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Soviet / Russian Ballistic Missile Defense

A comprehensive history of Soviet anti-missile efforts is impossible, which is fortunate, since it would be very tedious. It is clear from publicly available sources that over the course of the Cold War the Soviet Union embarked on several dozen anti-missile programs. A few resulted in a deployed operational system around Moscow, others produced some test hardware, and many more were little more than paper schemes. There is no obvious stopping point for enumerating paper schemes, since therer always seems to be one more with a paper trail more ellusive than the previous one. Now the Western analyst faces the challenge of too much information, whereas in the old days the challenge was too little information, which at least made life a bit simpler.

The history of creation of anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems fits dialectically into the framework of the concept offense-defense. The appearance of a new variety of offensive weapons inevitably spurs the development of defensive systems. It is believed that the problem of ABM defense arose with the appearance of a missile threat, the precursor of which was the employment of the German V-2 rockets during World War II. Though poor operational performance of these missiles did not have any tangible impact on the course of the war and its results,the threat of massive employment of more sophisticated ballistic missiles (BM) prompted analysts to make the respective conclusions. Experience in conducting combat operations showed that the most advanced air defense means of that period were practically unfit to repulse a missile attack. As a result, the problem of ABM defense cropped up.

In the 1940s the earliest Soviet work on missile defense thought that a guidance system was a trifling problem — that the main thing was the interceptor rocket engine. But the missile turned out to be a minor detail. The crux of the matter was the enormous guidance system. The main issues here are over-the-horizon radar, computing the enemy missile’s trajectory, and so on. The interception and destruction of a ballistic missile’s warhead by an anti-ballistic missile was an extremely complex problem. It required the creation of a special organization to design and test the systems.

The Ministry of Radio Industry traditionally managed missile defense programs. The Ministry of the Aviation Industry was in charge of the missiles for air defense and missile-defense systems, the Ministry of the Defense Industry was in charge of time fuses and kinetic energy weapons, and the Ministry of Medium Machine Building was in charge of all types of nuclear warheads and problems related to particle beam weapons. The scientists and engineers drawn into this race were enticed by the possibility of implementing what seemed to be absolutely fantastic ideas. This maelstrom sucked in the leading rocket-space organizations.

What caused the Soviet Union to hold first theoretical studies of fundamental capabilities of developing an ABM defense means were trials, in the early 1950s, of American intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the early 1950s a mission was assigned to evaluate capabilities of building ABM defense means based on modern radar equipment and achievements in the sphere of anti-aircraft guided missiles.

A particularly challenging task initially was the detection of a target – a missile warhead – and discriminating it at a range of approximately one thousand kilometers against the background of the flying missile body. There existed an opinion that a ballistic missile, because of a small size and a high speed, cannot be detected at the needed ranges, while the accuracy of tracking will not ensure a hit. To validate the possibility of intercepting warheads of ballistic missiles, an experimental ABM system (System A) was created on a specially built test range Sary Shagan (in the vicinity of lake Balkhash). It incorporated:

• BM early warning radars providing target acquisition to the firing complex;
• three radars providing precise guidance of antimissiles to the target;
• anti-missile guidance radar and associated station to transmit anti-missile control commands and to detonate its warhead;
• launching site on which antimissile launchers were positioned;
• antimissiles V-1000 with a fragmentation warhead (frag WH);
• main command and data-processing.

The early warning radar provided the detection of targets at a range of 1,200 km. Three precision guidance radars were located in the corners of an equilateral triangle with the sides of about 150 km which enabled the method of triangulation (three ranges) to be implemented. On the launching site there was an antimissile radar having a rotating dish antenna. A two-stage antimissile V-1000 with a powerful solid-propellant booster (first stage) and a liquid-propellant second stage gathered an average speed of about 1 km/s, was equipped with a fagmentation WH and intercepted targets at an altitude of up to 25 km.

By this time, there had emerged indications to Western intelligence that the Russians had begun to test an anti-missile-missile system, a concept that American scientists then held to be wholly impracticable. Indeed, the R&D center of this enterprise was finally located by a U-2 early in 1960 in central Siberia, at Sary Shagan, a large community on Lake Balkash, about 400 miles east of the ICBM test establishment at Tyura Tam. It was established that the interception of rockets by other rockets had actually been attempted, with some success, and thereafter in US intelligence calculations account had to be taken of the chance, however improbable, that Soviet technicians might be close to a defense against the ICBM.

In November 1960 the first actual launch of the full-sized V-1000 antimissile was made against a live target, and on March 4, 1961, the A system for the first time ever intercepted and destroyed the warhead of the R-12 BM flying at a speed of more than 3 km/s at an altitude of 25 km. It was proved that it is possible to create an ABM system capable of intercepting and destroying warheads of ballistic missiles. During further full-scale testing a direct hit of the BM warhead was observed in yet another firing of several antimissiles against R-5 and R-12 target missiles. After March 1961 the work on the test range continued. Flight tests of a nuclear warhead of the V-1000 antimissile were carried out. Also, a modification of the V-1000 antimissile with an infrared homing head and with a directional fragmentation warhead it controlled was developed and tested.

Positive results obtained during the development of the A system paved the way to develop a combat ABM system of the city of Moscow – A-35. The decision on it was taken in 1960 (in the USA a similar decision with respect to the first combat ABM system Safeguard was taken in 1969). By June 1961 the development of the conceptual design of the combat ABM system A-35 was completed. It was planned to equip the combat system with the following: an early warning system consisting of four two-position (receiving and transmitting positions) radars; 32 firing complexes and the main command and data-processing center.

During the period of trials the A-35 system under-went a number of modernization stages. The new conceptual design of 1964 intended to employ a nuclear warhead (WH) on the antimissile instead of the blast fragmentation one with the reduction of firing complexes to 16. In 1962 the building of the A-35 system facilities commenced. It was designed to comprise the following:

• early warning system consisting of two radar nodes;
• eight firing complexes;
• two-stage antimissile's A-350.

By 1971 the construction of only 4 out of 8 sector scanning radars of the Dunay type prescribed by the project and four out eight firing complexes was completed. Along with the construction of installations for the Moscow A-35 ABM system construction on the test range in Sary Shagan continued and by 1967 was completed of an A-35 experimental test range sample Aldan which was used to test all components of the system.

In line with the tactical and technical requirements for the A-35 system it was determined that it should provide reliable protection of the capital from several missiles attacking Moscow at the same time. It had basically the same characteristics as the system A, with the exception of the fact that range and operating altitude of antimissiles were extended dramatically. It was necessary to raise the minimal altitude of hitting the attacking warheads of enemy missiles to ensure safety of the territory under protection, it was essential to keep the explosions of nuclear charges of high-yield antimissiles as far away from Moscow as possible.

The antimissile created was indexed A-350 (in NATO it was named Galosh). The A-35 system facilities were deployed around Moscow: the main command and data-processing center was located at 70 km from Moscow, several firing complexes were positioned at a long distance from the center of Moscow. Each of the systems had guidance radars and ABM launch sites. The system was introduced phase-by-phase and this process, including its modernization, dragged on until the end of 1970s.

Besides the development of firing systems of the missile and space defense, early warning about a missile and space attack became a burning issue in early 1960s. In this connection on November 15, 1962, historic decrees of the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the USSR were enacted: On the development of the IS system detection and acquisition system, missile attack early warning aids and an experimental complex for an ultra long-range detection of launches of ballistic missiles, nuclear explosions and aircraft over the horizon and On establishment of a national space control service.

In accordance with these decrees, the Minister of Defense of the USSR assigned a complex R&D task (code named Trevolga which stands for alarm). Involved in the performance of this task were practically all head institutes and some higher education institutions of the Armed Forces services. The head organization was MoD Research Institute NII-2 with the deadline at the end of 1963. The performance of the complex R&D task Trevoga resulted in the substantiation of the concept for creating missile EWS and other information systems of the missile and space defense and AD.

The improving prospects for defense were welcomed by the Russians, as their respected military commentator, Major General Nikolai Talensky, had written: "The creation of an effective anti-missile .missile system enables the state to make its defenses dependent chiefly on its own capabilities, not only on mutual deterrence, that is, on the good will of the other side." More was involved here than a Soviet state of mind that Secretary McNamara dismissed as "an absolute religious fanaticism on the subject of defense."

Andrei Sakharov, the remarkable Soviet physicist and public activist who made a major contribution to developing and upgrading nuclear weapons, wrote "Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom" in which he highlighted the danger of "great technical and economic difference in the potentials of two enemies."

"In such a case, the stronger side, creating an anti-missile defense system with a multiple reserve, would face the temptation of ending the dangerous and unstable balance once and for all by embarking on a pre-emptive adventure, expending part of its attack potential on the destruction of most of the enemy's launching pads and counting on impunity for the last stage of escalation, i.e., the destruction of the cities and industry of the enemy."

Sakharov continued: "Fortunately for the stability of the world, the difference between the technical and economic potentials of the Soviet Union and the United States is not so great that one of the sides could undertake "preventive aggression" without an almost inevitable risk of a destructive retaliatory blow. This situation would not be changed by a broadening of the arms race through the development of anti-missile defenses. In the opinion of many people, an opinion shared by the author, a diplomatic formulation of this mutually comprehended situation, for example, in the form of a moratorium on the construction of anti-missile systems, would be a beneficial demonstration of a desire of the Soviet Union and the United States to preserve the status quo and not to escalate the arms race for senselessly expensive anti-missile systems. It would be a demonstration of a desire to cooperate, not to fight."

On February 15, 1971, the first EWS units including the Murmansk and Riga radio and radar nodes and the command post in Solnechnogorsk went on combat duty. By mid-1980s radars Dnestr-M, Dnepr, Daryal were put on alert. As a result, an EWS circular radar field was created, which made it possible to detect the attacking ballistic missiles practically in all directions of approach. To increase the time of warning about a missile attack, the US-K system was developed and went on combat duty on December 30, 1982. It was intended to detect BM launches from the territory of the USA, and 1996 saw the coming of the US-KMO system detecting BM launches from the continents, seas and oceans.

To enhance reliability in detecting ICBM launches from the US territory, two over-the-horizon (OTH) detection radar nodes were set up as a back-up in the 1970s. Subsequent theoretical studies and experiments on the OTH assets validated the basic possibility of detecting not only the ICBM, but also other space and air attack weapons in the interests of the Aerospace Defense.

As far back as the late 1969, the development of initial data on the second-generation ABM system of Moscow began: a multi-channel firing complex capable of two echelons of interception: long-range exo-atmospheric (beyond the atmosphere) and short-range exo-atmospheric (within the atmosphere). The system was expected to be able to accomplish the mission assigned in the environment of employment of advanced ABM defense penetration aids as part of a complex target. In 1971 the new system design was completed, it was approved. However, soon after the draft of a new system was adopted as a foundation for further efforts the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems was signed in Moscow in May 1972 between the USSR and the USA.

In May 1972, the USSR and the USA signed a Treaty on the Limitation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems which for many years became one of the factors that determined the policy of the USSR (and then of Russia) and the USA in the sphere of strategic nuclear armaments. The ABM treaty was concluded for an unlimited duration. In accordance with this treaty the USSR and the USA assumed commitments not to deploy the ABM systems on the territory of their countries and not to build a foundation for such defense, except the two ABM defense areas: around the capital and in the vicinity of deployment of the intercontinental ballistic missile silo launchers.

The treaty allowed modernization and replacement of the ABM defense systems or their components, but obliged the parties not to develop, not to test and not to deploy the sea-based, air-based, space-based or mobile ground-based ABM defense systems or components. In conformity with the additional 1974 Protocol to the ABM Treaty, the number of areas was limited to one for each of the parties.

The second-generation ABM system project had to be revised. In May 1974 the Government took a decision to create on the Sary Shagan test range an abridged experimental sample of the multi-channel two-echelon firing complex for the test-running of technical solutions constituting the backbone of the future system. That same year construction on the test range commenced.

Signing in July 1974 of the Protocol to the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems stepped up efforts to build a new ABM system of Moscow. This Protocol limited the parties to a possible deployment of an ABM system in one area only. In 1975 the Government issued a decree which once more updated the new system requirements. The decree provided for a phase-by-phase development of the capital’s ABM defense.

In the mid-1970, in the military and engineering world, two fundamentally different points of view emerged. The proponents of the first believed it was necessary to abandon the kinetic principle of defeating the warheads of the BR when colliding with the striking elements (fragments) of the non-nuclear warhead of the interceptor. They offered to equip them with nuclear warheads. Such an approach seemed to remove from the agenda the whole complex problem of selection of real combat blocs and false targets. In addition, the precedent of installing nuclear warheads on anti-aircraft missiles to combat enemy aircraft already existed.

Supporters of the second point of view provided for the preservation of the principle of kinetic damage to the combat blocks of ballistic missiles, since nuclear explosions of anti-missiles could cause damage to the defending city. In addition, there were additional disagreements: is it permissible in the missile defense system, in addition to long-range anti-missiles, to additionally have short-range antimissiles intended for the destruction of warheads in the atmosphere, after the "natural selection" in its upper layers is light false goals 'slow down' and fall behind the true (heavy) warheads.

Grigory Kisunko remained a supporter of kinetic damage to the elements of the ballistic missile. The problem of selection of real and false goals, he considered it possible to solve by mathematical analysis (using a computer) matrices of amplitudes and phases of radar signals, reflected by the targets. To test his hypothesis, Kisunko proposed to conduct a series of full-scale experiments in laboratories and on the test site. The leadership of the Defense Ministry and the Ministry of Radio commision disagreed with the view of the General Designer of the ABM and went to use nuclear warheads in anti-missiles and to build a dual-missile defense system in Moscow. Since 1975, Grigory Kisunko was out of further work on missile defense.

After this decree was issued a new cycle of designing began which finished in 1976. However, plans to deploy American medium-range missiles Pershing-2 in Europe and the danger of their close location to Moscow emphasized the real significance of enhancing the capital’s ABM defense. There arose a natural need to adapt the system, above all, to an additional mission – defend Moscow from Pershings. In 1975 the A-35 system was tasked with intercepting complex multi-component targets containing, along with warheads, light (inflatable) and heavy false targets.

Retrofit and modernization of the A-35 system were completed in 1977. In 1978 after trials the modernized system A-35M was adopted and put on the combat alert.

The system incorporated:

• main command and data-processing center;
• radar Dunai-3M and radar Dunai-3U which was modernized in order to expand the scan sector to cover the territory of the FRG in connection with the US plans to deploy ballistic missiles in Europe;
• two firing complexes Tobol and Yenisei with silo type launchers. The complexes were deployed around Moscow along the radius of about 100 km. Each firing complex had 8 silo launchers, 16 antimissiles A-350R and one guidance radar;
• antimissiles A-350R designated as per NATO classification as ABM-1 Mod.1 Galosh. The missile was practically no different from the A-350, except the third stage which became a liquid one. Antimissiles A-350R were filled with propellant components and armed with warheads at the technical base.

The A-35M system was operational until the mid 1980s.

The main content of a draft new system A-135 was the development of an advanced multifunctional engagement radar, a fast antimissile for interception in the near echelon and the development of much more sophisticated algorithms of the system combat functioning as compared with the earlier architectures of the ABM systems. Eventually, the Don-2N radar with separate receiving and transmitting phased antenna arrays was selected as the engagement radar. The Don-2N being an all-round looking radar detects and tracks ballistic missiles, measures the target coordinates and guides antimissiles. In accordance with the concept of building a new ABM system provision was made to protect Moscow against single ballistic missile strikes or a limited group of ballistic missiles.

In 1971 the development of a new design of the ABM system was completed, and in May 1974 the Government issued a decree on creating an experimental sample of a two-echelon firing complex on the test range Sary Shagan to test-run the technical solutions made. The same year saw the beginning of construction on the test range and manufacturing of the system components at the plants. In 1978 the test range sample of the firing complex was almost completed and live firing trials commenced. Based on the results of trials carried out on the Sary Shagan test range, construction of the Moscow ABM defense components began and was completed in 1987, and the equipment assembly and installation started.

The A-135 incorporated: radar Don-2N; command and measuring post and anti-missiles – 68 short-range interceptor missiles 53T6 (Gazelle) designed to intercept targets within the atmosphere and 32 long-range interceptor missiles 51T6 (Gorgon) designed to intercept targets outside the atmosphere. In 1989 the creation of the A-135 ABM system was completed.

When the missile proliferation process began to gain momentum in the world and called for developing weapons of mass destruction to arm them and a need arose to counter this process, when specialized systems to fight non-strategic ballistic missiles came into being and in this connection it became necessary to prevent by-passing the ABM Treaty during the development of such systems, a problem of delineating the systems of strategic and non-strategic ABM defense appeared. In accordance with the demarcation agreements signed in New York in 1997, the then US systems THAAD and Aegis, the Russian system S-300V were defined as non-strategic ABM systems (they all fell within the said agreements). Of course, the parties agreed not to extend the application of the New York agreements to all the systems having some capability to fight BM (Patriot, S-3000PMU), but mainly intended to accomplish air defense missions.

As far back as December 2001, following the US presidential statement made to express the US intention to withdraw from 1972 ABM Treaty, Russian leadership described that decision as an historical error though refrained from hard language. In June 2002 the USA unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty. That same year the USA took a decision to create a US national ABM defense system.

Analysis of the available technology groundwork has shown that the development of new-generation AD/BMD missile weaponry should be based on the modular design of open-architecture information and weapon systems using unified equipment components (such an approach is used in international cooperation projects of arms developers and manufacturers). In addition, comprehensive standardization of new weapon systems, as well as the use of unified hardware/software all-in-one devices for upgrading in-service weapons.

Nevertheless, life is not at a standstill. Much attention is now paid to the aerospace defense of the country. The radars of the missile and space defense built in 1970-1980s are replaced with radars of high manufacturing readiness – Voronezh-M and Voronezh DM. The first radar in the settlement of Lekhtusi near Saint-Petersburg already went on combat duty, construction of radars in the vicinity of Armavir, Kaliningrad and other locations is at a final stage. Entering service are the latest air defense systems S-400, Pantsir air defense missile/gun system, fighters of generation 4+, radars of the radio-technical troops, automated control systems which, in conjunction with the missile and space defense assets, are capable of fighting aerodynamic and ballistic targets.

As early as 2013, the RF President in his message to the Federal Assembly noted: "The appearance of a non-nuclear prompt global strike weapon in combination with an ABM system can nullify all previously reached agreements in the field of limiting and reducing strategic nuclear weapons, leading to a violation of the so-called strategic balance of power ... ".

The president of the International Center for Geopolitical Analysis, Colonel-General LG Ivashov, commented on the concept of a "prompt global strike" developed by the Americans: "... Our strategic nuclear potential ceases to be a guarantor of security. We can "get" America only with ballistic missiles, and they have the ability to strike our territory not only with ballistic missiles, but also cruise missiles, which they have in their arsenal of thousands. In a rapid global attack, even without the use of nuclear weapons, up to 70% of our nuclear missiles can be destroyed. At the same time, US strategic nuclear forces are sufficiently protected by the missile defense system. "