Bershet ICBM base (Zvyozdny)

 abandoned / shut down  Add category

15Zh61 - SS-24 Mod-1 The RT-23UTTh tests of the railroad SS-24 Mod-1 version (15Zh61) that is almost identical to the 15Zh52 began on 27 February 1985 and were finished in December 1987 The deployment of these missiles started on 28 November 1989, and the first regiment with railroad-based missiles was put on alert on 20 October 1987. Altogether 36 railway-based RT-23UTTh missiles were initially 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 Zheleznodoroshnyj 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 missile launcher had a shape of a standard refrigerator car, but each of them had 8 pairs of wheels. 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.