DPRK showcased previously unseen war deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles at the military parade on Oct 10, marking the 75th founding anniversary of...
A silo, even a very well camouflaged and protected one, is still vulnerable to attack. An immobile target is easy to find, and a target that is known to the enemy can be struck repeatedly until destroyed.
A wheeled launcher, on the other hand, is much more difficult to detect. This is especially true if you're mountainous like the DPRK, or have vast hinterlands to hide things in like Russia/China.
No country, not even the US really has the ability to monitor every meter of road of all of their adversaries constantly. You can take that opportunity to drive a missile out to the deep woods (hence the huge all terrain tires) or hide it in a mountain tunnel.
If you need to use it, a modern wheeled launcher can be good to go in a matter of minutes. This is far too little time for even the most advanced opponent to find them all and hit them.
Incidentally, Russia has ICBMs fitted inside standard railway boxcars which are constantly just shuttled across Siberia via civilian cargo trains. It's like one of those cup games but the "prize" is first nuclear death and the cups are hundreds of thousands of identical box cars.
They've been decommissioned though and a replacement is yet to be found. There was a big stink about how Russian security is getting severely compromised when it happened, with the apologists claiming they were easily detectable anyway because 1) using non-standard size railcars 2) train traffic schedules became open to the public so gov couldn't hide routes anymore.
I judge this: :halal:
Is it important for tactical reasons that the ICBMs are on wheels instead of in a silo? So they won't be in predictable locations?
Basically, yes.
A silo, even a very well camouflaged and protected one, is still vulnerable to attack. An immobile target is easy to find, and a target that is known to the enemy can be struck repeatedly until destroyed.
A wheeled launcher, on the other hand, is much more difficult to detect. This is especially true if you're mountainous like the DPRK, or have vast hinterlands to hide things in like Russia/China.
No country, not even the US really has the ability to monitor every meter of road of all of their adversaries constantly. You can take that opportunity to drive a missile out to the deep woods (hence the huge all terrain tires) or hide it in a mountain tunnel.
If you need to use it, a modern wheeled launcher can be good to go in a matter of minutes. This is far too little time for even the most advanced opponent to find them all and hit them.
Incidentally, Russia has ICBMs fitted inside standard railway boxcars which are constantly just shuttled across Siberia via civilian cargo trains. It's like one of those cup games but the "prize" is first nuclear death and the cups are hundreds of thousands of identical box cars.
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damn having nuclear missles in trains is kind of badass
They've been decommissioned though and a replacement is yet to be found. There was a big stink about how Russian security is getting severely compromised when it happened, with the apologists claiming they were easily detectable anyway because 1) using non-standard size railcars 2) train traffic schedules became open to the public so gov couldn't hide routes anymore.