• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

DF-41 - Rail Mobile

Beijing had been developing rail-based missile launchers since 1982, according to declassified CIA documents. The most recent test is a significant milestone for Chinese weapon developers, demonstrating that Beijing is moving forward with deploying the DF-41 on rail cars, in addition to road-mobile launchers, officials told the Free Beacon.

Military analysts say the mobile basing of missiles is designed to complicate preemptive attacks on nuclear forces. The train carrying the missiles includes missile launch cars, a command car, and other system support railcars, all disguised as passenger train cars. China is believed to have obtained rail-mobile missile technology from Ukraine, which, during the Soviet era, built the SS-24 rail-based ICBM, according to a report by Georgetown University’s Asian Arms Control Project.

China also is developing an extensive rail and tunnel system in central China for the missile train, according to the report. Phillip A. Karber, a defense expert who heads the Potomac Foundation, said his organization recently identified a DF-41 at a launch site at Taiyuan. "If that missile train hosts the DF-41 ICBM it means it will also have a MIRV potential," Karber told the Free Beacon. "The combination of high-speed mobility, launch cars disguised as civilian passenger trains, tunnel protection and secure reloading of missiles, coupled with multiple warheads, makes the system extremely hard to regulate or verify the number of systems."

According to one Chinese source "After 2010, these problems were solved. The second artillery commanding organ began using the trains to conduct command and launch operations. It mainly transported Dongfeng-31 by rail, and a new railway transportation camp was established for this purpose.... The speed can exceed 100 kilometers per hour, and it is within the country. It is even more difficult to be detected by satellites. China has obtained design information on train launches for SS-24 intercontinental missiles from Ukraine."

Chinese military expert Richard Fisher said: "China's new rail-mobile ballistic missile system, will greatly increase the difficulty of the US missile tracking China because China now has more than 120,000 kilometers of railway mileage will allow DF-. 41 missiles deployed rapidly changing place.

China also conducted research in the 1970s through the use of long-range ballistic motorized railway system, since there is a great technical threshold and give up, the other was China's heavy-duty railway mileage is quite inadequate. Later, China turned to the development of the technical difficulty of the relatively small pre-launch position of quasi-road mobile missile, which is emerged as the DF-31 ICBM.

The official name of the missile train is "mobile ICBMs railway system" refers to the range ballistic missile mounted on a special train, train, rail-mobile ballistic missile launches carried out in the train along the rail-mobile. The Soviet Union in the early 1960s started to develop missile train, the official service in October 1987 and combat duty. Rail-mobile launchers as a means of transmission, the maximum advantage is the continuous speed of up to 80 and maneuvering 100 km / h, and the distance the motor, a motor can be transferred over 1,000 kilometers of missile train can expand the range of maneuver, easy to get rid of the enemy tracking reconnaissance means.

The use of rail transport missiles, stability is better than the road motorized transport, it can be a missile test in motorized transport, reducing the positions launch preparation time, greatly improving the survival probability of the missile. Requirements for rail-mobile emission technology is extremely high, due to the advance could not be determined longitude and latitude, elevation and direction of the reference point of emission, thus requiring emission must be independent of the fast train location, orientation equipment, installation fast sighting equipment, the road between the missile test equipment, Once the train stops, the missile erector deployes and the missile can be quickly launched.

In December 2015 China tested a new rail-car-mounted long-range missile capable of hitting targets in the United States, according to American intelligence agencies monitoring the test. A canister ejection test for a DF-41 missile mounted on a rail launch platform was detected December 5 in western China, defense officials familiar with reports of the test told the Washington Free Beacon.

The spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Defence, Colonel Yang Yujun did not deny the testing of rail-mobile DF-41 when a reporter raised the issue during an interview. He replied 31 December 2015 that scientific experiments and research are being carried out as planned.