Page 33 - january

PROFESSIONAL ADVICE

placement of the RT-23 on a railroad chassis. The design of the launch car is unique. The load on
its wheelsets was already 1.5 times higher than that established by the regulatory documents
of the Ministry of Railways. Immediately at the moment of launch, the load first increased
sharply, and then just as rapidly decreased by a hundred tons. In order to prevent this from
destroying the launch vehicle on wheels, a special 3-car coupling was created: now of start, two
neighboring cars first support the launch vehicle, and then, on the contrary, load it up against
the rails.
Equally unusual is the design of the rocket itself. Since it had to be "driven" into the rigidly
specified dimensions of the carrier car, the layout was calculated literally down to a millimeter.
All the same, in order to fit into the dimensions, I had to "reduce" to the head fairing, which
eventually became "inflatable", it changes geometry after the missile left the container. The
rocket has an original nose fairing with variable geometry. The metal corrugated insert, under
the action of internal pressure created by a special pressure accumulator, straightened in flight,
taking the form of a cone of rotation. This solution is used to reduce the overall length of the
rocket and its placement in the car. Unusual deflection maneuver of the rocket at the moment of
the first stage main engine launch The need for this "dance" is connected not so much with care
for the safety of the launch car, but with the fact that otherwise
the railway tracks themselves will fail: a jet of rocket gases will
neatly sweep away all the rubble within a radius of the nearest
100 m. Therefore, after launch, the complex can take the form of
the original conventional train, restore the contact network, and
continue to move in the prescribed direction.
But the "rocket train" also has a unique command module,
a feature of which is increased protection against powerful
electromagnetic radiation from the contact network. For it, unique
special communications antennas have been developed, which
are guaranteed to ensure the reception of combat control signals
through the radio transparent roofs of the cars. It was impossible
to take them outside in any way, since the BZHRK should be like
a regular train in everything. Finally, the full autonomy of the
"rocket train" has been ensured during its outings on combat
patrol routes, the length of which reaches 1.5-2 thousand km.
Calculations carried out by American specialists in relation to the
railway version of the MX ICBM basing for the US railway network
show that with the dispersal of 25 trains (twice as many as Russia
had in service) on railway sections with a total length of 120
thousand km ( which is much longer than the length of the main
track of Russian railways), the probability of a train hitting is only
10% when 150 Voevoda-type ICBMs are used for an attack. The
Fig. 5. Rocket "Molodets" in a combat complex has undergone various tests and trial runs, receiving
position.
excellent marks all the time.

Stanochniy park 33