SS-24 Scalpel (NATO designation) or RT-23 is a Russian ICBM, developed and produced by the Soviet Union before 1991. It is cold launched, and comes in silo and railway car based variants. It is a three stage missile that uses solid fuel and thrust vectoring for two stages, with 10 MIRV warheads, each with 550 kT yield.
The missile was the culmination of a major Soviet effort to develop a heavy solid-fueled missile with multible basing modes: silo-based and rail-based versions were deployed, and a road-mobile version was considered but rejected. This made for a much more survivable ICBM, as the rail-based missiles could move around the rail network and thus be difficult to detect and track. The new missile was to replace the older liquid-fueled SS-19 missiles which were entirely silo-based. Its US counterpart was the MX missile.
The missile was tested through the 1980s and began to be deployed in 1987. Its production facitilites were mostly located in Ukraine. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Ukraine had no interest in producting ICBMs and so the production of the missile came to an end.
Just before the breakup of the USSR, 92 missiles were operational, 56 based in stationary silos and 36 rail-based. The 46 silo-based missiles located in Ukraine were deactivated by mid 1996 and returned to Russia, but the 46 missiles in Russia remained in service. The missile was to be banned under the provisions of START II, but that treaty was never ratified. The 10 silo-based missiles in Russia were deactivated around 2000. After 2000 the rail-based missiles were also gradually withdrawn from service, with the remaining 15 scheduled to be decomissioned in 2005.
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