By HANNAH AL-OTHMAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 18:32 GMT, 23 November 2016, dailymail.co.uk
Russia successfully tests stealth NUKE TRAIN that can travel 1,500 miles a day and blend in with other locomotives before launching its missile
The nuke trains will be disguised as ordinary passenger or freight trains
A successful test launch was carried out at the Plesetsk cosmodrome
The Barguzin ‘railway-based combat rocket system’ is expected to come into operation between 2018 and 2020
Russia is developing a secret nuke train, which can travel 1,500 miles in a day towards Putin’s enemies before launching rockets.
The trains, packed with ballistic missiles, will be disguised as ordinary passenger or freight trains, making them virtually impossible to identify.
Chilling test footage shows the trains can be stopped in their tracks at a moment’s notice to deploy the huge rocket launchers.
It sounds like something from a James Bond film, but the trains are one step closer to being put into use, following a successful test launch on missiles for the Barguzin ‘railway-based combat rocket system’, carried out at the Plesetsk cosmodrome two weeks ago.
The stealth mobile weapons platforms, which carries six Yars or Yars-M thermonuclear ICBMs and their command units, are expected to come into operation between 2018 and 2020.
The menacing missiles carry four huge 250 kiloton warheads each, and have a range as long as 6,800 miles.
The trains, packed with ballistic missiles, will be disguised as ordinary passenger or freight trains, but will carry huge missile launchers
The trains, packed with ballistic missiles, will be disguised as ordinary passenger or freight trains, but will carry huge missile launchers
The missiles are normally launched from the road, but the nuke trains mean they will be able to travel further in much less time.
The ‘undetectable’ deadly trains will be poised to strike at a moment’s notice on the dawn of World War 3.
Russian defence expert Victor Murakhovsky said the new trains would prove to be a ‘sheer nightmare’ for foreign spies.
The missiles are normally launched from the road, but the nuke trains mean they will be able to travel further in much less time
The ‘undetectable’ deadly trains will be poised to strike at a moment’s notice on the dawn of World War 3
Speaking to Radio Sputnik, he said: ‘Soviet-era platforms employed railway cars, different in size from standard rail carriages. The new missile complex fits onto standard rail gauge.
‘The wagons carrying the recently tested missiles resemble a freight refrigerator car for instance.’
He also said the United States had attempted to develop a similar system during the cold war, but the project had been abandoned.
The menacing missiles carry four huge 250 kiloton warheads each, and have a range as long as 6,800 miles
The stealth nuke trains can travel 1,500 miles in a day towards Putin’s enemies before launching rockets
‘The United States was working on a similar program during the Cold War,’ he said.
‘There was an idea to lay rail tracks underground and place launching platforms there.
‘Financing was wasted and they did not create anything even remotely resembling the Russian system.’
During the time of the Soviet Union, Russia also used rail-mobile missile systems, known as ‘Molodets’, with 12 nuclear trains stationed in the Kostroma, Perm and Krasnoyarsk regions, each carrying three missiles.
The ghost trains, which carried missiles weighing more than 100 tonnes each, less effective than their pioneering new counterparts
The missiles on the new trains will weigh less than 47 tonnes, making the replacement nuke trains much more efficient
They came into service in 1987, just a few years before the collapse of the USSR, and the West dubbed the Soviet weapon ‘ghost trains.’
The ghost trains, which carried missiles weighing more than 100 tonnes each, were disposed of between 2003 and 2005.
The missiles on the new trains will weigh less than 47 tonnes, making the replacement nuke trains much more efficient.