose, the Poseidon is believed to be equipped with a toxic cobalt bomb, containing cobalt-60.[21][22] Poseidon appears to be a deterrent weapon of last resort.[23][24] An aircraft carrier battle group would have reduced chances of defending itself against it. The drone could detonate its very large warhead at standoff range, and anti-submarine warfare units would have very little time to react because of the speed at which it travels.[25]

NukeMap model of Poseidon explosion near New York City.

The Poseidon appears to be a torpedo-shaped robotic mini-submarine which can travel at speeds of 185 km/h (100 kn).[23][24][26] More recent information suggests a top speed of 100 km/h (54 kn), with a range of 10,000 km (5,400 nmi; 6,200 mi) and a depth maximum of 1,000 m (3,300 ft).[27]

Typical depth of the drone may be about 50–100 meters for increased stealth features in low-speed stealth mode. Low depth in stealth mode is preferred because sound waves move to ocean floor and reduce radius of detection. Submarines use the same strategy in silent running mode.[28]

It is 1.6–2 metres in diameter, and 24 metres long.[29] The warhead shown in the leaked figure is a cylinder 1.5 metres in diameter by 4 metres in length, giving a volume of 7 cubic meters. Comparing this to the volumes of other large thermonuclear bombs, the 1961 Soviet-era Tsar Bomba itself measured 8 metres long by 2.1 metres in diameter, indicates that the yield is at least several tens of megatons, generally consistent with early reports of 100 megatons.[30] Some reports suggest the yield of the Poseidon's warhead is as low as 2 Mt.[1]

The National Interest compiled several unclassified defense sources from General Electric experts about the similar 601B project[31][32][33] and they predicted low weight and compact gas-cooled nuclear reactor in the drone.[34] Russian submarine designers say that a low-power reactor is preferred for Poseidon because a smaller reactor is less noisy.[28]

Pump-jet of the drone[28]

The development includes also use of stealth technology, to elude acoustic tracking devices.[24][28][35] Poseidon uses a silent running strategy like other submarines. Its main stealth feature is its very low speed before it reaches the target area. Its high-speed mode activates upon reaching a short finish range (2–3 kilometers), when the probability of detection of the drone is considerably higher. It could travel for weeks toward enemy port cities, reaching high-speed only in the final stage.[34]

Russian designers estimated the radius of detection of the drone will be about 2–3 km (1.2–1.9 mi) for 55 km/h (34 mph).[28] A second important stealth feature of the drone is the special design of the pump-jet for clearance of the drone's acoustic signature to imitate the noise of civil ships.[28]

A U.S. intelligence officer told CNBC that the Poseidon is difficult to detect and difficult to target in stealth mode.[36]

The Poseidon is a family of drones rather than a single type, with some Poseidons designed only for destroying coastal cities and thus relying on "stealth" capabilities rather than on high speed,[28] and other ones primarily designed to attack carrier battle groups,[25] where the later ones may use the supercavitation, like the VA-111 Shkval torpedo, to be able to gain extremely high speed in attack mode (more than 200 km/h (120 mph)).[37][38] However, supercavitation devices have not been observed on the available footage of Poseidon.[39] Pentagon estimates maximum speed of the Poseidon about 56 kn (104 km/h; 64 mph) without the supercavitation option.[40]

Two vessels that are speculated to carry the Poseidon, the Project 09852 Oscar-class submarine Belgorod and the Project 09851 Khabarovsk submarines, are new boats launched in 2019 and 2020, respectively.[24][29][41][42] Oscar-class submarines could carry four Poseidon torpedoes at the same time for a total yield of up to 400 megatonnes.[43]

According to some reports, the Poseidon may also have a seabed or mobile sites launch option. In the seabed option, known as Skif (Скиф), Poseidon can wait on the sea floor in a special container for as long as necessary. It is known that the Russian auxiliary vessel ZVEZDOCHKA 600 (Project 20180) with ice-breaking capability is being used for testing of the Poseidon drones, thus it's believed the ship can be also used as the platform for deploying and retrieving a seabed version of the drone.[44] The seabed launch option was patented (RU 2135929 patent) by the Poseidon designer Alexander Shalnev.[45]