Railroad Troops - Exercises
In recent years, the railway troops participated in all large-scale exercises, without exception. During these maneuvers issues of building approaches to floating railway bridges, erecting military overpasses through small watercourses and guidance of floating railway bridges NZhM-56 and MLZh-VF-VT through large water barriers - Yenisei, Volga, Amur, Zeya and Bureya.
Emphasis has been placed on improving the Railway Troops, which are fundamental to Russia’s ability to support transportation both within Russia, and across the Soviet legacy rail networks in the former Soviet Union and in Finland. The Zapad 2009 JSE emphasized to Russian planners that rail transport was imperative for intratheater transport, while also foreshadowing the need for prepositioning and centralized maintenance facilities at the MD level. It took five days for the 4th Tank Bde to move 400km from its Moscow garrison to Belarus during the exercise. Motorized rifle brigades took even longer due to a lack of An-124 transport and Mi-26 assault support aircraft.
As an example: in 2017, during the strategic exercise "West-2017", as well as a special exercise with the military command and control bodies, formations, units and logistics organizations of the Western Military District, the forces of the Railway Troops in the Yaroslavl region were directed by a combined railroad bridge across the Volga River, consisting of two bridges of fundamentally different designs - a floating bridge on separate floating supports, which has been in supply since the late 1950s, and a floating unified railroad The length of the navigated bridge was more than 800 m.
During the exercise, the newest means of motorization and transportation of elements of a floating bridge on water was widely used: the self-propelled pontoon (pusher) PST-1. Its development and delivery to the troops made it possible to remove the main problematic issue facing the troops in recent years. Earlier, the troops in total used self-propelled pontoon sections of four projects. The development of the earliest project dates back to the late 1950s. The issue of unification, according to our instructions, was resolved in an initiative order by the joint stock company "41st Central Plant of Railway Engineering" in conjunction with research organizations subordinate to us. The order of the Russian Defense Minister PST-1 was passed to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Until 2020, the Railway Troops planned the delivery of more than 300 pusher units.
JSC "Russian Railways" was widely involved in the exercise. During the SCSE, control over the railroad on the directions of the redeployment of troops will be transferred to the Military Services Division of the Transport Department of the MoD of the Russian Federation. Moreover, military rail transportation is of primary importance and do not take into account trade and economic activity. The total number of railroad cars for the redeployment of equipment and personnel only in the interests of the Ministry of Defense will exceed 7 thousand units. The peculiarity is the use of solely diesel locomotive traction for military transportation (including on electrified sections of the railway) as a preventive measure in order to prevent the breakdown of military transportation in the case of targeted cyberattacks or other unauthorized influences on the power supply network.
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