Looks like the chinese have a new missile train.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/china-tests-railroad-launch-df-222509213.html
Both the Russians and Chinese think that is fairly clever to make their missiles mobile like that and during the Cold War it was hard to detect them but I think, increasingly with technological improvements with thermal imaging we are able to spot and locate where these missiles are and they are not the threat they used to be......although still more of a threat than a fixed missile because they can be moved.
You would be surprised at how far vision technology has advanced just since the 1980's. In fact you can go take a look the next time the Army has an open house they roll out their FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red) sights for the general public to look at. The generation I thermal sights that FLIR replaced was pretty powerful you could spot rabbits, range deer and people trying to hide behind camoflage, camoflage nets and even poorly constructed buildings. Each giving off a heat signiture and with the intensification of the image to crisp was just incredible. Scary for war fighters because the days where night fighting gives you an advantage is comming to an end as this technology advances and becomes cheaper.......although the Russians and Chinese still do not seem to employ it as much as we do (which is strange). Not sure if it is cost or if they are just that far behind in the arms race.
Also, all that video game technology you see on XBOX, Wii and other consoles. Army long ago incorporated that into simulation training that is pretty realistic. They use it for practice calling for artillery strikes, air strikes, anti-aircraft missile practice, etc.
Did you know that the controller that U.S. Army EOD uses for robot control is very close to a gameboy controller.......and that design was on purpose to shorten training and make it more familiar to troops.
We are still light years ahead of the Russians and Chinese in technology and the application of it. So much so that the mobile missiles do not keep me awake at night.
Oops! Off on a tangent again.
A good thing for them to waste budget on. Google "rail garrison" and there should be lots of narrative on our 1980s DOD effort. Similar to the "hard mobile launcher" program. "Spies Like Us" comes to mind.
Chuck: We were the guinea pig for rail garrison in the mid-1980's. Division Engineer referred to them as the "Portable Switch Heater" people and hoped they didn't light the candle in Raton tunnel.
Strange that China is using F40PHs to haul these new trains...
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=186052&nseq=5
I've always thought that these DoD cars would make excellent protoypes for model railroad track cleaning cars. They can be run around and around while remaing plausible.
The missle launcher lacks the sight and awe of decades past.
http://ww2db.com/weapon.php?q=89
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2kjMctT8yU
Looks very Lionel-esque from the cold war of the 50's.
Bob
(note that one frame of the youtube shows 3 F-40PH's)
CMStPnPArmy long ago incorporated that into simulation training that is pretty realistic.
There was a time when Army sponsored one of the major gaming competitions - training for future soldiers.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Victrola1 The missle launcher lacks the sight and awe of decades past. http://ww2db.com/weapon.php?q=89
This is an idea that never seems to go complely away... In the Civil War Siege at Petersburg (VA); the Union Army fielded a Motar ('The Dictator') that was something on the order of 18,000 lbs., and could fire a 200+# shell 2.5 miles.
Here is a linked site w/photo of various railroad artillery pieces @http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Railroad+Artillery&FORM=IRMHRS
In WWI the Kaiser's Army, and the Allies fielded a whole range of very large rail-mounted artillery pieces...The "Gustave", I think was the largest(?). And in WWII, as well, big rail mounted guns were used by USA, Russia, and the French.
Point is, this idea of mounting mobile weapons systems on rail, is not new, and will probably continue into the future.
Here is a piece from the Moscow Times of Nov. 2014: "Russia Looks to Revive Nuclear Missile Trains to Counter U.S. Attack Capability"
FTA:"The Soviet Union began deploying nuclear missile trains in 1987. The trains used RT-23 Molodets missiles, built by the giant Yuzhmash machine building plant located in modern day Ukraine. By the time the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, 56 of the missiles were deployed on missile trains. Ukraine stopped building RT-23s, and by 2005 Russia had decommissioned all of them..."
and this linked article as well @https://www.rt.com/news/217795-russia-nuclear-missile-trains/
FTA:"...Like its predecessor, Barguzin’s carriages carrying missiles would be disguised as refrigerator cars. But since a Yars missile weights roughly half of what a Molodets missile did, the cars would not need reinforced wheel-sets to carry the load. This would make the trains harder to identify from the ground.
The weight difference also means that a single nuclear train would be able to carry more individual missiles. According to designs of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, the weapon platform’s developer, each Barguzin would be able to tow up to six Yars missiles, the source said.."
And then tried to locate 'current information' on an American Missil Train ( former Rail Garrison Concept) found the following @ http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Highball!+Missiles+and+trains.-a0238979304 "Highball! Missiles and train."@ The Free Library. 2010 Air Force Historical Foundation 22 Dec. 2015
This is a pretty long and detailed paper. If you read down to the section marked as"Damn the Conclusions, Full Speed Ahead", and then the following section " The Denouement" there is a pretty full history of the Air Force, and its history of the "Rail Garrison Project"
mudchicken ...and hoped they didn't light the candle in Raton tunnel.
Didn't Wile E. Coyote pretty much disprove that theory?
Not sure if the genious of Mr. Coyote applied to military planning. Those tunnels had a jinx attached, especially the older one with lesser clearances and wood lined. (The newer tunnel is the only one in service today and was a favorite place for black bears to hang out in the summer heat.)
I got to escort the DMA guys all over the place in advance of the testing that they did with the test cars. Really interesting surveying lesson(s) from that Cheyenne bunch.
MC, were the bears smart enough to move out when a train approached? Was there enough clearance on the sides for them? Did crews take bear meat home for supper?
Johnny
For the most part the bears were gone at the approach of a train, turkeys not so much. One of the air shafts claimed a not-so-bright bear in the mid-80's.
At least one B&B Supervisor didn't get it about the smell preceeding the bear and carefully having to bug out. Bears were as much afraid of us as we of them.
Old rancher Don Berg at Wootton Ranch usually could tell us if there were bear issues. The NM-DOT truck scale and rest area for I-25 almost on top of the tunnel had issues with bears in the trash until the big fire of a few years ago.
I'm still wondering how far our PRG development testing actually progressed. Bouncing a missile with solid state propellant motors and some delicate electronics (not to mention nukes!) around on Class I rail infrastructure should have required a Lot of verification test launches - any one know how many were done?
I can just visualize it now. The USAF command center gives the order to disperse and several dozen trains hit the UP and BNSF mains that are already jammed with traffic. Factor in some undertrained dispatchers and clueless managers for instant cluster ...
IMO the Chinese equivalents would probably experience a high percentage of launch disasters, turning much of their country into Chernobyl like territory ....
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These days various sources say our image capture from space is good enough to read license plates. Given that level of detail, I'd question the ability of the Chinese -- or anyone else -- to make their missle train look like anything innocent. I'd think it would be child's play to track them, and one could teach a photo analysis program to do it automatically.
It would seem to me that unless they are assuming an attack by a primative power (maybe North Korea) they are wasting their time.
I dont think North Korea would attack China, that missile has to be for the USA or possibly India.
mudchicken Chuck: We were the guinea pig for rail garrison in the mid-1980's. Division Engineer referred to them as the "Portable Switch Heater" people and hoped they didn't light the candle in Raton tunnel.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Dakguy201 These days various sources say our image capture from space is good enough to read license plates. Given that level of detail, I'd question the ability of the Chinese -- or anyone else -- to make their missle train look like anything innocent. I'd think it would be child's play to track them, and one could teach a photo analysis program to do it automatically. It would seem to me that unless they are assuming an attack by a primative power (maybe North Korea) they are wasting their time.
If tensions reach the level were a nuclear exchange was probable, China (or the other former Cold War adversary) would probably try to destroy the spy satellites before hand. Especially if hostilities first start in conventional mode and then escalate.
Jeff
Murphy Siding mudchicken Chuck: We were the guinea pig for rail garrison in the mid-1980's. Division Engineer referred to them as the "Portable Switch Heater" people and hoped they didn't light the candle in Raton tunnel. Was the intention to try and hide them in tunnels? I thought the idea was to play a shell game- keep the Russians playing "Where's Waldo"? In the mid-1980's, they could have parked a lot of them on the Milwaukee Road PCE.
Was the intention to try and hide them in tunnels? I thought the idea was to play a shell game- keep the Russians playing "Where's Waldo"? In the mid-1980's, they could have parked a lot of them on the Milwaukee Road PCE.
"re-calculating"
mudchicken The game was to make sure the roaming equipment knew damn well at all times where it was. An awful lot of passive transponders were buried in our track structure as test locations to match the varied systems employed. "re-calculating"
The game was to make sure the roaming equipment knew damn well at all times where it was. An awful lot of passive transponders were buried in our track structure as test locations to match the varied systems employed.
The spec for the MX guidance system was for a Circular Error Probability of 100 meters from a given location. This kind of implies that launch position needed to be known to much better than 100 meters. Another requirement for that accuracy was knowledge of the gravity field for a radius of 500 miles from the launch site.
From what I've heard was that the MX guidance met the spec in dowrange accuracy and was substantially better in cross range accuracy.
The Trident D5 guidance system had a similar accuracy spec, but used an astro-inertial guidance system to work around the uncertainty in launch position. This is one reason why the Naval Observatory is interested in knowing positions of stars to milli-acsecond accuracy.
- Erik
erikemThe spec for the MX guidance system was for a Circular Error Probability of 100 meters from a given location.
Hence the rule: close only counts in love, horseshoes and H-bombs.
erikemFrom what I've heard was that the MX guidance met the spec in dowrange accuracy and was substantially better in cross range accuracy.
Having seen MX missiles arrive downrange, I can tell you that they'd probably hit their mark pretty closely.
Larry,
From what was said to me, the probable impact would have been in a narrow ellipse centered on the the aiming point where the long axis was in the direction of the re-entry path and that the long axis met the spec and the short axis was much smaller than 100m (enough for me to think "Wow").
P.S. I would wonder about the shaking on the propellant as it could greatly decrease the life of the grain.
There's a Cold War story concerning those rail-mounted nuke missles.
Seem there was a big meeting between Air Force brass and some railroad officials when a rail official asked "If you guys launch one of those things what's it gonna do to my roadbed?"
An Air Force general replied "Sir, if we ever have to launch one of those things what it'll do to your roadbed will be the least of your concerns!"
mudchicken Murphy Siding mudchicken Chuck: We were the guinea pig for rail garrison in the mid-1980's. Division Engineer referred to them as the "Portable Switch Heater" people and hoped they didn't light the candle in Raton tunnel. Was the intention to try and hide them in tunnels? I thought the idea was to play a shell game- keep the Russians playing "Where's Waldo"? In the mid-1980's, they could have parked a lot of them on the Milwaukee Road PCE. Hint: What does a tunnel or large viaduct do to your car GPS unit? If your rinky-dink system can't figure out where the heck it is, what is the sub meter /sub-millimeter equipment doing with its precision? The old Santa Fe Colorado Division had about as varied terrain as anywhere close to the base in Cheyenne and the test track in Pueblo. The game was to make sure the roaming equipment knew damn well at all times where it was. An awful lot of passive transponders were buried in our track structure as test locations to match the varied systems employed. "re-calculating"
Hint: What does a tunnel or large viaduct do to your car GPS unit? If your rinky-dink system can't figure out where the heck it is, what is the sub meter /sub-millimeter equipment doing with its precision? The old Santa Fe Colorado Division had about as varied terrain as anywhere close to the base in Cheyenne and the test track in Pueblo. The game was to make sure the roaming equipment knew damn well at all times where it was. An awful lot of passive transponders were buried in our track structure as test locations to match the varied systems employed.
Murphy Siding Was GPS around back then? I thought it boiled down to the Ruskies searching for our missles on train cars using real time satellite images. The trains would alway s be in motion to throw them off. No?
For DOD users, yes, at least in the latter half of the eighties. "Real time" was a come-and-go proposition, as recon satellites were in low-earth-orbit at that time. I would guess that Soviet recon satellite capabilities were lagging behind what we were doing at that time.
There's a lot of "Spy vs Spy" type activity involved here, with the stakes a lot higher than a yok in the pages of Mad Magazine.
GPS was out there in the late 1970's, but it wasn't that portable* and there wasn't a whole popultation of "birds" out there for 100% coverage, all the time. You had five and six hour gaps before you had five birds above the horizon for a precise fix. Even then, the p-code and ephemeris were scrambled.
*the portable Magnavox geoceivers of the day were hauled around in an orange box about the size of a small steamer trunk. Could process less than a handheld can now. Processing data took forever to get a solution.
mudchickenGPS was out there in the late 1970's, but it wasn't that portable* and there wasn't a whole popultation of "birds" out there for 100% coverage, all the time
By the mid-eighties we were putting it into a SEM-E module, minus the RF front-end and possibly the TSEC portion. Ten years later, all of the processing including TSEC was in one SEM-E with room to spare.
ChuckCobleigh mudchicken GPS was out there in the late 1970's, but it wasn't that portable* and there wasn't a whole popultation of "birds" out there for 100% coverage, all the time By the mid-eighties we were putting it into a SEM-E module, minus the RF front-end and possibly the TSEC portion. Ten years later, all of the processing including TSEC was in one SEM-E with room to spare.
mudchicken GPS was out there in the late 1970's, but it wasn't that portable* and there wasn't a whole popultation of "birds" out there for 100% coverage, all the time
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