BZhRK "Barguzin" railway ICBM

Rail wars? Russia ponders new railroad-based missile systems

Plans are underway to create combat railway-based missile systems designed to give Russia a more flexible means of defense.

­The system consists of a train with two or three diesel locomotives and specialized railcars, which look like refrigerator or passenger railcars, but carry intercontinental ballistic missiles, together with command posts, Col. Vadim Koval, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman for the Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN)the Russian Defense Ministry, told reporters.

Although the last railway-based missile unit was decommissioned almost a decade ago, the system is getting a second look as a means of protecting Russia’s vast landmass as global threats become more diversified.

"A final decision, however, has not been taken on the issue," Koval added.

The idea of using railroads to move around missiles is not new. Koval noted that the first unit of railway-based missile systems was put on combat duty in Kostroma in October 1987, and removed from service in 2005.

However, with the nature of warfare changing and the global situation increasingly volatile and unpredictable, military leaders argue it may be a good time to give some versatility to Russia’s missile defenses.

Meanwhile, Russia is looking for ways to counter the US missile defense system, which is being deployed in Eastern Europe. Despite Moscow’s warning that the technology has the potential to spark a new arms race, US and NATO officials remain adamant and refuse to cooperate with Russia. Washington has even rejected Moscow’s request to provide it with legal assurances that the system will never be activated against Russian territory.

Railway-based missile systems are designed for use along special military patrol routes, as well as railway lines used by the public.

Formerly, three missile divisions – near Kostroma, Krasnoyarsk and Perm – were deployed. Employing 12 trains, the system transported 36 missiles, each with 10 nuclear warheads.

Russian military experts say that with technological advances made in missile technology, the use of railroad-based systems could be an effective means of protecting Russia.

http://rt.com/politics/russia-missiles-defense-transport-military-941/

Interesting, but I wonder how much it'd cost? Would they rely on dedicated rail lines? Share commercial lines? Build new ones? They clearly have the whole concept down at any rate.

Given the past experience in developing and deploying rail-base missile like the Molodets which served for nearly two decades, the concept is not new but it is very essential given that the new ABM system that the US is planning is mobile.

Russia may resume production of nuclear missile trains
January 16, 2013 Vadim Ponomarev, Expert magazine
Russian nuclear trains are quite expensive and rather hard to operate, but their main advantages – stealth and surprise – are worth the trouble.

Russia is planning to resume the production of rail-mobile ballistic missile systems, an unnamed senior official at the Russian military-industrial complex told RIA Novosti.
One would be forgiven for being sceptical about the project if it were not for three compelling factors. The first is the repeated statements by Russian military officials, including Deputy Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces Lieutenant General Vladimir Gagarin (autumn 2009), about the need to revive the production of missile trains. In December 2012, Commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces Lieutenant General Sergei Karakaev told reporters that the work to create rail-mobile ballistic missile systems was already underway.
The second reason is that Russia now in a position, both politically and financially, to restore the “vengeance weapon” that it destroyed hastily in the mid-2000s in order to meet its commitments under the START II Treaty, despite the fact that it was never even ratified (although experts argue that not all of the Russian nuclear missile trains were in fact destroyed). From a political point of view (read: political will), this means using rail-mobile ballistic missile systems as an appropriate response to the lack of guarantees from America and Europe that the European missile defence system will not be used against Russia. “By 2020, the European missile defence system plans to adopt new modifications to the SM-3 missile, capable of intercepting Russian ICBMs. In light of this fact, Moscow will have to take appropriate counter measures,” says Igor Korotchenko, director of the Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade. “The high hopes that we had placed on the development of Russian-American relations after the START III Treaty was signed were never fulfilled. The strategic partnership announced by the American administration proved to be a mere declaration. A new treaty to further limit strategic offensive arms is unlikely. This is why the restoration of missile trains is very important: along with the heavy liquid-fuelled missile, they will become an effective deterrent to the United States’ nuclear ambitions and its aggressive military plans,” says Strategic Rocket Forces veteran Yuri Zaitsev, Academic Advisor at the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Soviet-Russian nuclear trains are quite expensive and rather hard to operate, but their main advantages – stealth and surprise – are worth the trouble. They are neither silos, where a missile can be intercepted when it leaves the launcher, nor automobile launch systems, which have a limited range of 300–400 kilometres and are easy to see from space, given contemporary surveillance technologies. A missile train is a standard train that comprises a few refrigerator, mail and passenger cars that is capable of travelling 1,000 kilometres in 24 hours along regular rails and launching the first missile with a range of 10,000 kilometres and 10 warheads within three minutes of command (the Strategic Rocket Forces operated 12 trains of this kind armed with 36 missiles). Financially, Russia is capable of resuming missile train production. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said today that the number of state defence contracts would double to more than 2 trillion roubles in 2014 compared to 2012.
The third reason for Russia to revive its nuclear missile trains is the technical capability of the country to build such trains. Designers will now have to adapt the old rail-mobile ballistic missile system project to the new missile, either the Bulava or Yars (the production of the special rail-based missile RT-23 UTTKh Molodets remained in Ukraine and was demolished); military railmen will need to restore the surface infrastructure at home stations, near Kostroma, Perm and in Krasnoyarsk Region (eyewitnesses claim that the one in the vicinity of Kostroma is in a state of ruin). However, judging by indirect information, the Russian defence complex has even more ambitious plans for missile trains. One of the main challenges for the rail-mobile ballistic missile system is its limited endurance and the need for refuelling (if driven by a diesel locomotive), as well as the low capacity of its power unit. Three locomotives were required to pull a Soviet nuclear train, which naturally unmasked the train. Back in the early 1980s, an alternative was designed for the nuclear train project – a locomotive powered by the BOR-60 fast fission reactor (with a heat power of 60MW and electrical power of 10 MW). However, the locomotive was never built. In February 2011, Russian Railways Vice President Valentin Gapanovich told reporters that the railway operator and the state corporation Rosatom would present the design of a new nuclear-powered train to the public by the end of 2011. There have been no reports about the project since then, which suggests that the locomotive is being developed by defence agencies.
However, there was enough time for military railway specialists to test the gas turbine locomotive working on liquefied natural gas, created back in 2006 on the basis of one of Nikolai Kuznetsov’s gas-turbine engines. In 2009, the engineering prototype of the locomotive was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records, pulling 159 carriages weighing 15,000 tonnes on a test track. The machine has a fuel capacity of almost 1,000 kilometres. It is an almost perfect locomotive to move the nuclear missile train (the perfect one being the nuclear-powered machine). But there have thus far only been reports about the civil use of the gas turbine locomotive – the Sinara group plans to build 40 locomotives of this kind for Russian Railways, which will operate them in the Far North and the Far East.
First published in Russian in the Expert magazine.

With much smaller and much lighter missiles the system becomes much cheaper and easier to make and operate.

In fact a withdrawl from the INF treaty and the use of rail mounted IRBMs for use against targets in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific region would be very handy.

Of course the other aspect is range... a missile with a range of between 500km and 5,500km is considered intermediate ranged, so a 3 ton cruise missile with a range of 10,000km or a light missile with a range of 6,000km would be perfectly legal as a train launched system under the INF treaty.

With the opening up of the far east, production of new rail lines would be a useful way to get things in and out of the region, and at the same time create lots of scope for armed trains to operate.

Nuclear armed & nuclear powered trains ...bloody hell, sounds like something out of the darkest days of the cold war. I wonder if that's where we're headed...

.bloody hell, sounds like something out of the darkest days of the cold war. I wonder if that's where we're headed...

Very low carbon emissions...

GarryB wrote:

.bloody hell, sounds like something out of the darkest days of the cold war. I wonder if that's where we're headed...

Very low carbon emissions...

Good one

Russia may resurrect its missile trains by 2020

According to official information from the Ministry of Defense, military railroad missile complexes are currently under development and will appear in Russia by 2020.


“Russia’s political leadership has made the decision to start the development of a military railroad missile complex for the Strategic Missile Forces, as a response to the threat the European Missile Defense System will present between 2018 and 2020,” said Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the Natsionalnaya Oborona magazine and director of the Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT).
“By that time, the European Missile Defense System will be able to intercept Russian ICBMs, thanks to new versions of its SM-3 anti-BM missile. Under the circumstances, Moscow has been forced to take adequate countermeasures,” Korotchenko said.

He added that, once deployed, Russia’s missile trains would make it totally impossible for American technical reconnaissance to determine their location.

“Besides mobile surface-based complexes, our country will receive additional potential to launch an effective counterstrike,” said Korotchenko.

He believes that adapting the Bulava, solid-fuel, submarine-launched, ballistic missile for rail would be the optimal course of action, as the missile would fit into a standard railroad freight car — an extremely important consideration in terms of camouflaging the missile trains.

“What’s more, it can be done very quickly, given the available technology,” Korotchenko said.

Yuri Zaitsev, a veteran of both the Strategic Missile Forces and the Russian space program, also believes that the new missile trains will substantially increase the combat potential of the Strategic Missile Forces. Until recently, rail-based ICBMs were an integral part of Russia’s surface-based nuclear deterrence force.

The Soviet Union began testing a missile train armed with the RT-23 solid-fuel missile in February 1983. The train was able to travel more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) per day without being discovered and could launch missiles from any point along its route. A missile train regiment included a train consisting of three locomotives and 17 railcars, with nine platforms carrying missile launchers. Missile trains were expected to become the core of the counterstrike group because of their improved durability and their ability to withstand a first enemy strike.

The first regiment armed with the RT-23UTTH Molodets missile went on combat duty in October 1987. Some 20 missile launchers had been deployed by the middle of 1988, and, in 1999 there were three missile divisions with four regiments each — that is, 36 launchers in total.
The trains were kept in stationary shelters located four kilometers apart. When on combat duty, they were dispersed. The Molodets only performed one live launch throughout its entire history, during a military exercise. A missile fired from the Kostroma region hit a target at Kamchatka. The Americans were unable to track down the train’s coordinates before or after the launch.

The country’s political leadership, which was represented by Mikhail Gorbachev at the time, decided in the early 1990s to suspend combat patrols by missile trains.

Incidentally, according to Zaitsev, the Americans feared missile trains even more than the famous “Satan” missile — the RS-20 ICBM — and did all they could to make them disappear from the Strategic Missile Forces.

START II spelled the end of missile trains. Under the treaty, all RT-23UTTHs were to be scrapped. However, after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Moscow declared the START II null and void, especially since it was never ratified.

Nevertheless, a decision was made shortly afterward to decommission missile trains and gradually dismantle them. The first strategic train was disassembled in Bryansk in June 2003. Two years later, the last train of the Kostroma Missile Division was taken off combat duty and sent to a recycling yard, after spending a year at a storage base.
The fact that Russia has accumulated experience operating missile trains, in addition to a highly developed railway network, make the decision to restore a military railroad missile complex to Russia’s nuclear missile arsenal a logical one.

Russia Beyond the Headlines

I hate rail based anything. With US intel assets, it is easy to trace their storage points. Stick them on a freak'n truck already.

I would say that the best use of rail based missiles would be to go for cruise missiles... you could design it to be fitted to a standard train with a missile of perhaps 6 tons including a large solid rocket booster to get it airborne with a 5 ton missile including external fuel tanks with a flight range of 10,000km+.

Would not be restricted by the INF treaty, would be relatively cheap, and their low weight would make them easy to hide.

In fact making them compatible with a large shipping container means they could be easily stored in sidings with millions of other shipping containers and loaded on as needed and shipped around.

Obviously you want to be careful they don't get loaded on a container ship and sent somewhere, but you could keep them in a secure location and deploy them in times of tension... in times of tension the extra security can be explained as being to prevent a terrorist provocation and applied to all cargo.

The US has impressive intel capacity, but it doesn't have enough resources to destroy all the cargo containers in Russia.

Vladimir79 wrote:I hate rail based anything. With US intel assets, it is easy to trace their storage points. Stick them on a freak'n truck already.

Actually the difficulty of detection of the rail system is one of it's main strengths. When looking for truck mounted systems (whose bases are known) the satellites can focus on an area within a radius of 300-400km from their base (their firing positions). The rail system on the other hand looks like a regular rail carriage and could be launched from any part of Russia's rail system in other words it could be in any part of the country. This also complicates the work of any ABM system.

If they can design the necessary carriages so they can be attached to high speed trains the ability to disperse Russias nuclear deterrent increases dramatically.

Rail based ICBM proved that create more problems that they actually solve, especially after the new vehicle based ICBM came out,
and given the limited numbers of the START treaties makes no sense to waste precious warheads in this project.
I expect this information to be merely smoke in the eyes of the foreign strategists.
Anyway, the modernization and improvisation of the strategic forces seem to be exemplary so far.

Rail based ICBM proved that create more problems that they actually solve, especially after the new vehicle based ICBM came out,

The main problem with previous attempts at rail mounted ICBMs was that the missiles themselves were so heavy they required specialised carriages and specialised tracks to operate.

With modern composites and new fuels and new materials and modern electronics standard carriages can be used which makes things much easier and cheaper... and much more difficult to discern from other rail traffic.

Russia Looks to Revive Nuclear Missile Trains to Counter U.S. Attack Capability


George Shuklin / WikicommonsThe last surviving RT-23 missile perched above its railway based launcher at the Central Museum of Railway Transport in St. Petersburg

Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces are considering bringing back iconic Soviet-era nuclear missile trains as Moscow pumps money into a complete overhaul its aging nuclear arsenal.

According to an unidentified source in the Russian military-industrial complex quoted by the TASS news agency on Thursday, the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology — makers of the Topol, Yars and Bulava missiles — is designing a next-generation missile launching train.

"While the decision to start manufacturing [missile trains] is still pending, the probability is high that it will happen," the source was quoted as saying, explaining that technical studies and cost estimates are still being conducted.

"In the best-case scenario, they will be deployed by the end of the decade, probably somewhere around 2019," he said.

The Russian nuclear forces are the prime beneficiaries of Moscow's sweeping 20 trillion ruble ($500 billion) military rearmament drive, with authorities pledging to completely modernize the country's arsenal with new rockets better suited to respond to modern threats.

The Soviet Union began deploying nuclear missile trains in 1987. The trains used RT-23 Molodets missiles, built by the giant Yuzhmash machine building plant located in modern day Ukraine. By the time the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, 56 of the missiles were deployed on missile trains. Ukraine stopped building RT-23s, and by 2005 Russia had decommissioned all of them.

In December last year, Lieutenant General Sergei Karakayev of the Strategic Rocket Forces said that the U.S. Prompt Global Strike program was forcing Russia to begin conducting studies on putting the concept back into practice.

Prompt Global Strike refers to the development by the U.S. of hypersonic missiles that will be capable of fast, high precision strikes anywhere on the globe.

In this context, missile trains make a lot of sense for Russian defense strategists. One of the key elements of any nuclear war plan is the ability of your nuclear forces to survive a first strike from an opponent and counterattack with devastating force.

A missile train would increase the survivability of Russia's nuclear arsenal, complicating efforts to locate its missiles by moving them quickly and consistently around the country.

From memory the main issues with ICBM trains was the size and weight of the ICBMs requiring special train carriages to be made... they were just too big and heavy.

With modern technologies making them smaller and lighter putting them on train carriages is much more practical... the ideal is to create them so that they look and operate like other train carriages which would make them harder to spot.

As you can imagine the idea of the cruise missile in the shipping container wouldn't really work if it had a special shipping container that was twice as wide and twice as long as a standard container. All the handling and storing equipment would not work and they would stand out from other containers.

It is the same with ICBM trains.

the interesting thing is that the train could have Pantsir and TOR and BUK and even S-350 or S-400 and S-500 on board to help protect it...

Work on Russia's railway-based Barguzin missile in progress — commander

Railway missile systems armed with Molodets solid propellant rockets were withdrawn from service in 2005.

VLASIKHA, Moscow Region, December 16. /TASS/. The schematic design of Russia’s future railway-based combat missile complex Barguzin, to be recreated under the president’s decision, has been finalized and work is now in progress on design documentation, the commander of Russia’s strategic missile force, Colonel-General Sergey Karakayev, said on Tuesday.

“Creation of the newest railway-based missile is underway in accordance with the presidential instructions. It is being developed exclusively at enterprises of the national defence-industrial complex. It will embody the latest achievements in combat missile building,” Karakayev said.

The work on the Barguzin complex is proceeding “in strict compliance with the approved schedule.”

“At the moment the industry is designing the complex and manufacturing the hardware for testing. It should be noted that the schematic design phase is over and design documentation is being developed,” Karakayev said.

Barguzin is being developed at the Moscow-based Institute of Thermal Engineering. Previously, it delivered the Bulava missile.

Karakayev said Barguzin will build up from the experience of its Soviet predecessor. Such railway complexes armed with solid propellant rockets Molodets were withdrawn from service in 2005.

The strategic missile force commander said Barguzin would considerably surpass its predecessor in terms of accuracy, flight range and other parameters, which will allow to keep it operational at least till 2040.

Karakayev said the strategic missile force would in fact re-create a multi-component group on the basis of three missile complexes based in silos, on mobile truck chassis and on railway cars.

They're actually going to go with a whole new ICBM project for the railway-based complex?

Ain't that just a little wasteful?

I mean they have the Avangard & Sarmat under development & testing
Bulava & Liner having just entered deployment and Yars having been deployed not long before that
Bark was in the testing stages before it was cancelled, and so its technology is also around
Even the Topol-M is very much a new ICBM; far newer than any American ICBMs in service today

I realise I included SLBMs as well but they are very closely related to ICBMs and with some adaption can be modified for land-based use too I would think - even this would still be a better option than actually developing a new ICBM class specifically for trains. But of course the best option is just to use something like the Avangard - which by all accounts will be smaller than the Yars and certainly the Sarmat, and should be mountable on a train platform.

Hopefully the "Barguzin' codeword is just a codeword for the adaption of an existing or soon to be existing missile to the rail-platform in the same way as the Iskander-K was really just an adaption of the Kalibr-M to a land-based platform

flamming_python wrote:They're actually going to go with a whole new ICBM project for the railway-based complex?

Ain't that just a little wasteful?

I mean they have the Avangard & Sarmat under development & testing

You are wrong. RS-24 or Yars will be used. Nothing new.

A newer lighter accurate train mounted ICBM would be a very formidable system and would make truck based ICBMs relatively obsolete.

The distance a train can move in 30 minutes is rather greater than a truck can move and if it can be made on a single carriage that can be made to look like a standard carriage then the best analogy would not be with Iskander, but with the cargo container based cruise missile carriers... one of millions used world wide all the time.

GarryB wrote:A newer lighter accurate train mounted ICBM would be a very formidable system and would make truck based ICBMs relatively obsolete.

The distance a train can move in 30 minutes is rather greater than a truck can move and if it can be made on a single carriage that can be made to look like a standard carriage then the best analogy would not be with Iskander, but with the cargo container based cruise missile carriers... one of millions used world wide all the time.

probably , modified bulavas on railwagons , the surplus capacity is there for the missile and aditional equipment.
http://eng.transafe.ru/info/zd_kont/rail%20vagons_eng.pdf?PHPSESSID=d4809caa34bc498357d67e4acd290b58

Russia’s future railway-based system Barguzin to carry 6 ballistic missiles

MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/.
One train of Russia's future railway-based combat missile system Barguzin will carry up to six intercontinental ballistic missiles and will be equivalent to a regiment, a defense source told TASS on Friday.
"One regiment of the recreated new-generation Barguzin system will be able to carry six Yars or Yars-M intercontinental ballistic missiles," the source said.
He added that one Barguzin division will comprise five regiments.
Barguzin, which is being developed at the Moscow-based Institute of Thermal Engineering, is expected to enter service in 2018-2019.
A former Strategic Missile Force chief of staff, Viktor Yesin, has told TASS earlier that Barguzin is Russia’s response to the United States’ deployment of the anti-ballistic missile defence.
Russia withdrew railway-based inter-continental ballistic missiles from operation in 2005. At the moment research and development work is in progress on Barguzin, which is expected to remain in active service at least till 2040.

http://itar-tass.com/en/russia/769357

GarryB wrote:

.bloody hell, sounds like something out of the darkest days of the cold war. I wonder if that's where we're headed...

Very low carbon emissions...  

Not at the point of impact....

Russia Makes Nuke Trains For Rapid Transit of A-Bombs

Russia says that it is building the train equivalent of a nuclear submarine.The “nuke trains“, or BZhRK, which stands for ‘combat railway missile complex’ in Russian, will be a massive platform train capable of transporting nuclear weapons at rapid speeds across the massive country to their launch destination.This is not the first time a country has created such nuclear transport devices – nuclear trains were created by the former Soviet Union but decommissioned after it’s dissolution.