HQ-1

The HQ-1 [Hongqi /Hungchi = Red Leader ] missile is the Chinese version of the SA-2 GUIDELINE. The license-built version was the HQ-1. Suspension of Soviet assistance limited the extent of SA-2 deployment in China. Only about a half dozen sites were initially deployed in China, three of them at Beijing. These sites contained Soviet manufactured equipment. The Chinese license-built version of the V-75 was designated the HQ-1.

After signing the agreement of new national defence technology between the Chinese government and the Soviet Union government in 1957, the State Council and the Military Commission of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CMC) decided that the Fifth Research Academy of the Ministry of National Defence (FRA MND) to be cooperated with all relevant national defence industrial organizations to carry out the copy manufacturing of the Soviet made S-7S mid-high ground-to-air missile weapon system. The FRA MND was the chief designer unit; the second design department of First Branch Academy undertook the technical work of missile copy manufacturing; Second Branch Academy undertook the technical work of copy manufacturing the missile control system; No.l Bureau of the Second Ministry of Machine Building organized more than 100 factories from aviation, electronic, armament and heavy machine industries to work in coordination and was responsible for the development of the complete weapon system.

The original type of Hongqi-1 missile was the Soviet made S-75 ground-to-air missile weapon system, which consisted of the missile, guidance station, the launcher and the ground support equipment. The missile power plant was composed of two stages of engines: solid state rocket engine and liquid state rocket engine. The target interception altitude was 3-22 km, and the slant distance 12-29 km. This type of missile was an advanced ground-to-air missile weapon system in the world in mid-1950s, it was mainly used for attacking high altitude, high speed aircraft and flying missile.

In 1960, the First Ministry of Machine Building took the lead with the cooperation of the FRA MND in carrying out the copy manufacture of Hongqi-1 missile in full swing. As the Chief Designer organization, the FRA MND formed a Chief Designer working team together with design departments of the industrial organizations to solve technical problems in the factory.

When the Soviet Union withdrew their experts in August 1960, Marshal Nie Rongzhen instructed immediately to give the full play to the Chinese experts and rely on our own technical strength in copy manufacturing the missile. In Feb. 1961, the broad scientists and technicians of the FRA MND arranged, on the basis of seriously studying the maintenance documents and engineering drawings, 47 items of counterdesign subjects, such as general design of missile, control system and guidance station; worked out technical reports and made summaries; clarified the parameter selection, the dynamic arrangement and the strength calculation for general design of Soviet made missile and the problems related to all sub-system designs. All these activities accelerated the copy work. In September 1962, the Office of National Defence Industry and the Committee of Science and Technology for National Defence adjusted and strengthened the Chief Designers organization by selecting some personnel from the Third Ministry of Machine Building to work jointly with the personnel in the Chief Designe's Office of the FRA MND. The Chief Designers' Office, as a linkage between manufacturer and design organizations, solved through coordination the design problems occurred in the copy manufacturing.

During the copy manufacturing, Zhang Lizhong and Qian Wenji were appointed Chief Designers, Xu Xinbo and Wu Zhan Deputy Chief Designers consecutively and the technical chiefs of each subsystem had been finalized as well. Those leaders led their scientists and technicians to visit relevant organizations to solve technical problems in the process of copy manufacturing. During the copy manufacturing the guidance station, 23,600 pages of technical documents had been edited and approved, mistakes in 23,000 pieces of design drawings had been corrected, 570 pieces of drawings had been redesigned, 241 technical key problems in the copy manufacturing had been solved, and product quality was certificated completely.

The-copy manufacturing of the missile borne equipment and test vehicle were mainly undertaken by Factories No.112, No.410, No.119, No.123, No.474, No.719, No.743 and No.245. Factory No.112 had met a lot of technical key problems during the final assembly of the missile. Zhang Hua, the Deputy Chief Engineer, was responsible for technical work and organized "Three-in-one-combination" technical problem tackling group. They mastered the world advanced process and technology, such as aluminum alloy rolling welding and argon arc welding, magnesium alloy argon arc welding, No.4 compartment integral wall sheet processing and bending forming, all of which reached the world advanced level of new technique and the technology at that time. The technical Deputy Director Qian Hongchang of Component Workshop in Factory No.112 modified the original tooling designs, solved the distortion and nonconformance problems during the riveting assembly of missile^ No. 5 compartment.

In the trial manufacture of the liquid rocket engine, Factory No.410 solved the technical problems of film coating peeling off on the starting valve of the oxidizer. Factory No.119 solved some key problems such as air leakage of rudder at low temperature, unsteadiness of resistance to wear of the rudder potentiometer, low frequency light swinging of the rudder surface and the tolerance of control valve data etc. All other factories also concentrated their technical forces in solving a great number of key problems in the trial manufacture. The overcoming of these technical difficulties guaranteed smooth progress of the missile copy manufacturing.

The copy manufacturing of the guidance station was conducted by Factories No.786, No.761, No.784, No.785 and No.764. Hong Minguang, Chief Engineer of Factory No.786, who was responsible for final assembly production, organized broad scientists and technicians to solve engineering processing problems such as grinding process on high frequency cavity material, forming process of exponential curve flared tube, control of square hole wave guide, machining of function cam, ceramic silver welding etc. All other factories overcame their technical problems they met during the copy manufacturing and fulfilled their own tasks in time.

The production Bureau of the first Ministry of Machine Building was in charge of overall production of ground equipment. Institute No.l was the Deputy Designer organization and Liu Yuan was the Deputy Designer. The designers working team was sent by Institute No.l to the factories for solving problems and assisting the copy manufacturing. The ground equipment was in large numbers and the copy manufacturing of them was mainly undertaken by Factories No.447, No.307, No.547, No.247 and No.256. The designers working team, including Wu Mingchang from Institute No.l of the 5th Ministry of Machine Building and Peng Shaoxiang from No.2 Department of Second Branch Academy, went to the factories and helped them in solving technically critical problems during the copy manufacturing.

Through joint efforts of scientists, technicians and workers of all organizations, copy manufacturing mock-up missile was completed in April 1963. In June 1963, flying test of the two mock-up missiles was carried out successfully at the shooting range of the ground-to-air missile testing base. Soon after, the tests of transportation, vibration, static stress and water proving were also conducted. It proved that all systems of the copy manufactured missile had worked normally and the quality had met the technical requirements.

In May 1964, the copy manufactured guidance station concluded calibration flying test and the real missile shooting test was carried out for the first time with the copy manufactured closed loop operational missile against the radar parachute target, during which the parachute target was shot down and the test was successful. In June 1964, the operational missile tests were carried out against MiG-15 type aircrift target. Two missiles were launched, the guidance flight was normal. Though the missing distance was less than the specified value, the warhead did not explode and did not hit the target, which was caused by the failure of radio fuse after the analysis of the test results. Therefore, the ground-to-air missile testing department together with the general design department of second BA jointly studied flying over the fuse test plan. Deputy Director Peng Hougang of the 4th department of the ground-to-air missile testing department was in charge of flying over the fuse test for the first time in China, which was a test with great difficulty and high risk. The purpose of this test was to obtain fuse action distance and starting probability at different distance through repeating tests. Therefore, the fuse starting zone was gained, the cause of fuse failure was found out and the related improvement measures were taken accordingly. The shooting test of the missile with modified fuse was conducted on the 26th September 1964, the missile successfully shot down the MiG-15 type aircraft target.

During the test, Mr. Wang Zehuang of the ground-to-air missile testing base had also discovered from the radar records that the response-pulse of the missile borne controller was missing and judged that the missile had not been under good control, who solved the problems accordingly. On the 6th October, the missile successfully shot down the medium-high altitude simulated target. On the 10th December, the Commission of Certification for Special Weapon of State Council approved the preliminary certification of the copy manufactured operational missile, which was named Hongqi-1 missile.

The completion of the preliminary certifcation test of Hongqi-1 missile weapon system showed that the ground-to-air missile testing department had possessed the capability of certifying the weapon system. During the busy tests, Li Jieming, the Managing Director of the ground-to-air missile testing division, fell sick because of overwork, but still stuck at the first line to organize the test in spite of serious sickness. He gave his life to the cause of the ground-to-air missile testing work.

During the preliminary certification of the missile, because the system error of radar antenna was out of the technical specifications at some working frequencies of the guidance station, it did not reach the certification requirement. Qian Xuesen therefore instructed Chen Jingxiong of Institute No.23 of No.2 RA to be in charge of solving this technical problem. Chen Jingxiong, Li Guisheng and others went to the factory for investigation from July 1965 to June 1966. They had conducted more than 100 tests and large number of analyses and calculation with the cooperation of technicians and workers in the factory, finally they found out the cause of antenna system error and carried out major improvement to the original design, and the test result showed that the system error of the modified antenna had met technical requirements. They were awarded the first prize of the National Invention. After the antenna problem had been solved, the copy manufacturing S-7S ground-to-air missile weapon system was completely finished. Through the copy manufacturing this type of missile, the development, production and test of the Chinese ground-to-air missile had been basically formed in a complete system, the scientific and technical working forces had grown up rapidly, it had laid down a good foundation for the self development of missiles.