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K-10S (AS-2 Kipper) - Development

The creation of the air-to-ground missile system K-10 (Kometa-10) was carried out in accordance with the Government Decree of February 3, 1955 and a more detailed document of November 16 of the same year. The Tupolev OKB-256 was appointed as the lead organization, which was supposed to submit the converted Tu-16K-10 carrier aircraft by March 1, 1957; OKB-155 acted as the leader of the K-10S rocket, the chief designer of which was M.I. Gurevich. The K-10U control system, which included an aircraft radar and missile systems, was developed by KB-1 of the Ministry of Armaments under the leadership of S.F. Matveevsky.

The Tu-4K and Tu-16KS aircraft-missile systems laid the foundation for the use of cruise missiles in the fleet, but the rapid development of ship-based air defense systems made it necessary to look for ways to improve the offensive weapons of missile carriers. A missile system was required not only with higher performance, but also designed for some future.

In 1955, by a joint decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU, OKB-155 was obliged to create a K-10 air-to-ground rocket weapon system (Kometa-10 or Luga-S) for the promising supersonic carrier Tu-105, but time took its toll. The protracted development of both Tu-105 and K-10 led to the rapid obsolescence of the latter. But so that the work would not be in vain, in the summer of 1958 K-10 was offered to be installed on Tu-16 carriers and they were not mistaken. The Tu-16K-10 complex turned out to be one of the most "long-lived".

At the same time, the creation of a shipborne version, designated P-40, for the nuclear cruiser being designed was also set. In accordance with the Decrees of August 17 and 25, 1956, the Project 63 cruiser was supposed to carry 12-16 P-40 projectiles. The Mikoyan Design Bureau and NII-10 of the Ministry of Shipbuilding were appointed developers of the missile system, but the ambitious project was soon abandoned in favor of more real ships and successful OKB-52 P-6 naval cruise missiles.

Like its predecessor, the Tu-16K-10 missile was designed to destroy surface ships, but with a displacement of over 10,000 tons. The range of the system was set within 1600–2000 km. Aircraft equipment with a detection range of 250–180 km was supposed to ensure the launch of the K-10 at a distance of 200–160 km from the target at a carrier speed of 700–800 km/h at altitudes of 5,000–11,000 meters. The carrier should not have approached the target closer than 100 km. The same document limited the weight of the rocket to 4400 kg, and the additional equipment of the carrier to 1200 kg.

The first K-10S missile entered testing in October 1957, however, malfunctions and defects delayed the start of flight tests, and the first launch was carried out only on May 28, 1958, still in the “throw mode” without using the guidance system. Until the end of the year, 5 more launches at a distance of up to 96 km followed, next year - 12, however, due to numerous failures of both the equipment and the rocket power plant, only 6 of them were successful. Meanwhile, mass production of the Tu-16K-10 began in Kazan (the first such aircraft, No. 8204010, was produced in April 1958).

Flight tests of the complex began in the spring of 1958 at the training ground of the 6th State Research Institute of the Air Force in Akhtubinsk, and five launches took place before the end of the year. It should be noted that the first missiles were tested in autonomous mode without homing. In these launches, the separation of products from the carrier, the operation of the power plant, and the compliance with aerodynamic characteristics were checked. embedded in the rocket, determined by the results of research at TsAGI, and much more. Fully equipped with "stuffing" K-10 began to be tested only next year.

By a government decree of August 12, 1961, the Tu-16K-10 was put into service. Unlike the Tu-16KS, it allowed, without mutual interference, guidance systems to use up to 18 missiles in a salvo from one or more directions.

For the first five missile launches, the Navy Aviation Command in 1960 allocated two crews from the Northern Fleet. The launch preparation procedure was quite complicated. Previously, the crews flew three times to the Kuzminskoye aviation training ground of the Northern Fleet, and then flew to the Kulbakino airfield of the 33rd training center, where they conducted further training for eight days. Then they returned to Severomorsk-1 to receive missiles and return to Kulbakino. Only after that, in June, they started launching K-10.

The first launch was made by the crew of Lieutenant Colonel Myznikov. The flight along the route Nikolaev - Stavropol - Black Market - target (flooded transport "Chkalov") in the Caspian Sea - Astrakhan - Rostov-on-Don - Nikolaev was carried out at an altitude of 10,000-10,500 meters with a rocket uncoupling at a distance of 175 km. According to data from the K-10 range, it did not reach the target of 40 m. Following it, the crew of Lieutenant Colonel Kovalev launched a second missile from a distance of 170 km. The result is a direct hit. Within two weeks, five more launches were made, but one of them, due to a crew error, turned out to be unsuccessful. Thus, the Tu-16K-10 complex began its service in naval aviation.

Joint state tests of the K-10 system began at the Air Force Research Institute on November 21, 1958, followed from September 1959 to November 1960 by tests with tactical launches on warships in the Black Sea and real ones on the decommissioned Chkalov tanker with a displacement of 9100 tons. The tanker, 110 m long, imitated a cruiser-type target in dimension, and in order to resemble its silhouette with developed superstructures, a metal net 13 m high was pulled over the low-sided hull of the vessel, estimating holes in it as hitting the target.

For testing, two Tu-16K-10s, a pair of SM-K analogues and 34 missiles were involved, two of which were in combat performance with a standard warhead. Later, another 10 K-10S were launched, equipped with telemetry equipment, which made it possible to control the parameters on the trajectory (cine theodolite shooting did not give a complete picture, and it was not necessary to count on the safety of the records after the fall of the rocket). In the course of joint tests, 184 Tu-16 flights and 62 SM-K analogues were made. Large ships were detected at a maximum range of about 400 km, corresponding to the theoretical radio horizon, the radar ensured their confident capture and auto-tracking.

The result achieved during one of the launches was noteworthy, when the K-10S, passing by the target, covered 245 km, holding out in the air for 610 seconds, and by the time of the fall, there was still a supply of fuel in the tanks. At the same time, the reliability of the system left much to be desired - due to frequent failures, only half of the launches were successful, and only 10 out of 20 test missiles hit the target. All five launches from the maximum distance were unsuccessful, and claims were made not only to the quality of the system, but also to the working conditions that created problems for the crew: the operator had to work in complete isolation from the rest of the crew, in a cramped pressurized cabin at 40-degree temperatures, and the navigator, located on the Tu-16K-10 behind the pilots, was deprived of a normal view (to correct the situation, viewing windows had to be equipped for it on the sides of the fuselage).

The military considered failures of launches due to the fault of the system to be unaccountable and estimated the achieved probability of defeat at 0.624, which clearly fell short of the target. The developers, on the other hand, attributed a number of failures to design defects that could be eliminated in the course of improvements, and offered not to count them in the assessment, which gave a completely acceptable value of the probability of defeat in 0.714. Later, representatives of the industry corrected this value, taking into account the combat training launches of 1961, presenting in the final act of the GI an “adjusted” value of 0.8, which fully corresponded to the one stipulated by the government document.

The chairman of the commission, Lieutenant-General I.I. Borzov, who represented naval aviation, was skeptical about the result and was in no hurry to sign the act, pointing out that the achieved range of combat use of the K-10S practically did not exceed the KS-1. The modernization went so far that it was decided to create a new K-22 aviation-missile system based on the advanced Tu-22K aircraft. Therefore, the planned launch of the Tu-22K-10 missile carriers (two of them should have been built already in 1959) was abandoned, and given the general trend towards the transition to purely missile weapons systems, the prospects for the K-10 did not look the best.

Saving the situation, on June 6, 1958, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers D.F. Ustinov and V.M. Ryabikov, Chairman of the GKAT P.V. Vershinin addressed a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU, in which they pointed out the obvious insufficiency of the missile-carrying grouping available in the fleets, which numbered only 90 Tu-16KS, and the weakness of its weapons. Based on this, the production of the Tu-16K-10 was maintained, and until the end of 1963, the factories in Kazan and Kuibyshev produced more than 200 missile carriers.

The decision on the deployment of mass production of the K-10 was adopted even at the start of its testing - on December 31, 1958. The production of an experimental pariah of missiles and the debugging of technology were carried out by plant No. 256 near Moscow, mass production was entrusted to Tbilisi plant No. 31. Taking into account tests on serial K-10S, the engine nacelle and air intake underwent changes, to improve the dynamic parameters, the aileron deflection angles were increased from 12° to 17°. TsAGI also proposed the use of a supersonic scoop air intake, but they did not change the design due to the poor development of such a solution.

Since August 1959, on the basis of the K-10, a variant of the K-14 was designed, designed for Myasishchev's 3MD aircraft, however, due to the closure of Myasishchev Design Bureau, this topic had no prospects, and the work was closed after six months. The same fate befell the K-10M target missile, which was intended for training naval air defense forces. In 1972-79. work was underway to create a variant based on the K-10SN equipped with an active jamming station. The missile, which received the serial designation K-10SP and equipped with the Azalia station, was intended to cover the launch of combat missiles. The aircraft equipped for the use of K-10SP was designated Tu-16K-10P, and the complex as a whole was designated K-10P. Expanding the capabilities of the complex by strengthening its missile component led to the creation of a new missile system K-26, which included missiles KSR-2 and KSR-5. The equipment of the Tu-16K-10 with the K-26 system began in 1964. Such a complex was able to destroy both sea and land targets.

The production of the projectile was started at factory No. 31 in Tbilisi (the first series and part of the units were built by the Dubna factory No. 256), and the Tu-16K10 carrier was launched at factories No. 22 in Kazan and No. 1 in Kuibyshev. 216 of these aircraft entered four naval missile-carrying aviation regiments: 924th Guards and 987 MRAP of the Air Force of the Northern Fleet, 240th Guards of the Baltic Fleet and the Black Sea 5th Guards MRAP. Gradually, it was possible to improve the accuracy and launch range, and in 1963 the team of developers of the K-10 system received the Lenin Prize.