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RT-23 / SS-24 SCALPEL - Variants

The creation of the RT-23 UTTh was the culmination of a long-term effort to create a solid-propellant ICBM for multiple basing modes which was initiated on 13 January 1969.

• 15Zh44 - SS-24 PL-4 The KB Yuzhnoye (OKB-586) was forced to confront numerous difficulties during the development of the railway-based SS-24. These difficulties eventually led to a redefinition original tasking order in July of 1976 where only a silo-launched version of the RT-23 was considered. The preliminary design was completed in March 1977 but deemed unsatisfactory. In December 1979 a second design with an improved propulsion system and a front end was finished. The new design incorporated using reentry vehicles that were identical to the R-36M / SS-18 missile. The suspended activities to build a rail-based RT-23 (15Zh52) missile were resumed, and the design was finished in June 1980. The flight-design tests of the silo-launched RT-23 (15Zh44) began on 26 October 1982. Following several failures during these flight-tests, this version was cancelled in February 1983 by the Soviet Defense Ministry.
• 15Zh52 - SS-24 Mod-0 On 09 August 1983 a further effort to develop a silo, railway and road-mobile missile designated as RT-23UTTh was approved, but the road-mobile stationing mode was subsequently abandoned. The tests of the railway based RT-23 (15Zh52) were successfully completed in April 1985, and in November 1987 it was experimentally adopted.
• 15Zh61 - SS-24 Mod-1 The RT-23UTTh tests of the railroad SS-24 Mod-1 version (15Zh61) (almost identical to the 15Zh52) began on 27 February 1985 and were completed in December 1987 and deployment of these missiles began in November 1989. The first regiment with railroad-based missiles was put on alert on 20 October 1987, with a total of36 railway-based RT-23UTTh missiles initially being deployed. They were deployed in three garrison areas: 12 launchers at Kostroma (400 km east of Moscow), 9 launchers at Bershet (1,250 km east of Moscow), and 12 launchers at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. The Military Railroad Missile Complex (Boyevoy Zheleznyy Raketnyy Kompleks BZhRK) consists of three launch cars [each with a single missile], a command and control car, cars for personnel, and several diesel locomotives. The rail-mobile version could operate on any Soviet rail line that was unobstructed by overhead electrical power lines, a total of 145,000 km of track.
• 15Zh60 - SS-24 Mod-2 The silo-based version (15Zh60) known as SS-24 Mod-2 was tested from 31 July 1986 through November 1988. The deployment of these missiles in silos formerly occupied by SS-17 Sego ICBMs, started on 28 November 1989, and the first silo-based missile regiment was activated on 19 August 1988. Altogether 56 silo-based RT-23UTTh missiles were initially deployed, with 10 at Tatishchevo in Russia and 46 at Pervomaysk in Ukraine.

15Zh61 - SS-24 Mod-1 - Missile

The rocket 15Zh61 had three sustainer stagees and a stage of "breeding of combat blocks" [the MIRV bus]. The first, second and third stages consisted of a whole-body case of the "cocoon" type made of composite material. The first stage was equipped with a solid-propellant engine with a central fixed, partially recessed nozzle. Solid-fuel engines of the second and third stages had central stationary nozzles and sliding nozzle nozzles. This gave a significant increase in the specific impulse due to an increase in the degree of nozzle expansion with limited lengths of interstage compartments. The first stage was controlled by injection of hot gases into the supercritical part of the propulsion unit nozzle, the second by the deflection of the head and partly by aerodynamic rudders located on the nose fairing.

The head part was of a dividing type, individual guidance, with ten warheads ["combat blocks"]. The stage of breeding blocks - "pushing" the scheme, the warheds are located in one tier. For the breeding stage, a unique propulsion unit (DU) 15D264 was created. It consisted of a high-energy multifunctional, high-thrust liquid engine with a combined fuel delivery system and multiple in-flight switching, as well as sixteen liquid-propellant low-thrust thrusters. The specific average integral impulse of thrust of such a propulsion system in the area of overloading and re-targeting of combat blocks was more than 300 s, which made it possible to ensure high efficiency of the breeding stage. Increase in the accuracy of delivery of combat units to the planned target of the defeat was decided at the expense of oriented entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere.

Tests of railway ICBM 15Zh61 passed from 1985 to 1987. In total, 16 rockets were launched during the tests, one launch was emergency. There were 18 railway train exits for resource and transport tests, during which over 400 thousand kilometers were traversed by railways.

15Zh60 - SS-24 Mod-2

The main difference of the rocket 15Zh60 from the rocket 15Zh61 was its increased resistance to nuclear effects. The silo-based missile 15Zh60 had a second level of resistance to nucelar effects [FPVW]. The increased requirements for power-to-weight ratio and magnitude of control efforts, the degree of protection from PFNAV, which were shown for the first-stage and second-stage maritime solid-propellant rocket engines, led to the need for a fundamentally new first-stage propulsion system. The motor installation 15D305 was created. The new engine uses a higher-energy solid fuel based on an octogen with an internal channel of an improved star-shaped shape, a central rotary control nozzle on an elastic support hinge. Consumption-traction characteristics were boosted due to a significant increase in intra-chamber pressure.

For the second stage, the modernized propulsion system 15D339 was used. A special multifunctional coating is applied to the case of the second stage stage. The remaining design and technological solutions of the remote control are analogous to the DM of the second stage of the rocket 15Zh61. The propulsion systems of the third stages of the rockets 15Zh61 and 15Zh60 are identical.

The control system, the combat blocks of the rocket 15Zh60, had a second level of resistance to FPAW. The control system ensured the restoration of information in the calculator after the exposure of the FPAS by rewriting it to the random access memory from the custodian in the permanent memory. A "hot" mode of operation of the control system on alert was implemented with permanently activated command devices associated with the "Signal-A" combat control system. The combat equipment of the rocket 15Zh60 is a separating warhead with ten combat blocks of increased resistance to FPAW and tactical and technical characteristics close to the TTX of the combat blocks of the American MX missile.

The launcher 15P760 of the 15ZH60 missile provided constant combat readiness and the duration of the silo's autonomy during the period specified by the Customer.