According to a representative of the defense ministry, the first full regiment of nine RS-24 missiles, which is deployed in Teykovo, assumed combat duty on August 5, 2011.
The group of three missiles, which arrived to Teykovo in July 2011, joined the first six missiles, which began combat patrols in March 2011.
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In Teykovo, there are two regiments where mobile Topol-M are deployed and one with RS-24. There were four Topol site in this 54th div. Do you think the 4th site will be transformed for RS-24 ? Or three regiments in a divsion will be the new "norme" ?
What will be the next division equiped with RS-24 ? Novosibirsk, Irkoutsk ?
It looks like for the moment RS-24 will be deployed in Teykovo, but it's hard to tell where they will go next.
Relating to the question of a configuration of only 3 missile regiments inside the Teykovo ICBM base (2 "Topol-M" and 1 "Yars"), ARMS-TASS reported on 11 July 2011 that "it was introduced at the Plesetsk cosmodrome the training of the second regiment of the Teykovo missile unit, which will receive the arming of the mobile "Yars" missile complex" (armstass.su/?page=article&aid=96972&cid=44). The 18 mobile "Topol-M" ICBMs are deployed in the missile operating bases Teykovo-3 and Teykovo-4, and the first mobile "Yars" regiment obviously in Teykovo-1. The second RS-24 regiment also will be deployed in Teykovo-2 (see: "Second Topol-M regiment in Teykovo"). So the Teykovo ICBM base will keep all 4 missile regiments (2 "Topol-M" and 2 "Yars").
It was reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense plans to deploy "approximately 30 mobile launchers of the ground-mobile missile complexes "Topol-M" and "Yars" until the end of this year (vz.ru/news/2011/6/27/502822.html). If this number is correct, the RVSN will have 18 mobile "Topol-M" and 12 "Yars" missile complexes in December 2011. But with a yearly production rate of 8 "Topol-M" and "Yars" ICBMs of the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant the Cosmic Forces in Plesetsk can test launch only 1 RS-24 in 2011 (3 tests are planned for this year). If Russia will deploy the planned 4 silo-based "Topol-M" ICBMs in Tatishchevo (56) and maybe 3 additional mobile "Yars" launchers in Teykovo (12), and will test launch more than one RS-24 until the year´s end, so it is clear that the Votkinsk plant must produce more than 8 ICBMs in 2011 (this was the yearly production rate since 2006). Theoretically possible is that the current combat unit with 9 RS-24 ICBMs finished the deployment of this missile type for this year. But on the other hand it is relativ unlikely that Russia will test launch the announced 3 missiles until the end of 2011; not impossible, but unlikely. The RVSN reported that from 26 to 30 July 2011 more than 80 officers of the Teykovo ICBM base participated in the continuing education with the "Yars" missile complex in the education center of the Plesetsk cosmodrome. So it is more likely that the first 3 mobile launchers of the second RS-24 missile regiment will be deployed in December 2011 with a total number of 12 RS-24 ICBMs. In relation with this and other news it is possible that the RVSN will carry out the 1st RS-24 combat test launch from Plesetsk in the next time, maybe in August or September (the 4th RS-24 test launch)