BZHRK of the new generation “well done” and “Barguzin”: history, design and performance characteristics. How does a rocket train work?

BZHRK on the patrol route / Photo: Press service of the Strategic Missile Forces

In 2020, the Russian armed forces will receive a new generation of trains with ballistic missile launchers. The Barguzin combat missile system will be armed with six RS-24 Yars missiles against the three Scalpel ICBMs of its predecessor, the Molodets BZHRK.

It will be impossible to detect the train - in addition to modern camouflage means, it will be equipped with electronic warfare systems and other devices that increase secrecy. The divisional set of the BZHRK will consist of five trains, each of which will be equivalent to a regiment.

Former Chief of the Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces Viktor Esin / Photo: Press service of the Strategic Missile Forces

“The creation of Barguzin is the Russian response to the deployment by the Americans of a global missile defense system,” says former Chief of the Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces Viktor Yesin.

Previously, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel General Sergei Karakaev, spoke about the adoption of the Barguzin in 2019, but the timing of work on the creation of the train has been delayed by a year due to the difficult financial situation. The preliminary design of the BZHRK has been created, and design documentation is being developed. In 2017, Vladimir Putin will be presented with a detailed report on the topic and a plan for the deployment of missile trains.

The Barguzin BZHRK will be armed with six RS-24 Yars missiles against the three Scalpel ICBMs of its predecessor, the Molodets BZHRK / Image: oko-planet.su

“The new BZHRK will significantly exceed its predecessor “Molodets” in accuracy, missile flight range and other characteristics. This will allow this complex to be in operation for many years, at least until 2040. combat strength Strategic Missile Forces. Thus, the troops are returning to a three-service grouping containing mine, mobile and railway-based complexes,” said S. Karakaev.

Sergey Karakaev / Photo: Press service of the Strategic Missile Forces

Of the 12 Soviet missile trains, 10 were destroyed in accordance with the START-2 treaty, two were transferred to museums. They were replaced by mobile ground-based missile systems "Topol-M", which are significantly inferior to trains in mobility and invulnerability. At the same time, it is not difficult to restore the BZHRK system: unique technical solutions and design developments, ground infrastructure - including rock tunnels, where no reconnaissance will find the train and a nuclear strike will not reach it.

Elusive "Well done"

According to legend, the idea of ​​using trains to launch ballistic missiles was given to the Soviet Union by the Americans. After the creation of railways in the USA missile systems The project was considered expensive, difficult to implement and impractical, the CIA proposed to misinform Soviet intelligence: they say, such trains are being created in America - and let the Russians pump billions into the utopia.

The operation was carried out, but its result was unexpected - the Soviet Union created the Molodets missile trains, which immediately became a headache for the Pentagon. To track them, a constellation of satellites was put into orbit, and in the late 80s - when the BZHRKs had already started their routes - a container with tracking equipment was sent from Vladivostok to Sweden by rail under the guise of commercial cargo. Soviet counterintelligence officers quickly “figured out” the container and removed it from the train. American General Colin Powell once admitted to the creator of the BZHRK, academician Alexei Utkin: “Looking for your missile trains is like a needle in a haystack.”

Photo: vk.com

Indeed, the BZHRKs that went on combat duty instantly disappeared among the thousands of trains traveling along the extensive railway network of the Soviet Union. Externally, "Molodets" was disguised as an ordinary mixed train: passenger cars, mail cars, silver refrigerators.

True, some cars had not four pairs of wheels, but eight - but you can’t count them from a satellite. The BZHRK was driven by three diesel locomotives. So as not to be conspicuous, in the late 80s large freight trains began to drive three-section locomotives. By 1994, there were 12 BZHRKs in service with three missiles each.

Collapsible rocket

During the creation of “Well done,” a lot of difficult problems had to be solved. The length of the car with the launcher should not exceed 24 meters - otherwise it will not fit into the railway infrastructure. The USSR did not make such short ballistic missiles. The most compact ICBM weighs over 100 tons. How to prevent a train with three launchers from crushing the railway tracks? How to save a train from the hellfire of a launching rocket? There is a contact network above the rails - how to bypass it? And these are not all the questions that arose for the designers.

The creation of the BZHRK was carried out by the famous academic brothers Alexey and Vladimir Utkin. The first one made a train, the second one made a rocket for it. For the first time in the USSR, ICBMs were made solid fuel, with a multiple warhead. The RT-23 (according to NATO classification SS-24 Scalpel) consisted of three stages and threw 10 thermonuclear warheads with a yield of 500 kilotons each over 11 thousand kilometers. In order for the Scalpel to fit in a railway carriage, the nozzles and fairing were made retractable.

Retractable rocket nozzles / Photo: vk.com

While Vladimir Utkin was inventing a folding rocket, his brother Alexey was working on a sliding train. The Special Engineering Design Bureau designed a launcher with a lifting capacity of 135 tons on four biaxial bogies. Part of its weight was transferred to neighboring cars. The carriage was disguised as a refrigerator with fake sliding doors on the sides. In fact, the roof opened, and powerful hydraulic jacks came out from under the bottom, resting on the concrete slabs on the sides of the railway track. The BZHRK was equipped with unique retractable devices that diverted the contact wire to the side. In addition, the area where the launch took place was de-energized.

The rocket's launch was a mortar launch: a powder charge ejected the Scalpel from the launch container to a height of 20 meters, a correction charge diverted the nozzles away from the train, the first stage engine turned on, and with a smoke trail characteristic of solid-fuel rockets, the SS-24 went into the sky. Invisible and invulnerable By 1991, three missile divisions with 12 BZHRKs were deployed: in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Kostroma and Perm regions. Within a radius of 1,500 kilometers from the locations of the connections, the railway track was modernized: wooden sleepers were replaced with reinforced concrete ones, heavy rails were laid, embankments were strengthened with denser crushed stone.

When not on combat duty, the BZHRKs were in shelter. Then they moved to a certain point on the railway network and divided into three. The locomotives were diverted launchers to the starting points - they were usually located around the point in a triangle. Each train included a fuel tank (also disguised as a refrigerator) and a pipeline system that allowed the locomotives to be refueled while on the move. There were also sleeping cars for crews, supplies of water and food. The autonomy of the rocket train was 28 days.

Having worked out the launch of missiles at one point, the train was sent to the next - there were more than 200 of them in the Soviet Union. In a day, the BZHRK could travel over a thousand kilometers. For reasons of secrecy, routes were laid past large stations, and if it was absolutely impossible to avoid them, rocket trains passed them without stops and at dawn, when there were fewer people. The railway workers called the BZHRK “train number zero”.

Since the rocket train was planned as a retaliatory strike weapon, the "Shine" experiments were carried out in 1991 - on the impact electromagnetic radiation, - and "Shift". The latter simulated a kiloton nuclear explosion. At the training ground in Plesetsk, 650 meters from the BZHRK, 100 thousand anti-tank mines, taken from warehouses in eastern Germany and laid in a 20-meter pyramid, were detonated. At the site of the explosion, a crater with a diameter of 80 meters was formed, the sound pressure level in the habitable compartments of the BZHRK reached the pain threshold (150 decibels). One of the launchers showed removal from readiness, but after rebooting the on-board computer complex, it launched the rocket.

Among the variety of strategic launch systems in service with the leading countries of the world, the combat railway missile system (abbreviated as BZHRK) is experiencing a rebirth these days. There are a number of reasons that contribute to this, but before we touch on them, let’s consider what this development of the modern defense industry is. Along the way, we will try to find out what happened to the nuclear trains of past years.

What is BZHRK?

First of all, this is a train, the carriages of which contain not passengers hurrying on vacation or a business trip, and not cargo expected in different parts of the country, but deadly missiles, equipped with nuclear warheads to make their strikes more effective. Their number varies depending on the size of the complex.

However, there are also passengers - these are technical personnel servicing the combat railway missile system, as well as units whose task is to protect it. Some of the cars are designed to accommodate all kinds of technological and other systems for successfully launching missiles and hitting targets anywhere in the world.

Since such a train, filled with deadly cargo, is akin to warship, it is often given a name, which is then used as a proper name. For example, 15P961 “Well done.” If the first part of the name is not quite easy to pronounce, and is not immediately remembered, then the second is quite harmonious and familiar to the ear. I even want to add the word “kind” to it, but in relation to a complex capable of destroying an average European state in a matter of minutes, this adjective is hardly acceptable.

A dozen “Well done” guarding the Motherland

There were twelve such dashing “Well done” people in our country between 1987 and 1994. All of them were on combat duty for strategic purposes and, in addition to the main name, had one more, found only in technical documentation, - RT 23 UTTH. Over the following years, one after another they were removed from service and dismantled, so that by 2007 only two of their glorious squad remained, placed in the Museum of the Russian Armed Forces.

By the way, the RT 23 UTTH became the only complex in the Soviet Union that went into mass production. The development of such combat systems was carried out over several decades, but only in the eighties were they brought to the stage that made it possible to put them into service. To maintain secrecy, trains of this type were given the symbol “train number zero.”

American developments in the same area

It is known that during the Cold War, foreign, in particular American, designers also worked on creating trains carrying atomic death in their carriages. As a result of successful activities Soviet intelligence, as well as the shroud of secrecy that surrounded everything that was connected with the defense industry, in those years the general reader was much more aware of their developments than the achievements of domestic gunsmiths.

What did our valiant Stirlitz soldiers report in their reports? Thanks to them, it is known that in the early sixties, the first solid-fuel intercontinental aircraft, called “Minuteman,” appeared in the United States. Compared to its predecessors, which ran on liquid fuel, it had a number of significant advantages. First of all, there was no need for pre-start refueling; in addition, its resistance to shaking and vibration, which inevitably arose during transportation, was significantly increased.

This made it possible to launch combat missiles directly from moving railway platforms, and make them virtually invulnerable in the event of war. The only difficulty was that the missiles could launch only in strictly defined, specially prepared places, since their guidance system was tied to pre-calculated coordinates.

America in the rays of the “Big Star”

A significant breakthrough that made it possible to create a train with nuclear missiles in the United States was a large-scale operation carried out in 1961 and carried out under the secret name “Big Star”. As part of this event, trains, which were prototypes of the future missile system, moved along the entire network of railways operating in the country.

The purpose of the exercise was to test their mobility and the possibility of maximum dispersion throughout the United States. Upon completion of the operation, its results were summarized, and on their basis a train was designed, the nuclear arsenal of which consisted of five Minuteman missiles.

Abandonment of an already completed project

However, this development was not destined to enter service. It was originally assumed that in 1962 the country's defense industry would produce thirty such trains, armed with a total of one hundred and fifty missiles. But upon completion of the design work, the cost of the project was considered prohibitively high, and as a result it was abandoned.

At that time, silo launchers of solid fuel Minutemen were considered more effective, and they were preferred. Their undeniable advantage was their low cost, as well as fairly reliable protection from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, which in those years did not have the accuracy required to destroy them.

As a result, the project, on which American engineers worked throughout 1961, was closed, and the trains already created on its basis were used to transport the same “Minutemen” from the workshops of manufacturers’ factories to the bases where they were deployed in mines.

Recent developments undertaken in the USA

A new impetus for the creation in America of trains capable of carrying nuclear weapons was the appearance in 1986 of heavy intercontinental missile new generation LGM-118A, also known by its shorter name MX.

By this time, the lethality of Soviet missiles designed to destroy enemy launchers had increased significantly. Due to this Special attention attention was paid to the issue of security of MX placement.

After much debate between supporters of traditional silo deployment and their opponents, a compromise was reached, as a result of which fifty missiles were placed in silos, and the same number on platforms of a new composition specially prepared for this purpose.

However, this development also had no future. In the early nineties, thanks to the democratic changes that took place in our country, the Cold War ended, and the program to create railways nuclear complexes, having lost its relevance, was closed. Currently, such developments are not underway and, apparently, are not planned for the coming years.

New development of Yuzhnoye SDO

However, let's return to our homeland. Now it no longer amounts to military secrets information that the first nuclear train of the USSR began to be created in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Defense, signed in January 1969. The development of this unique project was entrusted to the Yuzhnoye design bureau, which then employed two remarkable Soviet scientists - academicians, siblings Alexey Fedorovich and Oni, who headed the work on the new project.

According to the general plan, the 15P961 “Molodets BZHRK” (combat railway missile system) they created was intended to strike back at the enemy, since its mobility and increased survivability made it possible to hope that it would be able to survive in the event of a surprise nuclear attack by the enemy. The only place where the rockets needed to equip it were produced was the Mechanical Plant in Pavlograd. This most important strategic facility was hidden in those years under the faceless sign of the Yuzhmash Production Association.

Difficulties that arose on the way of developers

In his memoirs, V.F. Utkin wrote that the task assigned to them carried enormous difficulties. They consisted mainly in the fact that the complex had to move along ordinary railway tracks, along with other trains, and yet the weight of even one missile along with its launcher was one hundred and fifty tons.

The creators of the project faced a lot of problems that seemed insoluble at first glance. For example, how to place a rocket in a railway carriage and how to right moment give it a vertical position? How to ensure safety during transportation when it comes to a nuclear charge? Will standard rails, railway embankments and bridges be able to withstand the enormous load created by the passage of a train? Finally, will the train hold up in the moment? The designers had to find comprehensive and unambiguous answers to all these and many other questions.

Ghost trains and those who drove them

The very next year, the train, whose nuclear arsenal consisted of missiles of the 15Zh61 type, was tested in various climatic regions of the country - from deserts Central Asia to polar latitudes. Eighteen times he went out onto the country's railways, covering a total of half a million kilometers and performing combat launches of his rockets at the Plesetsk cosmodrome.

Following the first train, indicated in the schedule as number zero, its twins also appeared. As the tests passed, each such ghost train was put on combat duty in one of the country's missile regiments. The personnel serving it consisted of seventy military personnel.

Civilians were not allowed. Even the seats of the drivers and their assistants were occupied by warrant officers and officers specially trained to drive the train. The nuclear charge of the missiles was under the constant supervision of specialists. By the beginning of 1991, the USSR already had three missile divisions armed with railway missile systems.

They formed a powerful nuclear fist, capable, if necessary, of crushing any enemy. Suffice it to say that each such division had twelve trains carrying nuclear missiles. In those years, the USSR Ministry of Defense did a huge amount of work. Within a radius of one and a half thousand kilometers from the places of deployment of regiments, standard railway rails were replaced with heavier ones that could withstand a missile train, the nuclear cargo of which required additional precautions.

Temporary suspension of BZHRK programs

Significant changes to the patrol routes of the BZHRK were made after the meeting between M. S. Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher, which took place in 1991. Since that time, according to the agreement reached, not a single ghost train has left its permanent location, remaining, nevertheless, in service as a stationary combat unit. As a result of a series of agreements signed in subsequent years, Russia was obliged to remove from service all missiles based on railway trains, thereby abandoning this type of strategic weapons.

"Barguzin" (BZHRK)

However, it is at least premature to talk about Russia’s complete abandonment of missile systems installed on trains. At the end of 2013, information appeared in the media that, as a response to a number of American weapons programs, work on creating missile-carrying trains was being resumed in our country.

In particular, there was talk about new development, made on an advanced technological basis, called “Barguzin” (BZHRK). In all its parameters and intended purpose, it does not fall under the list of restrictions established by the international treaty START-3, and therefore its production does not conflict with the norms of international law.

According to available data, the missile, carrying a nuclear charge and equipped with a multiple warhead, is planned to be placed in a carriage disguised as a standard twenty-four meter long railway refrigerator.

The Barguzin complex is supposed to be armed with Yars-type missiles, previously based on tractors. The advantage of railway deployment in this case is quite obvious. If ground installations are easily detected from space, then this BZHRK system is indistinguishable from an ordinary freight train even upon closer inspection. In addition, moving a railway missile system is several times cheaper than moving a ground missile system based on various types of tractors.

Advantages and disadvantages of BZHRK

Concluding the conversation about railway missile systems, it is appropriate to dwell on the generally recognized advantages and disadvantages of this type of weapon. Among its undeniable advantages, experts note the high mobility of the vehicle, which is capable of covering up to a thousand kilometers per day, changing its location, which is many times greater than the similar performance of tractors. In addition, one should take into account the high carrying capacity of the train, capable of transporting hundreds of tons at a time.

But we cannot discount some of their inherent disadvantages. Among them, we should highlight the difficulty of camouflaging a train, caused by the peculiarities of its configuration, which simplifies the detection of the train using modern satellite reconnaissance tools. In addition, compared to launch silos, the train is less protected from the effects of a blast wave. When nuclear explosion produced anywhere in the vicinity, it may be damaged or knocked over.

And finally, a significant disadvantage of using rolling stock as a carrier of missile systems is the inevitable wear and tear of the railway track in such cases, which prevents the further operation of both the BZHRK themselves and conventional trains. However modern technologies allow us to successfully solve most of the listed problems, and thereby open up prospects further development and modernization of missile-carrying trains.

Combat railway missile system (abbreviated BZHRK) - a type of mobile railway-based strategic missile systems. It is a specially designed train, the carriages of which house strategic missiles (usually intercontinental class), as well as command posts, technological and technical systems, security equipment, personnel ensuring the operation of the complex and its life support systems.

The order “On the creation of a mobile combat railway missile system (BZHRK) with the RT-23 missile” was signed on January 13, 1969. The Yuzhnoye design bureau was appointed as the lead developer. The main designers of the BZHRK were academicians brothers Vladimir and Alexey Utkin. V.F. Utkin, a specialist in solid fuel, designed the launch vehicle. A.F. Utkin designed the launch complex, as well as cars for the rocket-carrying train.

According to the developers, the BZHRK was supposed to form the basis of the retaliatory strike group, since it had increased survivability and could most likely survive after the enemy delivered the first strike. The only place in the USSR that produces missiles for BZHRK is the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant (PO Yuzhmash).

Flight tests of the RT-23UTTH (15Zh61) rocket were carried out in 1985-1987 at the Plesetsk cosmodrome (NIIP-53), a total of 32 launches were made. 18 BZHRK trips were carried out on the country's railways (more than 400,000 kilometers were covered). Tests were carried out in various climatic zones countries (from tundra to deserts).

Each composition of the BZHRK received a missile regiment. The train, which went on combat duty, carried more than 70 military personnel, including several dozen officers. In the cabins of the locomotives, in the seats of the drivers and their assistants, there were only military officers - officers and warrant officers.

The first missile regiment with the RT-23UTTH missile went on combat duty in October 1987, and by mid-1988 five regiments were deployed (a total of 15 launchers, 4 in the Kostroma region and 1 in the Perm region). The trains were located at a distance of about four kilometers from each other in stationary structures, and when they went on combat duty, the trains were dispersed.

Tactical technical characteristics of the BZHRK:

Firing range, km 10100	Firing range, km 10100
Warhead - 10 warheads:
charge power, Mt	10 x (0.3-0.55)
head weight, kg	4050
Rocket length, m	full - 23.3 without head part - 19 in TPK - 22.6
Maximum diameter of the rocket body, m	2,4
Starting weight, t	104,50
First stage (dimensions), m:	length - 9.7 diameter - 2.4
weight, t	53,7
Second stage (dimensions), m:	length - 4.8 diameter - 2.4
Third stage (dimensions), m:	length - 3.6 diameter - 2.4
PU dimensions, m	length - 23.6 width - 3.2 height - 5

By 1991, three missile divisions armed with BZHRKs with RT-23UTTH ICBMs had been deployed:

• 10th Missile Division in the Kostroma Region;
• 52nd Missile Division, stationed in the Zvezdny closed city ( Perm region);
• 36th Missile Division, Kedrovy Closed Territory ( Krasnoyarsk region).

Each division had four missile regiments (a total of 12 BZHRK trains, three launchers each). Within a radius of 1,500 km from the BZHRK bases, joint measures were carried out with the Russian Ministry of Railways to replace worn-out railway tracks: heavier rails were laid, wooden sleepers were replaced with reinforced concrete ones, embankments were strengthened with denser crushed stone.

How it works

In appearance regular composition, which is pulled by three diesel locomotives. Regular mail and luggage and refrigerated carriages. But in seven of them there is a command section of a missile regiment (a control center, a communications center, a diesel power plant, dormitories for officers and soldiers, a canteen,hardware workshop). And at nine - launch modules with “well done”. Each module consists of three cars: a command post, a launcher with a missile, technological equipment. Well, and a tank car with fuel...

Thousands of similar trains with mail and frozen fish ran across one sixth of the land. And only a very observant eye could notice that the “ref” cars with rockets did not have four-wheeled bogies, as usual, but eight-wheeled bogies. The weight is quite considerable - almost 150 tons, although on the sides there is the inscription “for light loads”. And three diesel locomotives - so that, if necessary, they can take the launch modules to different parts of the vast country...

How he acted

Rocket trains ran along the tracks only at night and bypassed large stations. During the day they stood in specially equipped positions - you can still see them here and there: abandoned, incomprehensible branches to nowhere, and on the pillars there are coordinate determination sensors, similar to barrels. Without which fast start rockets are impossible...

The train stopped, special devices diverted the contact wire to the side, the roof of the car was folded back - and a “well done” weighing 104.5 tons flew out of the belly of the “refrigerator”. Not immediately, but only at a 50-meter altitude, the propulsion engine of the first rocket stage was started - so that the fiery jet would not hit the launch complex and burn the rails. This train is on fire...Everything took less than two minutes.

The three-stage solid-fuel missile RT-23UTTH threw 10 warheads with a capacity of 430 thousand tons each to a range of 10,100 km. And with an average deviation from the target of 150 meters. She had increased resistance to the effects of a nuclear explosion and was able to independently restore information in her electronic “brain” after it...

But this was not what irritated the Americans most. And the vastness of our land.

How he won

There were twelve such trains. 36 missiles and, accordingly, 360 warheads near Kostroma, Perm and in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. “Molodtsy” formed the basis of the retaliatory strike group, constantly moving within a radius of 1,500 km from the base point. And since they did not differ from ordinary trains, when they left the railway line, they simply disappeared for enemy reconnaissance.

But in a day such a train could cover up to 1000 kilometers!

This is what infuriated the Americans. Modeling has shown that even a strike from two hundred Minuteman or MX missiles (a total of 2000 warheads) can disable only 10% of the “well done”. To keep the remaining 90% under control, it was necessary to attract an additional 18 reconnaissance satellites. And the maintenance of such a group ultimately exceeded the cost of “Molodtsy”...How can you not be upset here?

The Americans tried to create something similar. But they suffered a technical failure. But they unconditionally beat the Soviet peace-loving policy: in July 1991, Gorbachev unexpectedly helped them by agreeing to sign the START-1 treaty. And our “Well done” stopped combat duty on the country’s highways. And soon we set off on our final journey to the nearest open-hearths...

Since 1991, after a meeting between the leaders of the USSR and Great Britain, restrictions were introduced on the patrol routes of the BZHRK; they carried out combat duty at a point of permanent deployment, without traveling to the country’s railway network. In February-March 1994, one of the BZHRK of the Kostroma division traveled to the country's railway network (the BZHRK reached at least Syzran).

According to the START-2 treaty (1993), Russia was supposed to remove all RT-23UTTH missiles from service by 2003. At the time of decommissioning, Russia had 3 divisions (Kostroma, Perm and Krasnoyarsk), a total of 12 trains with 36 launchers. To dispose of “rocket trains”, a special “cutting” line was installed at the Bryansk repair plant of the Strategic Missile Forces. Despite Russia's withdrawal from the START-2 treaty in 2002, during 2003-2007 all trains and launchers were scrapped, except for two demilitarized ones and installed as exhibits in the museum of railway equipment at the Warsaw station in St. Petersburg and in the AvtoVAZ Technical Museum .

At the beginning of May 2005, as officially announced by the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov, the BZHRK was removed from combat duty in the Strategic Missile Forces. The commander said that in place of the BZHRK, starting from 2006, the troops will begin to receive the Topol-M mobile missile system.

On September 5, 2009, Deputy Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Lieutenant General Vladimir Gagarin, stated that the Strategic Missile Forces do not exclude the possibility of resuming the use of combat railway missile systems.

In December 2011, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Lieutenant General Sergei Karakaev, announced a possible revival in Russian army BZHRK complexes.

On April 23, 2013, Deputy Minister of Defense Yuri Borisov announced that the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering (developer of the Bulava, Topol and Yars missiles) had resumed development work on the creation of a new generation of railway missile systems.

The BZHRK includes: three DM62 diesel locomotives, a command post consisting of 7 cars, a tank car with supplies fuels and lubricants and three launchers (PU) with missiles. The rolling stock for the BZHRK was produced at the Kalinin Freight Car Building Plant.

The BZHRK looks like an ordinary train consisting of refrigerated, mail, luggage and passenger cars. Fourteen cars have eight wheel pairs, and three have four. Three cars are disguised as passenger fleet cars, the rest, eight-axle, are “refrigerated” cars. Thanks to the available supplies on board, the complex could operate autonomously for up to 28 days.

The launch car is equipped with an opening roof and a device for discharging the contact network. The weight of the rocket was about 104 tons, with a launch container of 126 tons. The firing range was 10,100 km, the length of the rocket was 23.0 m, the length of the launch container was 21 m, the maximum diameter of the rocket body was 2.4 m. To solve the problem of overloading the launch car, special unloading devices were used , redistributing part of the weight to neighboring cars.

The rocket has an original folding fairing of the head section. This solution was used to reduce the length of the rocket and place it in the carriage. The length of the rocket is 22.6 meters.

The missiles could be launched from any point along the route. The launch algorithm is as follows: the train stops, a special device moves to the side and short-circuits the contact network to the ground, the launch container assumes a vertical position.

After this, a mortar launch of the rocket can be carried out. Already in the air, the rocket is deflected with the help of a powder accelerator and only after that the main engine is started. Deflecting the rocket made it possible to divert the propulsion engine jet away from the launch complex and the railway track, avoiding their damage. The time for all these operations, from receiving a command from the General Staff to launching the rocket, was up to three minutes.

Each of the three launchers included in the BZHRK can launch both as part of a train and independently.

The cost of one RT-23 UTTH “Molodets” missile in 1985 prices was about 22 million rubles. In total, about 100 products were produced at the Pavlograd Mechanical Plant.

The official reasons for removing the BZHRK from service were the outdated design, the high cost of recreating the production of the complexes in Russia, and the preference for mobile units based on tractors.

The BZHRK also had the following disadvantages:

The impossibility of completely camouflaging the train due to the unusual configuration (in particular, three diesel locomotives), which made it possible to determine the location of the complex using modern satellite reconnaissance tools. For a long time the Americans could not detect the complex with satellites, and there were cases when experienced railway workers from 50 meters could not distinguish a train covered with a simple camouflage net.

1. Lower security of the complex (unlike, for example, mines), which can be overturned or destroyed by a nuclear explosion in the surrounding area. To assess exposure to air shock wave nuclear explosion, a large-scale “Shift” experiment was planned for the second half of 1990 - simulating a close nuclear explosion by detonating 1000 tons of TNT (several railway trains of TM-57 anti-tank mines (100,000 pcs.), removed from the warehouses of the Central Group of Forces in East Germany , laid out in the form of a truncated pyramid 20 meters high). The “Shift” experiment was carried out at 53 NIIP MO (Plesetsk) on February 27, 1991, when as a result of the explosion a crater with a diameter of 80 and a depth of 10 m was formed, the level of acoustic pressure in the habitable compartments of the BZHRK reached the pain threshold - 150 dB, and the BZHRK launcher was removed from readiness, however, after carrying out regimes to bring it to the required degree of readiness, the launcher was able to conduct a “dry launch” (imitation of a launch using a rocket’s electrical layout). That is, the command post, launcher and missile equipment remained operational.

Wear and tear of the railway tracks along which the heavy RT-23UTTKh complex moved.

Supporters of the use of BZHRK, including the engineer of the launch team at the first tests of the BZHRK, the head of the group of military representatives of the USSR Ministry of Defense at the Yuzhmash Production Association Sergei Ganusov, note the unique combat characteristics products that confidently penetrated missile defense zones. The launch platform, as confirmed by flight tests, delivered warheads with a solid or total mass of 4 tons to a distance of 11,000 km.

One product containing 10 warheads with a yield of about 500 kilotons was enough to hit an entire European state. The press also noted the high mobility of trains capable of moving along the country’s railway network (which made it possible to quickly change the location of the starting position over 1000 kilometers per day), in contrast to tractors operating in a relatively small radius around the base (tens of km).

Calculations carried out by American specialists in relation to the railway version of the deployment of the MX ICBM for the US railway network show that with the dispersal of 25 trains (twice the number that Russia had in service) on sections of the railway with a total length of 120,000 km (which much longer than the main route of the Russian railways), the probability of hitting a train is only 10% when using 150 Voevoda-type ICBMs for an attack.

The Yuzhnoye design bureau (Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) was appointed as the lead developer of the BZHRK with the RT-23 missile. “The task that the Soviet government set before us was striking in its enormity. In domestic and world practice, no one has ever encountered so many problems. We had to place an intercontinental ballistic missile in a railway car, but the missile with its launcher weighs more than 150 tons. How to do it? After all, a train with such a huge load must travel along the national tracks of the Ministry of Railways. How to transport a strategic missile with a nuclear warhead in general, how to ensure absolute safety on the way, because we were given an estimated train speed of up to 120 km/h. Will the bridges hold up, will the track and the launch itself not collapse, how can the load be transferred to the railway track when the rocket is launched, will the train stand on the rails during the launch, how can the rocket be raised to a vertical position as quickly as possible after the train stops?” — General Designer of the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin, later recalled the questions that tormented him at that moment. However, by the mid-80s of the last century, the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau made the necessary rocket, and the Special Engineering Design Bureau (KBSM, St. Petersburg, Russia), under the leadership of the general designer, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Fedorovich Utkin, created a unique “cosmodrome on wheels.”

They tested the engineering creation of the Utkin brothers in a Soviet-style harsh manner. Flight tests of the RT-23UTTH (15Zh61) missile were carried out 32 times. The experienced trains carried out 18 endurance and transport tests, during which they traveled more than 400 thousand km along the railways. Already after the first missile regiment with the RT-23UTTH missile went on combat duty, the BZHRK successfully passed special tests on the effects of electromagnetic radiation, lightning protection and shock wave effects.

As a result, by 1992, three missile divisions were deployed in our country, armed with BZHRK with RT-23UTTH ICBMs: the 10th missile division in the Kostroma region, the 52nd missile division stationed in Zvezdny (Perm region), the 36th missile division Division, Closed Administrative Okrug Kedrovy (Krasnoyarsk Territory). Each division had four missile regiments (a total of 12 BZHRK trains, three launchers each).

Alexey Fedorovich Utkin (January 15, 1928, Zabelino village, Ryazan province - January 24, 2014, St. Petersburg) - Soviet and Russian scientist, designer of missile systems, designed the launch complex and rolling stock for the Combat Railway Missile Complex.

Doctor of Technical Sciences (1989), Professor (1993), Academician Russian Academy cosmonautics named after. K. E. Tsiolkovsky (1994), St. Petersburg Academy of Engineering (1994). Honored Worker of Science and Technology (1995), laureate of the Lenin (1976), State (1980) Prizes of the USSR.

Train crash

Twelve Soviet missile trains became a toothache for the Americans. The extensive railway network of the USSR (let me remind you that each train carrying 30 nuclear charges on board could travel 1 thousand km per day), the presence of numerous natural and artificial shelters did not allow us to determine their location with a sufficient degree of certainty, including with the help of satellites . After all, the USA also made attempts to create similar trains in the 60s of the last century. But nothing came of it. According to foreign sources, prototype Until 1992, the BZHRK was tested at the US railway range and the Western Missile Range (Vandenberg Air Force Base, California). It consisted of two standard locomotives, two launch cars with the MX ICBM, a command post, support system cars and cars for personnel. The launch car, where the rocket was located, was almost 30 m long, weighed about 180 tons and, just like in the USSR, had eight wheel pairs.

But at the same time, American engineers, unlike Soviet ones, failed to create effective mechanisms for lowering the contact network and retracting the rocket during its launch away from the train and railway tracks (the MX rocket was originally developed for a silo-based version). Therefore, the launch of missiles by American BZHRKs was supposed to be from specially equipped launch pads, which, of course, significantly reduced the factor of secrecy and surprise. In addition, unlike the USSR, the US has a less developed railway network, and the railways are owned by private companies. And this created many problems, ranging from the fact that civilian personnel would have to be involved to control the locomotives of the missile trains, to problems with the creation of a system for centralized control of combat patrols of BZHRKs and the organization of their technical operation.

On the other hand, while working on the project of their BZHRK, the Americans actually confirmed the conclusions of the Soviet military about the effectiveness of this “weapon of retaliation” as such. The American military intended to receive 25 BZHRKs. According to their calculations, with such a number of missile trains dispersed over sections of the railway with a total length of 120 thousand km, the probability of these BZHRKs being hit by 150 Soviet Voevoda ICBMs is only 10 (!)%. That is, if we apply these calculations to Soviet rocket trains, then 150 American missiles MX will be able to hit no more than 1-2 Soviet BZHRKs. And the remaining 10, three minutes after the start of the attack, will unleash a salvo of 300 nuclear charges (30 missiles of 10 charges each) on the United States. And if we take into account that by 1992, combat railway missile systems in the Soviet Union were already being produced in SERIES, then the picture for the Americans turned out to be completely sad. However, what happened next was what happened to dozens, or even hundreds, of unique Soviet military engineering developments. First, at the insistence of Great Britain, since 1992, Russia has put its BZHRKs “on hold” - in places of permanent deployment, then - in 1993, under the START-2 treaty, it committed itself to destroy all RT-23UTTH missiles within 10 years. And although this agreement, in fact, never entered into legal force, in 2003-2005 all Russian BZHRKs were removed from combat duty and disposed of. The appearance of two of them can now be seen only in the Museum of Railway Equipment at the Warsaw Station in St. Petersburg and at the AvtoVAZ Technical Museum.

How it was destroyed

“You must destroy the missile trains” - this was the categorical condition of the Americans when signing the START-2 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. And in 1993, Yeltsin did this to the indescribable joy of the Pentagon: the Yankees hastily allocated money to destroy the hated missiles and even provided a new cutting line for this. Along the way, consoling us: they say that the railway “Molodets” will be replaced by the automobile “Topol”.
But the first one carries ten warheads, and the second one...

The mistake was realized, but it was too late: the treaty prohibited the development of new missile systems of this type. The restrictions were lifted only after the signing of START-3: Obama’s advisers decided that it was no longer possible for Russia to rise from the ashes, because the Soviet BZHRK (combat railway missile systems) were made in Ukraine.

“Scalpel” is not a hindrance to “Topol”

The BZHRKs were officially removed from combat duty in May 2005. It was assumed that their functions would be taken over by the Topol-M mobile missile systems. However, this decision still seems controversial. The question is not even that the Topol-M carries one charge, while the RT-23UTTH had 10 of them. In the end, the Topol-M is being replaced by the Yars (R-24), which has more charges . And the question is not even that after the collapse of the USSR, the production of “Scalpels” remained in Ukraine and no one, even in a feverish delirium, would now imagine the possibility of resuming the production of ballistic missiles there for combat railway complexes. The issue is the fundamental incorrectness of contrasting BZHRK and ICBM carriers on an automobile platform. “It’s time to finally realize that soon mobile ground-based ICBMs will lose all meaning, our Topol-M missiles will turn into defenseless targets and will not be able to survive the first strike on them. Not to mention the fact that missiles stationed in the forest are not protected from conventional small arms of terrorists. Therefore, all the talk about hypersonic speeds, maneuvering warheads and other new products makes no sense, since these missiles simply will not survive until a retaliatory strike. For mobile rail-based ICBMs (BZHRK), the situation is not so tragic, since these missiles can move across vast territories of our country, and it is not so easy to detect them in the flow of regular trains, especially since in the mountainous regions of the country it is possible to create special tunnels in which BZHRK could hide if necessary. However, in the context of the growth of terrorism in Russia, one should think deeply before deciding to recreate the BZHRK. The bombing of such a train with missiles equipped with nuclear charges by terrorists, and even an ordinary accident, can lead to unpredictable tragic consequences,” Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor Yuri Grigoriev is convinced.

“The mobility of mobile Topol-M is limited to a certain radius around their main base. It is naive to think that when modern means For space reconnaissance, a metal object more than 24 meters long, about 3.5 meters in diameter and almost 5 meters high, which also emits a large amount of heat and electromagnetic radiation, can be hidden. The branching of the railway network provides the BZHRK with greater secrecy compared to ground complexes. From the stated plans for the production of the Topol-M ICBM, it is not difficult to assume that by 2015, only two missile divisions will be armed with new missiles - 54 mobile launchers and 76 silos. Is a retaliatory strike possible after a raid by hundreds of Minutemen, and are we not being too wasteful in unilaterally reducing our nuclear missile potential? Preserving, even with modernization and testing, 36 BZHRK launchers with missiles, each of which carried 10 warheads, 25–27 times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima, despite all possible collisions, would be far from the worst (according to the criterion “efficiency-cost”) option” is emphasized by current academic advisor to the Academy of Engineering Sciences of the Russian Federation Yuri Zaitsev.

Be that as it may, after the refusal of the Americans and Europeans to give Russia guarantees that the missile defense system they are creating in Europe will not be used against our country, reviving the production of BZHRK seems to be one of the most effective responses to this threat. “It is by 2020 that the European missile defense system, due to the emergence of new modifications of the SM-3 missile defense system, will be able to intercept Russian ICBMs. Taking into account this circumstance, Moscow is forced to take adequate countermeasures,” emphasizes Igor Korotchenko, director of the Center for Analysis of the Global Arms Trade.

Therefore, since the end of 2011, the voices of the Russian military began to be heard again that in our country it is necessary to revive the production of combat railway missile systems. And with the arrival of Dmitry Rogozin in the government and the appointment of Sergei Shoigu as the new Minister of Defense, this topic began to take concrete shape. “The leadership of the Ministry of Defense presented a report to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and was given the task of carrying out a preliminary design of the BZHRK within the framework of the state arms program and state defense order. The lead contractor for this work is the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, the completion date for preliminary design is the first half of 2014. It was reported that there is a need to return to consideration of the issue of a new BZHRK, taking into account its increased survivability and the ramifications of our railway network,” Sergei Karakaev, commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, emphasized to reporters.

The function of the BZHRK, in this case, obviously remains the same - to strike back at any target on Earth. But both the missile itself and the launch complex will obviously be different from the Soviet Molodets BZHRK with the Scalpel ICBM. As for the missile, it is obvious that it will be one of the Yars modifications, suitable in size for a standard 24-meter-long refrigerator car with multiple warheads. At the same time, however, its firing range is still unclear. From the words of Colonel General Karakayev, one could conclude that the designers will try to reduce the weight of the rocket for the new BZHRK by almost half compared to the Scalpel - to 50 tons. And this is understandable, since the new missile system is obviously tasked with becoming even more inconspicuous (remember the eight-axle “Molodets” launch cars and its three locomotives) and more passable (that is, the new BZHRK must move along ANY railway tracks of a huge country without any preliminary preparation). But the most suitable missile for this is the RS-26 Rubezh, the flight tests of which should be completed this year, so far it flies only at a range of no more than 6 thousand kilometers. “Scalpel” flew 10 thousand km, “Yars”, as stated, flies 11 thousand km.

The designers also have new ideas for locomotives for the BZHRK. At the time of development of Molodtsov, the total power of three diesel locomotives DM62 (a special modification of the serial diesel locomotive M62) was 6 thousand hp. The power of the current main-line freight two-section diesel locomotive 2TE25A “Vityaz”, which is mass-produced by Transmashholding, is 6,800 hp. However, there are also completely exotic (for now) ideas. Back in the early 80s of the last century, our country developed a design version of a nuclear carrier with a fast neutron reactor BOR-60 ( thermal power 60 MW, electric power 10 MW). However, this vehicle did not go into production, although it could have provided the BZHRK with almost unlimited autonomy. But over the past few years, Russian Railways has tested a liquefied natural gas locomotive - a gas turbine locomotive, which was created back in 2006 on the basis of one of Nikolai Kuznetsov’s gas turbine engines. In 2009, during testing, a prototype of this machine set a record included in the Guinness Book of Records: it transported a train of 159 cars with a total weight of 15 thousand tons (!) along the experimental ring. And on one refueling it can travel almost 1000 km. In general, an almost ideal vehicle for cruising a combat railway missile system, for example, in the Russian part of the Arctic.

At the same time, the new BZHRK itself will apparently appear in new program State weapons - for the period from 2016 to 2025, which the government is currently preparing. Therefore, Russian locomotive designers still have a little time to “fit in” with their new or old, but not yet implemented development. source-source-source-

More than seventy years ago, the first nuclear weapons test took place as humanity moved into a new era. Since then, the threat of complete nuclear destruction, capable of sweeping it off the face of the earth, has loomed over our civilization. The danger of nuclear Armageddon was especially high during the Cold War, during the large-scale confrontation between the USA and the USSR.

By the mid-70s, the two superpowers had accumulated such arsenals of nuclear weapons that would be enough to destroy almost all life on the planet. At that time, the fragile world was kept on the balance of fear, on the guarantee of inevitable mutual destruction. Scientists and military men of both countries were racking their brains to create new types of nuclear weapons and means of delivering them, so that even after delivering the first strike, the aggressor would not go unpunished.

One of the most dangerous species Soviet weapons Western military experts considered "missile trains". These ghost trains plied throughout the vast territory of the Soviet Union, and it was almost impossible to track their movements. Each such train could arrange 900 Hiroshimas for the enemy.

The Americans tried to create a similar complex, but this task turned out to be too difficult for them. In the USSR, work on the creation of combat railway complexes (BRZhK) began in the mid-60s. The BRZhKs were adopted for service in 1987. According to the START II treaty, signed in 1993, by 2007 all “missile trains” were destroyed.

In 2013 Russian Ministry Defense officially announced the start of work on the creation of a new generation BRZhK. The new rocket train was named "Barguzin". It is assumed that the Barguzin BRZHK will enter service with the troops in 2020.

Not at all kind “Well done”

Placement idea missile weapons on a railway platform is not Soviet know-how. Similar work was carried out in Nazi Germany. And even earlier, railway platforms were used as a base for large-caliber artillery systems. The Germans planned to launch V-2 rockets from railway platforms.

In the USSR, many prominent designers were involved in similar developments: Lavochkin, Yangel, Korolev. None of them could achieve success: the rocket technology of the 50-70s was too bulky and unreliable. Only after the appearance of the first solid-fuel rockets did hope arise for the creation of a serial BRZhK.

The creation of the train was carried out by the famous brothers academicians Vladimir and Alexey Utkin. The lead developer of the complex was the Dnepropetrovsk Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. Draft design of the RT-23UTTH rocket and rocket railway complex appeared in 1982.

The project was unique; no one in the world had ever done anything like this before. To fit an intercontinental ballistic missile into a standard railroad car, designers had to solve many technical problems. The length of the carriage is 24 meters, otherwise it would not be able to travel by rail, but such short ballistic missiles have never been made before.

Another problem was the weight of the missile: the average ICBM weighed about 100 tons. Three missiles could easily crush the railway track. It also had to be protected during launch. Something had to be invented with the contact network and with high level electromagnetic radiation that emanates from it.

To fit the rocket into the required dimensions, its fairing and nozzles were made foldable, the car received eight pairs of wheels, which reduced the load on the railway track. A special manipulator moved the track wires during the rocket launch; to prevent the RT-23 exhaust gases from affecting the train, a mortar launch was used on the rocket.

In 1985, testing of the rocket and missile system began. 32 launches were carried out, the train traveled along the country's roads for more than 400 thousand km. In 1988, the complex was tested for resistance to electromagnetic radiation, and in 1991, its protection against shock waves was tested. The tests were successful.

In 1987, 7 BRZhK regiments were deployed. The complex was officially put into service in 1988. They called him “Well done.” In the NATO classification it has a different name - “Scalpel”.

When moving by rail, a railway combat missile system can change its location by 1 thousand km in one day.

Construction of the Molodets railway missile system

The railway complex consisted of three launch cars, each of which contained an RT-23UTTH ICBM, and a command module consisting of seven cars. The train also included a tank with a supply of fuel and lubricants. The movement was carried out using two diesel locomotives DM-62.

The load on the wheelsets of the railway complex was very high, and to prevent them from collapsing during the launch, the designers had to come up with an original technical solution. The three launch cars were practically in a single coupling: during the launch they took part of the load on themselves.

The design of the RT-23UTTH rocket also turned out to be very unusual. First of all, its creators were severely limited by the dimensions of a freight car, so part of the rocket was made foldable. All three stages are made of composite materials, all of them are equipped with solid propellant engines.

The head of the missile contained ten individually targeted warheads and a missile defense penetration system. Each of the blocks had a capacity of 0.43 megatons. The rocket fairing was inflatable, which also reduced the size of the rocket. The RT-23UTTH control system is of inertial type with an on-board computer.

The rocket could be launched from any point along the route. The roof of the car moved apart, a special manipulator moved the contact network, and the rocket was launched from the container using a mortar. Immediately after leaving the container, the rocket deviated from the starting point and only then the first stage engine was started. This is necessary so that the reactive combustion products do not damage the train and the railway tracks underneath it.

The command module had increased level protection against electromagnetic radiation and special communication equipment.

BRZHK “Molodets” can truly be called a unique complex. After going on combat duty, they instantly “dissolved” in the gigantic expanses of the country among thousands of ordinary trains. It was much easier for a potential enemy to detect a Soviet submarine in the depths of the Atlantic than a BRZhK during a combat patrol. In addition, special settling tanks were created for trains, and the railway track was reinforced along their patrol routes.

Train with missiles BRZHK "Barguzin"

IN last years Americans are actively working on a missile defense system and the Prompt Global Strike program, which is capable of delivering a massive strike on targets anywhere on the planet. Naturally, the main potential targets for such weapons on the territory of our country are objects of Russian and Chinese strategic forces.

The location of silo-based ICBMs has been known for a long time; a potential enemy also knows about the routes of mobile rocket launchers("Poplar"). The biggest problem for Americans at the moment is Russian missile-carrying submarines. But there are few of them.

That is why at the beginning of this decade a decision was made to recreate missile railway systems. The new generation BRZHK was named “Barguzin”. It is being developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering (MIT). Representatives of the Russian defense industry have repeatedly stated that Barguzin will be a completely new complex, and not a modernization of Molodets. In the thirty years that have passed since the creation of the Soviet missile system, technology has advanced far.

There is still little information about the new complex and the missile it will be armed with. In 2014, it became known that the Barguzin would be equipped with the R-24 Yars missile. Before this, options such as the R-26 Rubezh and 3M30 Bulava were considered.

By 2020, it is planned to complete design work and test the complex. After 2020, the Barguzin BRZHK should already enter service with the troops. This was all indicated in the 2012 plans. The extent to which they are being carried out, whether the work schedule is being followed, is unknown. Not long ago, information appeared that in 2014-2015 a large amount of work was carried out as part of this project.

“Barguzin” will largely repeat the previous missile railway complex. It will include several cars with launch containers for ICBMs, as well as a command post and cars for service personnel. The launcher for the BRZhK is being developed by the Volgograd Federal State Unitary Enterprise Central Design Bureau "Titan", at least this company received the corresponding patent. The starting equipment for the complex is being developed at the Special Mechanical Engineering Design Bureau. The complex will use one diesel locomotive instead of two at the Molodets BRZhK.

The complex will be armed with the Yars or Yars-M missile, the unification will be high, but, of course, below 100%.

The rocket will have three stages with solid-fuel engines of a classic design. The guidance system for warheads is inertial. Perhaps the blocks will be equipped with a maneuvering system. The missile will be equipped with a system to overcome enemy missile defenses.

The Yars is lighter than the RT-23UTTH; it contains only four multiple missiles, instead of the ten of the Soviet missile. The new complex will use technical solutions developed during the creation of “Molodets”: mortar launch, contact wire withdrawal, missile deflection after launch.

The autonomy of the Barguzin should be thirty days; it will be able to cover 1 thousand km per day. The complex will be no different from a regular cargo train, which will guarantee its invulnerability.

Performance characteristics of the combat railway complex "Molodets"

Video about missile systems

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There was a time when unique trains ran across our country. Outwardly, they resembled familiar trains. But they differed from them in that they never stopped at stations, they preferred remote stops, and the busy stations of cities, if fate (or order!) brought them there, tried to pass at dawn, when there were fewer people there.

Just a few years ago, secret trains ran along the Russian railway network. Outwardly, they were almost no different from the passenger trains familiar to the eye. But the dispatchers tried to schedule their movement in such a way that they would pass the busy and crowded train stations of large cities at night or at dawn. They should not have caught the eye of ordinary people. Ghost trains, or BZHRK - combat railway missile systems - kept a combat watch in the Siberian taiga, in the North and Far East with nuclear weapons. And along with nuclear-powered ships, aviation and the Missile Forces, they maintained and maintain the strategic balance in the world.

The main designers of the BZHRK were academicians brothers Vladimir and Alexey Utkin. The eldest, Vladimir Fedorovich, has already passed away. Right hand Vladimir Fedorovich was involved in the creation of a rocket train with his brother Alexey.
How did the idea of ​​creating rocket trains come about? According to one version, the Americans planted it on us. Soviet intelligence officers obtained information: the American military-industrial complex is preparing to create a train capable of launching ballistic missiles. Allegedly, his photograph even fell into the hands of the intelligence services.

It was as if the photograph had skillfully captured a small model of a rocket train that did not exist in nature. They say that the overseas “hawks” at first really intended to build a nuclear train, but then abandoned this idea. Why? Their railway network is not so extensive, and the cost of the project was fabulous. In order to direct our scientists along a road that leads to a dead end, they made and planted a “linden tree” with the Russians. Let them rack their brains! And the political leadership fell for it and accepted volitional decision: “catch up and overtake” overseas strategists.

How was it real? After the Americans deployed their Pershing missiles in Germany, it was necessary to adequately respond to new threats to the security of our state. So we returned to the idea of ​​rocket trains. Domestic scientists thought about this project even earlier, but until now they did not take on its solution due to the high cost and labor intensity. In addition, the existing defensive potential was quite enough to adequately respond to the Americans. By the way, it was initially considered as a weapon of retaliation. What is its advantage?

In elusiveness. Unlike silo-based missiles, where the coordinates of targets are known in advance. With the BZHRK, our opponents had a lot of questions to which they could not find answers. To track them, in the early nineties, the Americans even created a constellation of military satellites. But even from space it was not so easy to detect their traces. Therefore, even the most modern technology often lost sight of them. They were elusive thanks to the well-developed railway network of the Soviet Union. Many years later, the American General Powell admitted to the academician: “Looking for your missile trains is like finding a needle in a haystack.”

The Americans even came up with a special carriage that was equipped with the latest equipment. It did not last long......

30 ministries and departments and over 130 defense enterprises worked on the creation of combat missile trains. At first sight, simple idea, proposed by the designers - to raise the shaft from the ground and put it on wheels - included a huge number of organizational and technical problems.

What was one of the main problems? Take shooting. When she is led from missile silo, then the azimuth, altitude, and starting point are known. Determining your location is one of the most difficult problems. In addition, it is imperative to know the load on the rails in a specific location. And, as you know, soils are different. Identical conditions do not exist in nature. So, to prevent the cars from falling next to the railway, they came up with a special “mortar launch”. Without going into details, the essence of it is that the rocket is first thrown to a height, and only then takes off.

How to aim? Before doing this, you need to stop the train, launch the gyroscopes, determine north and south and where to shoot. Do not forget that you still need to accept orders and commands from above. To let in

missile at exactly the appointed time and obey your commander in any, even the most unfavorable circumstances modern combat, in conditions of the use of high-precision weapons, you need to receive this command. So a rocket train is a very complex complex. And when the Americans were working on this idea, they encountered a number of technical difficulties, and therefore, most likely, abandoned the science-intensive project.

What if there are high-voltage wires located directly above your head? - A special wire outlet was invented, and in addition to this, the power supply to the substation was automatically removed. As for the axle load, it should not be more than 25 tons. And the rocket with the launch container weighs over 100 tons, plus the carriage itself, so it turns out to be about 200 tons. They came up with the idea of ​​unloading the launch complex using other cars.

It is also necessary to take into account the fact that when moving the train is subject to strong vibration. This means that it is necessary not only to stop the train, but also to “turn off” the springs - do not wait until they calm down!

Don't forget that there are officers and soldiers on the train. They need bedrooms, toilets, a dining room, rest rooms... And supplies of food, fuel, and water are also necessary! So the complex is very complex...
- At first glance, it might seem that our country is large and full of " bearish angles", where missile systems could be safely hidden.

Our potential opponents' missiles were becoming more and more accurate, and they could "cover" silos with relative ease. Therefore, it was necessary to take measures to ensure the reliability of the preventive strike. Of course, the Pershings were good missiles. Although some experts somewhat exaggerated their capabilities. They even said that they could hit a stake driven into the ground a thousand kilometers away.

The answer was the Scalpel missile. It “fit” within the framework of the agreement with the Americans. It was made in two versions: mine and for deployment on the railway. It is difficult to imagine how many Pershings would have to be fired to destroy the missile train.

This is not a one-on-one fight, as in the mine version, here the balance of forces is completely different... And therefore, such a combat complex, of course, is unique. And yet, the main idea of ​​​​the development of combat missile systems is to increase the possibility of deterrence, so that no one even thinks that they can press a button with impunity!

History shows that we were not the initiators of the arms race. We were constantly forced to catch up and did it in such a way that no one had the illusion that there was an advantage. The deterrence effect has continually determined the state of affairs in our defense industry, and as long as we can remain at the proper level, there will be no nuclear war not to happen.

We were preparing four complexes at once. If problems arise with one car, a commission is created to find out the causes of the accident. The task of the general designer is to convince the customer and prove that all the necessary tests have been carried out. You need to move the “car” from its place, and then it will go on its own... And at this time, the first launch from the rocket train is in Plesetsk, and naturally, you go there. The test deputy can also go to the second or third launch, but, as a rule, he sits there almost constantly...

The first train left the factory in 1987, and the last - the twelfth - in 1991. The warranty period is ten years. But usually it was then extended, everything depended on the ideas included in the complex. They have stood the test of time.

In 1991, rocket trains were laid up. The former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, took the position of the Americans and came to the conclusion that in order to strengthen mutual understanding between the two countries, it is better not to release the BZHRK into the vastness of Russia. Otherwise, American taxpayers would have to shell out a tidy sum for the Pentagon to deploy an additional constellation of reconnaissance satellites. After all, each rocket train travels more than 1,000 kilometers per day, and in order to identify only one BZHRK among hundreds of trains plying throughout Russia, and then track the route of its movement, it would be necessary to increase the constellation of tracking satellites tenfold. To carry out such a project even in such a rich and technically developed country, like the United States, turned out to be beyond its power.

It is unknown with what arguments the overseas friends managed to convince Mikhail Gorbachev. Another thing is known: not so long ago, the granddaughter of the former President of the Union, Ksenia Virganskaya, showed off at the ball of the richest people on the planet in Paris in a Dior dress that costs 22 thousand dollars.

But the formidable missile carriers on rails cannot go beyond the technical territory of the unit. No money.
True, one missile train left the security perimeter - it was necessary to carry out repair work in the factory. All other movements of the BZHRK crews have to be carried out within the boundaries of the unit’s territory. But, as it turned out, “local maneuvers” in no way reduce the overall combat readiness of the BZHRK crews.

To train officer-drivers of rolling stock, training is regularly conducted on the BZHRK routes. It is important for them to visually imagine the landscape along the railway track, to know all the turns and forks of the road, and almost every telegraph pole along the route. All this ultimately allows you to competently manage your combat personnel.

This problem can be solved thanks to the disposition towards the rocket scientists on the part of the management of the Russian railways, their state approach and understanding that this is being done in the name of the country’s defense. In principle, military personnel could use their own training train for training, simulating a BZHRK, but a lack of funds affects it. Today it is more important to spend money on maintaining in working condition those locomotives that are in constant combat readiness.
Now the BZHRK is not aimed anywhere. In the language of rocket scientists, this is called a “zero flight mission.” The difficulty is that since 1991, missile units have never fired from their systems. Tasks combat use weapons in Lately they had to practice only on simulators. True, in 1998 there was one exception. The combat crew of the BZHRK launched the standard Scalpel, removed from the train, using a launcher at the Plesetsk training ground.

Under the leadership of V.F. Utkin and with his direct participation, most of the missiles on which the country’s missile defense shield is based were created.

From 1970 to 1990, V.F. Utkin headed the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, first as chief and then general designer. During this time, four strategic missile systems were developed and put into service, and several launch vehicles were created. These include the highly efficient, environmentally friendly Zenit launch vehicle; SS-24 solid propellant missile; unparalleled, highly efficient strategic missile SS-18.

In area space research Various satellites for defense and scientific purposes were implemented. In total, more than three hundred spacecraft of the Cosmos family developed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau were launched into orbit, making up a significant part of total number satellites of this series.

The characteristic principle of V.F. Utkin’s work is the use of defense scientific and technical developments in the interests of science and National economy. Thus, a conversion launch vehicle was created on the basis of the SS-9 combat vehicle

"Cyclone", designed for launching medium-sized aircraft into orbit payloads. The Cosmos-1500 satellite was used to remove convoys of ships covered in ice in the East Siberian Sea. Kosmos-1500 also became the founder of the well-known Ocean series of satellites, providing significant improvements in the safety and efficiency of navigation.

Since 1990, V.F. Utkin has been the director of the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (TSNIIMASH) of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos). With the direct participation of Vladimir Fedorovich, the Russian federal space program was developed.

Under his leadership as general designer, R&D was carried out to create experimental devices special purpose, provided scientific and technical “support” of key problems related to the International space station(ISS). Vladimir Fedorovich headed the coordinating scientific and technical council of Rosaviakosmos and the Russian Academy of Sciences for research and experiments on the manned station "Mir" and the Russian segment of the ISS. V.F. Utkin - author of over 200 scientific works And large number inventions, holder of 11 orders and 14 medals.

The first production train went on combat duty in 1987. He was placed on a special platform. Americans recorded from space
location of the combat unit. This was done specifically so that they could take this train into account. This procedure was spelled out in detail in the bilateral agreement. And then his trace was lost. We tested the train in Plesetsk. It had three combat modules, a “living area”, and its own command post.

The main carriages of the BZHRK are those in which the PC-22 missile system (according to the Western classification "Scalpel") and the command post of the combat crew are located. “Scalpel” weighs more than a hundred tons and “reaches” a range of 10 thousand kilometers. The missiles are solid fuel, three-stage, with ten half-megaton individually targetable nuclear units on each. The Kostroma division has several such trains, and each of them has three launchers: twelve missiles, one hundred and twenty nuclear warheads. One can imagine the destructive power of these seemingly harmless-looking echelons! In addition to Kostroma, BZHRK are deployed in two more places.

And such trains roamed the expanses of the country, which could only be seen by chance, kept a combat watch in the North and the Far East, among the taiga and in the mountains... And they were closely monitored by the ocean, sending special satellites to detect them, and hourly, every minute trying to determine where they are. But do it despite all the perfection modern technology, it was not always possible - the missile trains were “hidden” under ordinary ones, and try to determine where this missile complex is going, and where is the fast Novosibirsk-Moscow train.”...

Start

Two three-meter telescopic “paws” came out from under the bottom of the car and rested on special reinforced concrete pedestals, rigidly fixing the starting car. The car itself also had an aiming platform, which, when the car was fixed, rested tightly against the railway track, reading the coordinates of the module’s location. Thus, at each point of combat duty, each missile received a clear program and a given flight path to the real target of a potential enemy. When the launch car is already fixed at a certain point on the railway, at the operator’s command, hydraulic pinning jacks release its roof. Then the end hydraulic jacks operate synchronously, and the car opens like a chest, only in two halves. At the same seconds, the main hydraulic pump of the main hydraulic jack begins to work actively, and the huge “cigar” of the TPK smoothly becomes vertical and is fixed with side brackets. All! The rocket is ready for launch!

The missile carries a multiple independently targetable warhead of the "MIRV" type with 10 warheads with a yield of 500 kt each. (It was dropped on Hiroshima atomic bomb power 10 kt.). Flight range is 10 thousand kilometers.
Mariupol machine builders equipped these trains with very reliable TVR (temperature and humidity) systems and fire extinguishing systems. Flight tests of the rocket were carried out from February 27, 1985 to December 22, 1987. A total of 32 launches were made.
By the way, for the successful testing of the “Scalpel” in Plesetsk, a group of leading Ukrainian designers and machine builders were presented with high government awards. They were mainly awarded the medal “For Labor Valour,” but soon they were to be awarded the honorary title “Honored Worker of Transport of the USSR.” Although, according to the regulations in force at that time, the “distance” from award to award was at least three years. It took a special petition from the industry minister for the early assignment of “deserved” ones.
In 1991, the list was placed on the table of Mikhail Gorbachev, who in a week or two was to part with the presidency of the head of the superpower. What Mikhail Sergeevich thought then, only he knows. But he dealt with the candidates for “merit” in his characteristic spirit of making unpredictable decisions. Gorbachev decided: the last citizen of the Soviet Union, which was bursting at the seams, to whom he would assign this high title of “honored” would be... Alla Borisovna Pugacheva. Signed - President of the USSR...

June 16, 2005, the penultimate of the railway-based missile systems "Scalpel" was sent from the Kostroma connection missile forces to a storage base for subsequent disposal. The last of them is scheduled to be destroyed in September 2005. Official reason, according to which “Scalpels” removal from service is called expiration of service life, although if we take into account that they were put into service in 91-94, this period should expire only by 2018, provided that regular maintenance is carried out by the manufacturer. But the plant in Pavlovgrad (Ukraine) now makes trolleybuses instead of rockets. And Ukraine, having become a nuclear-free power, under the terms of the agreement cannot have, produce or service nuclear weapon, especially now that the new Ukrainian authorities have set a course to the west. And the equipment for the production of missiles in service with Russia is being melted down.