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Further Reading

SAM Surface to Air Missile

As was the case in jet technology, the Soviet's post war Surface to Air Missile [SAM] program was based on German technology. Unlike their well-developed aircraft design capabilities, however, the Soviets had carried on no practical work in guided missiles. Thus, while jet aircraft developed rapidly, SAMs developed at a slower pace with a much greater reliance on German technicians. At the end of the war, the Soviets found themselves with four candidate German systems for development: the Schmetterling, the Wasserfall, the Rheintochter III, and the Enzian. Of these, the only supersonic prototype, the Wasserfall, was ultimately chosen as the focus of development activity.

German scientists and technicians assisted the Soviets in their early SAM developments. As the program was relatively more dependent on German technology than the jet aircraft program, so it was more dependent on German technicians. In 1946, a number of German technical teams were transported to the Soviet Union. By the fall of 1946 Germans were engaged in missile projects which by 1948 included the conduct of electronic experiments for development of the guidance subsystem of what eventuated as the SA-1 weapon system. By 1949, these teams had developed experimental designs for semiactive guidance, for computational equipment, and for a production version of the Wasserfall. In 1951, however, an improved design, about guidance details, was submitted by a German group located at Gorodlomlya. It is believed that this is the design which evolved to the SA-1 system.

By November 1950, they were tasked to develop the guidance system for the SA-1. Available information makes it appear that this system was the principal air defense missile weapon under development at the time. As developed-with a capacity for simultaneous engagement of significant numbers of aircraft-and later deployed at Moscow, it was intended to counter large, massed bomber raids comparable to World War II operational activity. It is not evident that it was designed to counter any specific U.S. aircraft threat.

The SA-1, which achieved operational capability in 1954, was deployed in 56 sites, each with 60 fixed launchers in two concentric circles around Moscow, and it appears the system was intended for deployment around Leningrad although construction ceased at an early stage. A more practical weapon, the SA-2, was apparently under way at that time.

Soviet SAM development culminated in the start of a missile defense for Moscow. Representing an extensive and high-priority effort, the Soviet program, however, was primarily devoted to developing required missile and guidance technologies. Preliminary actions were under way on the SA-2 system. German scientific support, significant to the SA-1 program, also backed this development. From the emphasis given the program and the extent of U.S. (and other Western) capabilities for offensive air attack against the Soviet Union, it appears that the Soviet SA-2 program was intended as a specific answer to the threat appreciation of U.S. capabilities held by PVO planners in the 1950's.