Rail-Launched Nuclear Missiles

This article is archived, and is no longer part of Vekllei canon.

This is a concept of a Vekllei Rocketry Corp rail ICBM launcher. It has distinctive-looking carriages, and so it serves no real purpose in being a ‘hidden’ ICBM launcher. Instead, this train is for testing rail-mounted ICBMs, which are then employed in plain and unmarked railcars. Today it idles by the lakeside town of Dupot-Monan, as its senior control staff await a hot lunch driven in from the town. All equipment, including the silo, is extended.

It uses two nuclear locomotives, which produce many thousands of times more power than is required to operate the vehicle and launcher. They have radiating fans as a primary air intake. The launch car has an articulating hydraulic arm that raises the silo. Rail-mounted ICBMs launch ‘cold’. They are propelled out of the tube by gases within the silo, and only ignite outside of the train.

In 2127, the Soviets, U.S., China and Vekllei all employ hidden rail-launched ICBMs as a ‘dead-hand’ that can retaliate after an atomic attack. They rove the countryside of these superpowers, by all appearances regular cargo trains, invisible to spies and spy satellites alike. Rail-mounted ICBMs, and their testing, is one of the more frequently-broken clauses of the latest atomic weapons treaties. It is an unkept secret. This train, ‘Missile Carriage 2,’ is on its way to the rocketry test facility sixty kilometres away. With two nuclear locomotives attached, the trip will take less than fifteen minutes. Well, at least after lunch is finished.

Just a quick sketch. Thanks, guys.