North Korea Experimented With Train-Launched KN-23 Missile in 2021, Can russia Try the Same in Ukraine?
russia and North Korea are expanding military cooperation, primarily through agreements hostile to Ukraine. In this context, any information about North Korea’s military capabilities, especially its missile systems, becomes increasingly valuable.
With that in mind, we should pay attention to an episode that happened in the fall of 2021, when North Korea tried to launch the KN-23 ballistic missile from a railway train.
To be more specific, on September 15, 2021, Western media reported that North Korea had tested a mobile missile launcher on a railway chassis, launching two KN-23 ballistic missiles at a claimed distance of 800 kilometers.
A video of the launch confirmed the configuration of the missile train: a locomotive, one car with the launch systems, and another car likely for technical support, all disguised as a regular freight train.
North Korean propaganda called this system a “missile regiment” but provided no further technical details. Strangely, after this 2021 test, there were no additional reports on the development of this rail-based launch system.
Unsurprisingly, the North Korean missile train was compared to the Soviet-era RT-23 railway complex, also known as BZhRK during the Cold War. The train carried RS-22 (SS-24) intercontinental ballistic missiles. These Soviet railway-borne launchers were inherited by russia but were all retired by 2005.
Briefly speaking, the RT-23’s main advantage was its stealth, yet the drawback was its mobility, limited to specific railway routes. Interestingly, in 2017, russia announced plans to develop a new train-based system called the Barguzin, designed to carry the Yars ICBM, but this project was never realized.
It’s likely that North Korea discontinued the KN-23 missile train project for similar reasons: the limited mobility of such a system. However, we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that North Korea may revisit the concept in the future.
As for russia, the “missile + train” concept has only been seen during the routine transportation of missiles to deployment sites, where they were passed over to wheeled launch systems. For example, in early 2022, just before the invasion of Ukraine, russia transported Iskander short-range ballistic missiles to belarus in railcars originally designed to carry coal.
Nevertheless, we cannot dismiss the possibility that russia might eventually adopt North Korea’s approach, equipping trains with missile launchers to disguise systems like the Iskander as regular freight trains.