RSD - 10 Pioneer The RSD - 10 " Pioneer " ( tr . : " Raketa Sredney Dalnosti ( RSD ) " Pioneer " " ; ) was an intermediate - range ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead deployed by the Soviet Union from 1976 to 1988 . It carried GRAU designation 15Zh45 . Its NATO reporting name was SS - 20 Saber . Its deployment was a major cause of the NATO ' s ' Double - Track Decision ' , which led to the deployment of more medium - range nuclear weapons in Western Europe . The RSD - 10 was withdrawn from service under the 1987 Intermediate - Range Nuclear Forces Treaty . Specifications . The missile was high , in diameter and weighed 37 . 1 tons . It was based on two solid - fuel fibre - glass clad stages of the RT - 21 Temp 2S ( SS - 16 " Sinner " ) so it was also known as the RT - 21M " Pioneer " . The missile ' s range was from initially ; the final model had a maximum range of possibly . Initially the missile was fitted with a single 1 Mt , 1 . 6 ton warhead , later models could take one warhead or two and from 1980 three MIRV ' d 150 kt devices ( Pioneer UTTH ) . The CEP was also reduced from to . The missile was the first Soviet missile equipped with solid fuel instead of liquid fuel , which meant that it could be launched once the order had given instead of wasting hours doing the dangerous work of pumping the missile with liquid fuel . The missile used a MAZ - 547A / MAZ - 7916 transporter erector launcher produced in the Belarusian SSR by the Minsk Automobile Plant . The TEL was originally designed for the RT - 21 Temp 2S intercontinental ballistic missile . Development . It was intended to replace , or augment , the R - 12 Dvina ( SS - 4 " Sandal " ) and R - 14 Chusovaya ( SS - 5 " Skean " ) missiles deployed from 1958 and 1961 respectively in the USSR and Warsaw Pact states . It entered the development stage in 1966 and a design concept was approved in 1968 and the task given to the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology and Alexander Nadiradze . Flight testing began in 1974 and deployment commenced on March 11 , 1976 , with the first supplied units becoming operational in August of that year . Up to 1986 a total of 48 launch sites , including a site at Pavschino , were equipped with 405 RSD - 10 missiles under control of the Strategic Rocket Forces . There were several theories as to why the Soviet Union developed the SS - 20 : During the 1960s , Soviet missile procurement was dominated by the ideas of Defence Minister , Marshal Andrei Grechko who was opposed to the idea of nuclear weapons as a weapon of last resort , and planned that if World War III began to begin that conflict with an immediate nuclear strike on the NATO nations . By the early 1970s , Grechko ' s views had caused opposition within the military and the political leadership , who wanted the Soviet Union to have a second strike capacity in order to prevent a war with the United States from going nuclear immediately as Grechko preferred . More importantly , the increasing influence of Marshal Dmitriy Ustinov heralded a shift in Soviet thinking about nuclear weapons . Ustinov was a man closely connected with the various Soviet design bureaus , and who generally sided with demands of the design bureaus against the military regarding weapons procurement . The decision to order and introduce the Pioneer in the mid - 1970s was in large part due to Ustinov ' s wishes to shift military procurement out of the hands of the military into the design bureaus , who in turn pressed for more and varied weapons as a way of increasing orders . The British historian James Cant wrote that it was the triumph of the Soviet version of the military - industrial complex over the military as regarding weapons procurement that was the most important reason for the Pioneer . SS - 28 . On 10 August 1979 the tests of the modernized " Pioneer " - UTTKh ( 15Zh53 ) began on the Kapustin Yar test site . They continued through 14 August 1980 , and on 17 December 1980 the missile designated as SS - 20 Mod3 was deployed . This variant had the same propulsion system as earlier versions , but it due to upgrading of a command structure and instrumentation - service unit it was possible to improve accuracy ( CEP ) from 550 to 450 meters , to increase maximum range by 10 % , and to increase the area covered by the warheads . This latest RSD - 10 variant subsequently received NATO reporting name SS - 28 Saber 2 . Deployment . Arguably , the Warsaw Pact enjoyed in Central Europe a massive conventional superiority over NATO . Soviet leaders assumed that NATO would use tactical nuclear weapon s to stop a massive Warsaw Pact offensive . The RSD - 10 provided the Soviet Union with an in - theater " selective " targeting capability that it previously had lacked . The RSD - 10 had the capacity to destroy all NATO bases and installations with negligible warning . Thus , the Soviet Union acquired the capability to neutralise NATO ' s tactical nuclear forces with surgical nuclear strikes . In 1979 NATO decided to deploy US Pershing II and BGM - 109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile missiles in Western Europe in attempt to counter the RSD - 10 . In 1979 , when the NATO decision was taken , the Soviet Union had 14 ( 1 operational ) SS - 20 launch sites . Decommissioning . 654 missiles were built in total . These and the 499 associated mobile launchers were destroyed by May 1991 in accordance with the Intermediate - Range Nuclear Forces Treaty . Fifteen SS - 20 and Pershing II are preserved to commemorate this agreement . One RSD - 10 can be seen in the grounds of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War , Kiev , one at the Ukraine Air Force Museum in Vinnytsia , Ukraine , and another is inside the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at Washington , D . C . . North Korea has acquired an unknown number of demilitarized SS - 20 transporter erector launcher s from Russia or from Belarus for use with the BM25 Musudan missile .