The Strategic Rocket Forces just confirmed that in December 2013 first regiments of RS-24 Yars missiles will begin service in Nizhniy Tagil, Novosibirsk, and Kozelsk. In Kozelsk the missiles will be deployed in silos. To make room for Yars, the Rocket Forces has been removing old UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 missiles and began modernization of the silos.
As it turned out, the silo conversion is a serious affair - judging by the photos released by Spetsstroy (thanks to AS), it involves some steel (and probably concrete) work. I must admit I thought that the conversion will be minimal and would involve deployment of new missiles (in launch containers) in the silos - as I understand, something like that was done when RT-23UTTH/SS-24 missiles were deployed in the same UR-100NUTTH silos.
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Hi,
the intensive work may be related to the fact that the UR-100N family is a hot launch system while RS-24 is cold. Maybe the exhaust vent ducts get sealed to improve silo hardness for the small diameter missile.
Martin
Silo after dismantlement of the SS-19 in Kozelsk -- see here:
http://jury-tver.livejournal.com/32256.html
It's still nto quite clear what is involved in silo upgrade. It doesn't look like they are pouring new concrete - that wouldn't make much sense. I would say they are replacing the head section of the silo and maybe installing a new cover.
It appears that they may be upgrading extant older UR-100 silos. That picture is from the silo located at 53 47' 53" N 035 48' 14" E. This is actually the LCF for the regiment, not just a silo site, so there's a lot of work going on. Looking at it pre-modernization there appears to be two separate silos on-site, but the theoretical old UR-100 silo is sited next to a now-razed building, with the UR-100NUTTKh silo sited in a separate fenced area inside of the whole compound. Did they actually deploy two silos at LCF sites, maybe using one for Perimetr? My current reasoning is that they built new UR-100N series silos for LCFs and expanded the LCF complex during upgrade from the UR-100. It'd explain why some of these sites appear to have two silos.
The Perimeter system used MR UR-100 missiles (and then moved to Topol), so UR-100N would not be involved in it. UR-100N silos were built at UR-100 sites, replacing the old ones, so it is possible that we could see remains of an old UR-100 silo. As I understand, command centers do have two silos on site - this is what we see here.