Russia might bring ICBM on trains

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Why do you think so?
Well this took me a while to see. Russia has more then enough ICBM projects on-going right now. The Topol family is still in production (including the Yars), the Avangard is a new ICBM, and apparently in addition to that a new liquid-fueled ICBM is planned. There's no need for yet another future ICBM project.
 

supermaster

New Member
Just Want to claryfy the story

Does any members know about the yesterday meteor strike the Chelyabinsk has been missile by Russia Air Force before fall to land? I just picked up the story from one of local trusted media written down in Indonesia Language,

"VIVAnews - Hujan meteor mengacaukan wilayah Ural di Rusia pada Jumat pagi waktu setempat. Tiga kota langsung panik saat ledakan meteor menghancurkan kaca-kaca rumah dan mematikan jaringan telepon seluler.

Diberitakan Russia Times yang mengutip sumber yang tidak disebutkan namanya, meteor itu dihancurkan oleh jet tempur angkatan udara Rusia saat meluncur menuju Kota Chelyabinsk. Rudal salvo yang ditembakkan membuat meteor itu hancur berkeping-keping di ketinggian 20 kilometer di udara.

Ledakan disertai kilatan cahaya itu terlihat di hingga wilayah Tyumen dan Sverdlovsk, Republik Bashkiria dan di utara Kazakhstan. Warga mengatakan, ledakannya sangat keras, mereka mengira itu adalah gempa bumi atau petir.

"Kaca jendela rumah saya hancur, saya kira itu adalah pesawat jatuh, lalu saya pikir lagi itu adalah UFO, perkiraan terakhir saya, ini gempa bumi," kata seorang warga, Katya Grechannikova.

Saksi mata di kota Emanzhilinsk, sekitar 50 kilometer dari Chelyabinsk, mengatakan melihat benda terbang yang tiba-tiba terbakar dan hancur lalu menghujani bumi. Awan hitam sisa ledakan juga terlihat menggantung di udara. Warga juga mengaku mencium bau bubuk mesiu. Alarm mobil-mobil
berbunyi karena getaran.

Sebuah pecahan meteor menyebabkan kerusakan di wilayah Chelyabinsk. Laporan awal menyebutkan, meteor menghantam dinding pabrik seng dan menyebabkan kerusakan pada jaringan internet dan telepon seluler.

Karyawan perkantoran di Chelyabinsk telah dievakuasi. Korban luka dilaporkan terdapat di sebuah SMP, diduga karena pecahan kaca. Belum diketahui pasti berapa jumlah korban luka.

Sebanyak 20.000 tim penyelamat diturunkan ke seluruh wilayah. Tiga pesawat tempur diturunkan untuk menyisir lokasi, melihat adanya kemungkinan kerusakan. Polisi di berbagai kota juga dimaksimalkan, untuk melindungi infrastruktur vital.

Pemerintah mengeluarkan imbauan agar para orangtua menjemput anak mereka di sekolah dan tetap berada di rumah. Kementerian Bencana Alam setempat mengatakan bahwa peristiwa ini akibat fenomena hujan meteor.

Belum diketahui rincian soal meteor tersebut, besarnya dan kecepatannya. "Menurut data awal, kilatan cahaya itu adalah akibat dari hujan meteor. Kami masih mengumpulkan informasi terkait hal ini, data kerusakannya belum ada," ujar pernyataan Kementerian tersebut. (umi)"

If its true does anybody what type of fighter jets and missile being fired upon the meteor?
Sorry don't know where to put my thread. Thank you before for the answer.
 

SteelTiger 177

New Member
Why would the Russians want to go abck to liquid fuelled ICBMS.If i remember liquid fuelled missles took a long time to prep for launch and were vunerable to air attack when compaired to solid fuels missles were much easier to ready for launch.Plus Railway launchers are also vulnerable to attack by air (both on ther move and while stationary) and to special ops arids while being stationary.The truly protected missles in the Russian military are the slbms on board their remaing Typhoons and Delta-4 Subs.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
The Topol family is pretty good too, given their mobility, and dispersion.

Also heavy liquid fuel missiles can carry much more in the way of penetration aids, decoys, etc. Finally bigger payload matters too. I don't know what the prep time for them is like.

An afterthought, train launchers might make some sense if they can use existing Topol family designs and simply mount them on train-TELs. Then they wouldn't need a new ICBM, just some adaptations to the launcher mechanism for railway travel. But I'm still not sure if it would offer any major advantage over regular Topol style TELs.
 

Lcf

Member
Why would the Russians want to go abck to liquid fuelled ICBMS.If i remember liquid fuelled missles took a long time to prep for launch and were vunerable to air attack when compaired to solid fuels missles were much easier to ready for launch.Plus Railway launchers are also vulnerable to attack by air (both on ther move and while stationary) and to special ops arids while being stationary.The truly protected missles in the Russian military are the slbms on board their remaing Typhoons and Delta-4 Subs.
Then why stop on railway launchers, why not raid all their missile silos as well? As for the submarines, with that approach while having in mind US's supremacy in air thanks to all those aircraft carriers, one could also think that sub. capabilities could be reduced to zero as well because the submarines principal adversary is aviation.
In any case, it was originally thought that missiles launched from the moving trains were harder to track than stationary launches.
As for the liquid-fuel ballistic missiles, even though more expensive and complex to use than their solid-fuel counterparts, they can have bigger payloads, more electronic equipment necessary for suppression of anti-ballistic missile systems, as part of their payload etc.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
The Topol family is pretty good too, given their mobility, and dispersion.

Also heavy liquid fuel missiles can carry much more in the way of penetration aids, decoys, etc. Finally bigger payload matters too. I don't know what the prep time for them is like.

An afterthought, train launchers might make some sense if they can use existing Topol family designs and simply mount them on train-TELs. Then they wouldn't need a new ICBM, just some adaptations to the launcher mechanism for railway travel. But I'm still not sure if it would offer any major advantage over regular Topol style TELs.
It's like I can see the future or something. Missile trains are indeed coming back with existing Yars missiles being mounted on train-TELs disguised as refrigerator cars.

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Lenta.ru:
 

Rimasta

Member
It's like I can see the future or something. Missile trains are indeed coming back with existing Yars missiles being mounted on train-TELs disguised as refrigerator cars.

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Lenta.ru:
The Russians have said this is their response to the U.S. Air Force's Global Strike initiative, using minuteman 3's with conventional warheads and future hypersonic weapon systems. They are contracting the same folks who developed the Bulva missile to begin the program next year. The article is on defencetalk, just got posted. It appears the Russians feel nuclear weapons are an appropriate response to a conventional strike on a strategic assets. I say that is a dangerous precedent, and it's puzzling to me, do they honestly believe the US/NATO is planning or preparing for a conflict with Russia? Given the drastic cuts to defense throughout most of the Alliance, I don't think anyone is contemplating a strike on Russia.

Any idea why they seem so paranoid of a apparent attack? Is it purely internal politics generating an image of a foreign enemy? Also, given the Russian launchers are mobile, at least a great many are, why not stick to that then branch off into rail deployable as well. I think you are right, they are spending, no wasting, money better invested into other areas of the strategic rocket forces.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Well it's that there is no way for an early warning system to distinguish between an ICBM with a nuclear warhead and a conventional warhead. Plus Russia has very few ways of countering modern US strike assets, be they in the form of VLO aircraft, or cruise missiles. Russia has little desire to see these already problematic capabilities augmented with a strategic strike capability using next-generation munitions and platforms. If they can make it politically problematic for the US to deploy these sorts of assets, they can make it impractical for the US to use it.

Also, Russia has had a first use policy for quite some time now. If Russian sovereignty or existence as a state is threatened even by non-nuclear means, Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons.

As for NATO, you're right. European NATO is certainly in no position to pull this off. The US on the other hand is an entirely different story.

Now the road-mobile ICBMs are in known deployment sectors, very large, and can be spotted from a long way away (from orbit). There are ways to hide them, and there are decoys for them, but ultimately they're considered to be too vulnerable. The advantage of the railroad-based complex is that a Yars missile fits inside a regular refrigerator car. From space, from air, it looks like a normal refrigerator car.

As for money spent, if they can pull it off with existing missiles, the costs could be fairly low.
 
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