BZhRK "Barguzin" railway ICBM

It does not need tunnels.

All it needs is a track siding that goes off to the side of the main track anywhere along its length, where they can dig up the ground and make the train go down into a culvert... much like the open topped aircraft shelters so that hitting one wont damage even the one beside it and when there are hundreds or even thousands you can't hit them all or even a reasonable percentage of them.

Light camouflage structures could be positioned over top if you want to make them look empty no matter whether there is something inside or not.

During peace time such sidings could be used to allow trains on a single rail to pass each other...

Railcars are much cheaper than subs. No need to hide them in tunnels. There are not enough warheads to hit every train station and side track in Siberia or the high North. They could also use false (empty) railcars to trick the enemy. The west would waste quite a few missiles and warheads and achieve nothing.

And Russia already has subs with SLBM´s. And soon propably missiles on the ocean floor.

What is your fixation with tunnels?

A rail system for nukes does not need tunnels to be safe... just like the road system for TOPOL did not need tunnels to be effective.

You seem to have a very high opinion of the effectiveness of nukes... these train based missiles are not submarines and they are not bomber aircraft... if the US launches an attack on Russia or for what ever reason Russia decides to use its nuclear weapons those trains can simply stop at the nearest siding... raise all their missiles and launch all their missiles within 3-5 minutes... even if the US had a spy onboard the fucking train telling the Pentagon exactly where the train was and the time it actually launched its missiles that information would be useless because the US has nothing and will have nothing that could do anything about it.

Even global strike would be useless.

The simple matter of fact even if you take a 20km stretch of track anywhere along these thousands of kms of rail line a missile train could park up on a siding that is parallel to the main track... it could go out 50m from the main track and fully parallel to that line and they could dig it out so it descends down 5 metres so it goes down below ground level. That means that if a US warhead hits within 200m it will be destroyed.... but if it misses by 1km the blast wave will go completely over top and not effect the train itself... it could still raise its missiles and launch them.

Now think about 5,000km of track with thousands of these sidings... which are useful for trains that need to stop for whatever reason but you don't want blocking the line... you would have to aim a warhead at every single siding because in the event of a nuclear war all of the trains are going to use these sidings for protection and cover... blowing up sections of track to stop trains passing is not enough because they could launch from anywhere.

Most tunnels have ventilation systems so people trapped inside will be fine... special sidings inside to allow passing or stops and alternative exits would mean anyone inside could easily get out... it would be a sensible precaution for normal train traffic in case of a land slip or terrorist attack.

The MX system was not a functioning rail system... it was a military system that was just a ring rail network that didn't do anything... Russia would not have even fired upon it because by the time Russian missiles got there the missiles would have been launched anyway... much more sense to hit US cities and population centres...

BTW I hope they choose the Chinese to develop high speed trains with... more experience and much more sanctions proof...

And nuclear powered trains... whoo hoo....  

But as a 2014 RAND study pointed out, rail and truck launchers have their drawbacks. Maintaining a missile on a train is more difficult than in a silo, while rail lines and roads can be blocked by snow, which tends to restrict railroad ICBMs to warmer climates.

They will be confusing Russian systems with US ones... Russian railways need to be kept operational because they are being continuously used.... in fact fitting a jet engine from an aircraft on the nose of the front of the train to blow away debris or snow and ice is not the most impossible thing to do.

Equally they could fit a few extra carriages with S-350 and S-500 missiles on board so the train can defend itself from missile attack.

In addition, because there are only a limited number of rail lines and highways in an area, enemy surveillance can focus on a few areas. And, once located, mobile missiles are more vulnerable than ICBMs in hardened silos.

There are even fewer Submarines and fewer still Silo bases... the point is that the enemy can watch all it wants... the key is to make all the trains look similar enough that they don't know at any one time which is equipped with nuclear missiles and which not.

You see WWIII is different for the US than for the Russians... the Russians really don't give a shit about hitting US silos. The vast majority of Russian missiles will hit US major population centres... they want to kill Americans basically... because they know that if they can do that then the American people wont want a nuclear war because there would be no way for them to win.

For the US military they want a first strike capability that will take out enough of the enemies nuclear capability so that any retaliation will be limited so their ABM system can reduce it to something acceptable.

The problem with the US method is that whether they achieved it or not... if they think they have achieved it then the risk of a real nuclear war gets close to 100% because they might think they will never get another chance like this again.

The advantage of the Russian method is that they wont try.

So the US talks about smart weapons and surgical strikes and superiority in space and at sea etc etc, while Russia explores revenge systems that can continue to damage the US even after WWIII has finished and the survivors are crawling out of the smoking ruins cursing their political leadership for letting it get to this...

Of course the US is dead set of dropping the INF treaty and the new start treaty is likely dead too so Russia needs to look at different ways of rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal and rapidly deploying these weapons so they are not centralised and easy targets. Being able to run 300km in one hour means dispersal speed will be much better for trains that for anything except aircraft deployed weapons.

Now, how these BM trains r better than the road mobile TELs which can spend weeks in the taiga/tundra & also launch BMs from their garages through openings in the roof?

Because the roads in the Taiga and Tundra are either normal or nuclear roads... turns and corners on a road can be wide or narrow... for a 16 wheel truck they can only be wide... so follow all the wide angle corner roads in the middle of nowhere and you can usually get an idea of where the ICBM trucks are.

Rail means the vehicles can move much faster and much further.

They might build 500 sidings that can be used by other trains to pass or to rest or to let tourists out to see the terrain they are passing through... half of those sidings could be military only... that means 250 nuke warheads alone needed to ensure all the sidings are hit... but even then that does not guarantee anything... what if they are on the rail when the warheads hit but miles away... they could be 300km away from where they were spotted an hour ago and even if they are not moving... it would probably only take them 5 minutes to launch their missiles anyway...

Hitting empty trains is a waste of nukes.

They are spending lots of money developing the Arctic... a lot of their northern ports are reporting a huge increase in operations... putting in rail lines to these places and expanding the rail system would be good for the region and greatly increase the number of areas they could operate ICBM trains... and soon now IRBM trains of course... thanks to Trump...

New game called Metro Exodus... it is set in 2036 in the future after a nuclear war... you play a Russian in a group that travel across Russia on a train looking for survivors and allies and fighting monsters and fanatics... have seen different trailers and it seems as you recruit more people and travel further the train gets longer as you add bits... looks like fun...

They don't need to be that fast... they just need to get the signal to fire and to launch their weapons within about 4 minutes of getting the order and that is good enough to do the job... they don't need to survive WWIII... they just need to get the signal and launch when ordered to...

Barguzin is canceled.

They'll need to survive sabotage, enemy SF, derailments, accidents, & other dangers on/off the road. To reduce all those, if they r inducted, they could start moving them around during heightened tensions; the rest of time keeping them parked in tunnels &/ well camouflaged shelters would be enough.

It is a rail system... connect all their military bases by rail... even relatively small ones and move the missile trains between the bases regularly... and also move material and men via trains that look exactly the same... add carriages with troops to protect the trains.

With the end of the INF treaty they could put IRBMs on there too... they could add enormous numbers of missiles per train.

In fact they could add secret military carriages to all trains... they could all be empty most of the time, while during periods of heightened tensions they could be be used to transfer troops or ammo or whatever.

In fact they could be used to track down and eliminate SF teams...

Barguzin is canceled.

No it isn't.

Procurement of the Barguzin was postponed to pump more money into the Sarmat. After Sarmat is put into the service Barguzin will be back.