Russia Nuclear Monitoring Sites Lost Contact After Suspected Nuclear Blast; Speculation That Explosion Was Caused by Nuclear-Powered Mega-Torpedo, Thirty Times Larger Than Largest US Torpedos

Set to DEFCON 3 and scramble Fred Thompson.

Two Russian nuclear monitoring stations--specifically designed to detect radiation-- "went silent" in the days following an explosion of what many believe was a nuclear-powered missile earlier this month during tests at a remote base, a nuclear official said in an email Sunday.

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Two days later, Russia’s state-controlled nuclear agency Rosatom acknowledged that the explosion occurred on an offshore platform during tests of a "nuclear isotope power source," and that it killed five nuclear engineers and injured three others. It's still not clear whether those casualties were in addition to the earlier dead and injured.

H.I. Sutton, a contributor to Forbes, reported that there has been speculation about what exactly Russia was testing at the time of the explosion. One theory, according to his analysis, is that Moscow was testing a "mega-torpedo" nearby, which is reportedly 30 times larger than submarine torpedoes considered "heavyweight."

The report said, "Launched from a large submarine, potentially from under the protection of the arctic ice cap, it would virtually have unlimited range and Russia claims that it will run so deep that it cannot realistically be countered with existing weapons."

posted by Ace of Spades at 02:54 PM

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