Russia to deploy new train-mounted railroad-based nuclear ballistic missile in coming year 1812134

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Defence & Security News - Russia
 
 
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 11:26 AM
 
Russia to deploy new train-mounted railroad-based nuclear ballistic missile in the coming year.
Russia will draft a plan in the coming year to deploy train-mounted nuclear missiles as a potential response to the United States’ Prompt Global Strike program, the commander of its Strategic Missile Force said on Wednesday, December 18, 2013. The work will be carried out by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology – the developer of the submarine-launched Bulava nuclear missile – in the first half of next year.
     
Russia will draft a plan in the coming year to deploy train-mounted nuclear missiles as a potential response to the United States’ Prompt Global Strike program, the commander of its Strategic Missile Force said on Wednesday, December 18, 2013. The work will be carried out by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology – the developer of the submarine-launched Bulava nuclear missile – in the first half of next year.
Russia has developed the first railroad-based missile system to replace weapons destroyed in the mid-2000s under the old START treaty and are now allowed by the “New START”.
     

“A Defense Ministry report has been submitted to the president and the order has been given to develop a preliminary design of a rail-mounted missile system,” Lt. Gen. Sergei Karakaev said.

Karakaev added that defense officials, after analyzing the American system, concluded “there is a need to reconsider the issue of a rail-mounted missile system given its increased survivability and the extent of our railway network.”

The rail weapons plan appears to be a response to a US program known as Prompt Global Strike that includes development of long-range missiles with conventional explosives in place of nuclear warheads. The United States says the program would increase the options available in responding to high-priority threats around the globe. A high-speed, high-altitude drone has also been considered as part of the program.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the defense industry, a week ago called the program “the most important new strategy being developed by the United States today” and warned that American leaders “must bear in mind, that if we are attacked, in certain circumstances we will of course respond with nuclear weapons.”

Rogozin has recently championed Russian efforts to develop hypersonic air-launched weapons as a counterpart to similar US developments likely to be part of Prompt Global Strike.

The US abandoned plans for a rapid global strike capability under President George W. Bush over concerns that the weapons risked triggering an accidental nuclear war.

Unlike silo-based nuclear missiles, the location of rail-mounted missiles can be kept hidden and camouflaged amidst commercial rail traffic. The last of the Soviet-era SS-24 Scalpel rail-based nuclear missiles was decommissioned in 2005.

Russia insists that long-range missiles with conventional warheads must count towards the quota of nuclear delivery systems imposed by the New START treaty signed by Russia and the United States in 2011.

New START does not prohibit the development of rail-based missiles.

     
Russia will draft a plan in the coming year to deploy train-mounted nuclear missiles as a potential response to the United States’ Prompt Global Strike program, the commander of its Strategic Missile Force said on Wednesday, December 18, 2013. The work will be carried out by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology – the developer of the submarine-launched Bulava nuclear missile – in the first half of next year.
Russian RT-23 (NATO code SS-24 Scalpel) nuclear missile in a railroad museum on Varshavsky Train Station. Saint Petersburg.
     
Russia has started design works to create a new railroad-based missile system to replace weapons destroyed in the mid-2000s under the old START treaty and are now allowed by the “New START”.

The RT-23 (NATO reporting name SS-24 Scalpel) was a Soviet ICBM developed and produced by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau before 1991. It is cold launched, and comes in silo and railway car based variants. The rail-based missiles could move around the rail network and thus be difficult to detect and track.

Russia decommissioned its railway car based missiles in 2005 and destroyed all the systems by 2007 as part of the START II treaty on nuclear arms reduction with the US. The ‘New START’ treaty (which is also called START III in Russia) that came into force in 2011 does not limit the use of railway car based systems and allows Russia to restart production.