PC: Rail mounted VLS

CalBear

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Not really. When railway guns were useful, the tech for VLS wasn't there.
 

Delta Force

Banned
It would probably be too tall to easily transit under bridges and through tunnels. The missiles could be stored horizontally and then fired though.
 
Not really. When railway guns were useful, the tech for VLS wasn't there.

Where there rail based ballistic missile launchers in OTL? Perhaps the POD is to develop a intermediate design to bridge the gap.

It would probably be too tall to easily transit under bridges and through tunnels. The missiles could be stored horizontally and then fired though.

I was thinking along the line of Schnabel Cars.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnabel_car

Infrastructure would definitely have to be built around it to a degree. As for the size maybe strike systems would be too big then. Instead it could be mostly for air defense with smaller SAMs.
 
I'm having trouble thinking of a use case for these things that make sense. By the time VLS cells are available, anything you would use a railway gun for can be done better by SSMs or aircraft-launched weapons. If you want to make VLS systems mobile, then on the modern battlefield a train is hardly the best way to do that. Modern MRL or SPSAM batteries fulfill the same function and are less tied to vulnerable infrastructure. Put bluntly, anything you might want to do with a VLS will be done better if it isn't tied to railway lines.

What do you see as the advantages of the idea?
 
I've toyed with this idea for strategic defence. Kit out a train as a mobile SAM site (or missile cruiser, if you prefer) and drive it around the country. When the bombers come, they can plan routes to avoid fixed sites, and even road-mobile ones need time to move. The train could, potentially, be designed to fire on the move, making the work of the bombers much more difficult - to deal with them, they have to be prepared to shoot back.

Of course, this depends on keeping manned strategic bombers a major threat.
 
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