New Russian-made Barguzin railway-based missile system could be operational in 2020 TASS 12112151

Defence & Security News - Russia
 
New Russian-made Barguzin railway-based missile system could be operational in 2020.
The Russian-made Barguzin railway-based combat missile system will be made operational no sooner than 2020, a source in the defense and industrial sector told TASS on Monday, December 21, 2015
     
The Russian-made Barguzin railway-based combat missile system will be made operational no sooner than 2020, a source in the defense and industrial sector told TASS on Monday, December 21, 2015 Military railway missile complex 15P961 Molodets with RT-23 UTTKh ICBM
     
"Works to develop the Barguzin railway-based combat missile system have been postponed for more than a year due to a difficult financial situation and budget restrictions. This concerns all work stages, including R&D, production and test works. Therefore, the development of the new railway-based combat missile system will be completed by 2020 at the best," the source said.

The combat strength of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces at the turn of 2019-2020 will be increased to 13 missile divisions by means of creating a joint formation with the Barguzin rail-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile systems,

Russian Strategic Missile Force Commander Colonel-General Sergei Karakayev said earlier that the Barguzin railway-based combat missile system might be made operational in 2019.

According to him, its preliminary design has been done and the design documentation is currently being worked out.

Another source told TASS earlier that a single Barguzin railway-based combat missile system might comprise six intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) developed on the basis of the RS-24 Yars solid-propellant ICBM and would be regarded as a regiment.

According to the source, a missile division furnished with Barguzin railway-based combat missile systems is expected to comprise five regiments.

The RT-23 (NATO reporting name SS-24 Scalpel) was the previous version of Soviet-made railway missile system developed and produced before 1991.

A typical missile launch train was composed of three M62-class locomotives (a standard diesel electric locomotive of the period), followed by generating power car, command car, support car, and three missile launch vehicles, forming a nine-car set. The missile launcher has the shape of a refrigerator car, and the service cars are converted passenger carriages.

The SS-24 has a maximum range of 10,000 m using a three-stage missile that uses solid fuel and thrust vectoring for the first stage, with 10 MIRV warheads, each with a 550–kt yield.
     
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