14 minute video on Midgetman mobile launcher.

Wasn’t the rail-based system supposed to do something similar with an absurd number of TEL railcars, of which only a small percentage would actually be loaded?

Rail was for Peacekeeper with 2 missiles per train (and built in ABM defense as I recall with LoADS). The one you’re thinking of is the shell game concept (don’t recall the “official” term off the top of my head). It would have had 200 Peacekeepers each on a giant mobile vehicle (1,000,000 lbs+ with 8 foot tall tires) shuffling it’s missile between 23 shelters. For a total of 4600 hardened shelters. 😮

Wasn’t the rail-based system supposed to do something similar with an absurd number of TEL railcars, of which only a small percentage would actually be loaded?

Yip, very nice find.

If the Russian TEL breaks down it’s a mobility kill, if the Midgetman tractor breaks down it can be replaced. There was also a tracked and a band-wagon version of the tractor.

It’s kind of interesting, that the whole vehicle complex was nearly 110 tonnes heavy, whereas the missile itself was just shy of 14 tonnes.

I always wondered why they didn’t just stick them on 18-wheelers camoflaged like any other big rig and turn them loose on the US highway system. Talk about a shell game.

Yip, very nice find.

If the Russian TEL breaks down it’s a mobility kill, if the Midgetman tractor breaks down it can be replaced. There was also a tracked and a band-wagon version of the tractor.

It’s kind of interesting, that the whole vehicle complex was nearly 110 tonnes heavy, whereas the missile itself was just shy of 14 tonnes.

Midgetman was quite similar to the GBI in weight and dimensions. Makes me wonder if such a semi-mobile complex wouldn’t be a more interesting launcher than the silos they use now.

Great catch sferrin! It looks like a beast, but at the same time probably a lot easier to maintain than the Soviet/Russian/PRC ICBM TELs.

I get the impression the two approaches were designed for different environments. The Midgetman HML would have been deployed out in the south west deserts of the US so it was faster and more agile at speed than the Russian TEL (some of those high speed turns looked like they’d have flipped a TEL) where as the Russian design seems to be for more forrested areas which might have bogged down a Midgetman launcher (not to mention the HML didn’t have the turn radius of a TEL because of it’s length so it wouldn’t have faired as well in a forrested area). Bascially the HML was for a wide open area with no cover so the launcher was hardened and the trailer could be dug in so it wouldn’t flip from a near miss and left by itself while the crew boogied out of Dodge.

Great catch sferrin! It looks like a beast, but at the same time probably a lot easier to maintain than the Soviet/Russian/PRC ICBM TELs.