Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1544638
facilities, and sleeping quarters for the train's 10-person crew. The launcher car, nearly 30 m long and fitted with a specially shock-absorbing chassis, would carry one ICBM with a MIRV warhead containing, according to the concept, 3–10 nuclear payloads. Such trainsets were to conduct combat patrols in the northeastern United States, using nearly 70,000 miles of railway network. In the event a combat mission had to be executed, the missile would be launched from ad hoc sidings or from preselected points along the main lines, which therefore had to be topographically and geodetically surveyed in advance. During operations, a civilian crew was to be responsible for the locomotive and train. The typical combat patrol procedure was to take position on a siding, detach the locomotive together with its civilian crew, open the roof of the launcher car, and raise the missile into launch position. During such a stop, several patrols from the 10-person crew were to be deployed to secure and defend the train consist. In evaluating the concept as a whole, a number of shortcomings were identified. The primary concern was ensuring the safety of both the missile itself and participants in civilian rail traffic. The simultaneous presence on the same tracks of civilian trains and trains carrying missiles with radioactive material created excessive risk, especially in the event of a rail accident in densely populated areas. The survivability of the system, which was difficult to determine, would depend on the distribution of the individual rail sets within the area subjected to a nuclear strike. There were concerns about the difficult coordination required between launcher trains and ordinary civilian trains, the use of civilian railroad employees to operate the trains, the ease with which the distinctive rail sets could be identified by potential saboteurs, and the vulnerability of the small crew to direct attack. The advantages of the concept were said to include the ability to conduct long- duration patrols and relatively high survivability independent of the other elements of the nuclear triad. It is interesting to compare this concept with similar solutions being implemented at the same time in the Soviet Union, but more on that in the third part of the article. ANALYSIS