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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.

The MIC decision in accordance with the "LG-2015" was to create a unified system of antiaircraft missile defense, air defense missile 5th generation. The structure of system of systems, would include the S-500, solving the problem of missile defense in threatened areas, the S-400 air defense missile systems of medium-range "Vityaz", SAM short range on the basis of technical solutions SAM "Tor-MZ" and SAM "Carapace" super short-range air defense missile systems, "Morpheus" and the nomenclature of unified command and control centers, providing automation of the 5th generation as a whole.

In 2010, performance characteristics of anti-aircraft missile systems, as "Morpheus" (short range), "S-350 Vityaz" (middle range) and C-500 (long range "Outbound") were approved. The architecture can be schematically represented as follows: "Vityaz" from top and "Morfey" from the bottom overlap the zone of "Pantsir" and "Thor."

In 2011 it was planned tha by 2020, the troops should be equiped with 56 battalions of S-400 (28 regiments dvuhdivizionnogo composition), as well as 10 divisions perspective complex air defense / missile defense system S-500. It is expected that due to air defense systems S-400 "Triumph" will be replaced 50% of the available troops in the SAM S-300 Favorit ". Still about 50%, is likely to be replaced by a new air defense system "Vityaz", which according to experts, is several times more capable than the S-300. One launcher "Vityaz" complex will carry up to 16 missiles, and the complex will be able to detect, track and fire on a greater number of targets.

In addition to the complex "Vityaz" it is planned to adopt to adopt a system of short-range air defense "Morpheus." All of these air defense systems: S-400 "Triumph", the C-500 "Triumphant-M", "Hero" and "Morpheus" will be part of a system of air and space defense (ASD), the creation of which began in the country this year. According to the chief of the General Staff, Army General Nikolai Makarov, the new system will allow Russia to cover against ballistic missiles, medium-range missiles and cruise missiles of different bases.

Expert advice Aerospace Defense (ASD) criticized weapons development in the interests of air and missile defense of Russia. "To date, approved in violation of the Military-Industrial Commission in 2010 terms, GSKB" Almaz-Antey "state tests are not completed on any of the required surface-to-air missile," - said the chairman of the Presidium of the Expert Council of EKO Igor Ashurbeyli 04 March 2014.

No system has been put into service, and mass production is not started, according to an unhappy Ashurbeyli, who himself led the head systemic design office "Almaz-Antey" until 2011. According Ashurbeyli, possible reduction in a number of performance characteristics of systems in comparison with the approved technical project may call into question the need for their further development. "These systems may not be able to hit those promising means of attack for which they are, strictly speaking, meant" - said Ashurbeyli.

Viktor Pryadka, military expert and director of Avintel Aviation Technologies Alliance, suggested in April 2017 that development of US stealth systems was already significantly behind the creation of Russian air defense systems designed to defeat them. This, he added, was something of a natural process. "While the US developed the stealth F-22 and F-35s (and before them was the stealth F-117, which was shot down in Yugoslavia by an anti-aircraft system developed in the 1950s), the dynamics of development of anti-aircraft systems proceeded at a more rapid pace," the analyst explained.

"Therefore, by the time the [new] aircraft actually hits the production line, it already has a clear 'antidote' which can shoot it down without any problems. Originally, it was planned for [US] stealth aircraft to have the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds. In this case, the plane's configuration was meant to scatter radio waves on radar systems, making the visible area so small that the aircraft may be mistaken for a large bird. But given that work on new air defense systems has also progressed, the whole concept has not justified itself," Pryadka noted.