Russia prepares replacement for soviet-era railway-based missiles
RT
Aplril 23, 2013
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 design bureau that developed Russia’s most modern ballistic missiles the Bulava, Topol and Yars, has started research and development of the new project – the railway car based ICBM – Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov told the press on Tuesday.
Currently work is at a primary stage and does not require significant investment. The overall costs to design a completely new railway-based missile has not yet been determined, he added.
If complete and launched into production, the missile would replace the RT-24 system, also known as SS-24 Scalpel – the intercontinental weapon disguised as an ordinary freight train, which made its detection and preemptive destruction extremely difficult.
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. …
Read on: http://rt.com/politics/redesigns-missiles-railway-based-soviet-era-243/
