Sixty Iskanders and as many
On the eve of the Day of the Missile Forces and Artillery, which our country has already marked 70 times, at the Kapustin Yar range, which is located at the junction of the Volgograd, Astrakhan and Orenburg Regions, the Kolomna Mechanical Engineering Design Bureau solemnly handed over to the 92-th separate rocket brigade of the 2-th Guards General Army Army districts stationed in the Orenburg region, another brigade set of operational-tactical missile system 9K720 "Iskander-M", or SS-26 Stone (Stone), according to NATO classification. The ceremony of handing over the complex was attended by the commander of the district, Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, general director and general designer of the Kolomna KBM Valery Kashin, and the head of the Missile Forces and Artillery of the Ground Forces, Major General Mikhail Matveyevsky.At the same time, the new Iskander kit, handed over to the 92 Brigade, became the second year in 2014, the fourth in the last two years and the fifth in the Russian army. 8 July this year, the 112-I Guards Rocket Brigade, stationed in Shuya (Ivanovo Region), received these complexes. Earlier, in the 2013 year, they also adopted the 107-th separate Guards Missile Brigade in Birobidzhan (Jewish Autonomous Region) and the 1-th separate Guards Rocket Brigade near Krasnodar. And the very first in the 2010 – 2011 years, the Iskanders-M received the 26-I separate rocket brigade stationed in Luga (Leningrad Region).
The Chief of the Rocket Forces and Artillery of the Ground Forces, Major General Mikhail Matveyevsky, told the author of these lines that by the 2018 year there will be at least ten such brigades in the Russian army, two or three in each military district. The tactical complexes of the Iskander-M will replace the outdated tactical complexes 9K79 “Tochka” and 9K79-1 “Tochka-U”, which are not comparable in combat effectiveness with the Iskander OTRK in many tactical and technical characteristics. We'll talk more about them. For now we will result only one fact. Although the weight of the rocket head of the "Point" and "Iskander" is approximately equal - about 480 kg, "Point" and "Point-U" shoot at the maximum range of 70 and 120 km, "Iskander-M" - almost 500.
RESTORATION FROM ASH
But it makes no sense to compare Iskander and Point. It is clear that the operational-tactical complex in many ways is more effective than the tactical complex. Much more interesting is another comparison. "Iskander" and its predecessor, more precisely, the progenitor - OTRK "Oka" or OTR-23 according to the index of the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate 9К714, and according to the NATO classification SS-23 Spider (Spider) destroyed in 1989 under the Soviet-American Treaty of elimination of medium and shorter range missiles.
The Oka, which fired at a maximum range of 480 km, did not fall under this agreement. DRSMD spread to missiles flying at a distance from 500 to 5500 km. But the Americans demanded that it be included in the list of those being liquidated, although it had not even entered the troops. They were disturbed by the unique properties of this complex: it was located on one machine, which swam, overcame any impassability. She could easily be loaded onto a military transport plane, onto a merchant ship or railway platform, and transferred to that part of the planet where command was required. The Oka was controlled by only three people, and the missile warhead could be either high-explosive, cluster or even special (nuclear). She overcame any missile defense system, and in the final segment of the trajectory she developed a supersonic speed in 4 mach. It was impossible to knock it down. Of course, the Pentagon did not want to leave such a system in service with the Soviet army.
CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and USSR Foreign Minister Edward Shevardnadze succumbed to the pressure of US President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Schultz. And the then USSR Minister of Defense and Chief of the General Staff of the Marshals of the Soviet Union, Dmitry Yazov and Sergey Akhromeyev, did not dare to object to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. And all 239 rockets OTRK "Oka" were destroyed. Together with them, the 106 launchers of these missiles and all the equipment on which they were made were blown up and the design documentation was burned ...
It so happened that the author of these lines, who worked at the time in the newspaper Izvestia, became an unwitting witness to these dramatic events. The chief designer of the Oka and more 18 types of unique weapons, the winner of the USSR Lenin and State Prize Sergei Pavlovich the Invincible, his deputy chief designer OTP-23 Oleg Ivanovich Mamalyga came to my office. We prepared and printed materials on the process of eliminating medium-range and shorter-range missiles. In a veiled form (they did not directly and frankly allow the subscription to disclose state secrets), the designers said that the preparation of the contract was not all right, not everything was deeply thought out, appealed to the public for support, to stop the destruction weaponsthat ensured the security of the country. Knocked and in the Central Committee of the CPSU. Nothing helped.
I had to see at the Sary-Ozek training ground, where the Oka missiles were being blown up, as if, without hiding their tears, in those moments, the gray-haired deserved Russian gunsmiths wept in the presence of American inspectors - not a sight for the faint of heart.
But the truth of the ideas embodied in the creation of the Oka OTRK was not lost in vain. Oleg Mamalyga, together with his colleagues (Invincible after everything that happened, resigned from KBM) tried to develop a multi-purpose missile for geophysical research on the basis of the missile for the OTP-23 “Sphere”. There were many of these “spheres” - “Sphere-M”, “Sphere-М1”, “Sphere-М2”. They made them in Kolomna, as they say, on the naked enthusiasm and absolute financial unselfishness - in those years the state did not allocate even a penny of budget funds to them. If it were not for the sale abroad of the Strela and Igla man-portable air defense systems, the Malyutka-2 and Sturm anti-tank guided missiles, created, by the way, also under the guidance of the Invincible, there would be nothing for people to pay.
Hominy and his comrades even tried to push the "Sphere" into the international market. The complex provided unique opportunities for carrying out biological, technological, metallographic, astronomical, any other research and experiments in near-Earth space, in the atmosphere, ionosphere and Earth’s magnetosphere at altitudes from 300 to 600 km. It was much cheaper than to spend on such work satellites, as it allowed to accumulate a large amount of statistical material and compare the results of research, loading the returned scientific equipment with various model objects. But also nothing worked. It turned out that the international market for launching geophysical rockets has long been divided among the leading countries of the world. And no one is waiting for the Kolomna design bureau of machine building there.
At the international aerospace exhibition in Zhukovsky MAKS-1999, the Sfera-M2 rocket was demonstrated. Hominy led me to her and asked conspiratorially:
- Nothing like?
I was surprised:
- No.
- And if you look?
Looking closely, I realized that she was very much like a rocket of the destroyed Oka. The weight of the Oka warhead is 450 kg, the scientific compartment of the Sphere is about 500. The length of the missiles is 7,52 and 7,7 m, respectively. The diameter is 0,97 and 0,92 m. And there and there a solid propellant engine. Only now the launch mass was sharply different: more than a half ton. But it was clear why. In one case, a self-propelled platform is needed, on an armored car chassis. In the other - a towed trolley with a launch pad.
TRANSLATION FROM ARABIC
But even more could come to amazement when it became known that KBM, Oleg Mamalyga and his colleagues were working on the creation of the Iskander-E operational tactical complex. The letter “E” meant that the product would be intended for export. Where, too, is not difficult to guess. Iskander is the Arabic name of Alexander the Great. Due to export restrictions and a relatively short launch range - 280 km, such complexes are not subject to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Missiles and Missile Technologies - the agreement prohibits the export of missile systems with a range above 300 km. And the head of the rocket is also not very heavy - only 480 kg. Just for high-explosive, cluster and penetrating warheads - the “smallest” nuclear warhead created in third countries, does not fit into these dimensions. But everything else, like the "Oka" - accuracy and efficiency. But the truth abroad "Iskander" did not go.
Then, at the end of August 2004, one of the television channels showed a meeting in the Kremlin of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Colonel-General Yuri Baluevsky. The leaders of the military department reported to the Supreme Commander on the progress of work on the military budget for 2005 year and that the state tests of the Iskander-M operational tactical complex, which starts serial production next year and begins to enter the troops, are completed.
“By the end of 2005,” the Chief of the General Staff promised to the president, “we will have a whole brigade armed with this complex.”
But the first brigade, armed with the tactical complex 9K720 "Iskander-M", as we have already mentioned, for various reasons, entered service with the Russian army only in 2010 year. Its owner was the 26-I separate rocket brigade of the Western Military District, stationed in the city of Luga, Leningrad Region. In the brigade, as reported in the open press, a total of 51 machine: 12 launchers, 12 transport-charging machines, 11 command and staff machines, 14 life support machines, 1 preparation of information, as well as kits precision-guided missiles, arsenal kit and training facilities. Now we have, if you count the 1 launchers "Iskander-M", and in the near future will be 60.
How does Iskander, which absorbed all the unique advantages of its predecessor, still differs from its own grandmother, the Oka? Of course, the appearance. In one case, this is a four-wheeled armored personnel carrier, in the other - a car. True, also on four axes. And the platform is almost the same. But there is a feature: if the OTP-23 "carried" one rocket, then the "Iskander" is already two. And each of them can have its own goal. And fly to it, one after another, in a matter of seconds.
Unsurpassed Power
It is easy to understand that a high-performance computer installed on board gives this ability to a machine. It can receive commands in real time from the KSHM (command and staff vehicle), the crew of which, in turn, receives information from the intelligence or military intelligence, from various technical means, including from the satellite, the domestic AWACS - aircraft A- 50, and with unmanned aerial vehicles. Although the truth of the UAV of such a range - in 500 km - in service with the Russian army yet. But even so far without a UAV, almost instant processing of intelligence information coming from any reliable sources, turning it into command installations for striking, controlling a rocket on a trajectory, its indifference to the effect of the EW (electronic warfare) systems of the enemy. All this turns the Iskander into a high-precision reconnaissance and strike complex of the Ground Forces.
And the main advantage of the reincarnated "Oka" is not only in the on-board computer. The homing head of the rocket (GOS) also gives it unique qualities. Established at the Central Research Institute of Automation and Hydraulics, a leading Russian institute that develops guidance and control systems for domestic tactical and operational-tactical missiles, it has the ability to recognize a target by its external appearance, in other words, from a photo.
At first glance, the principle of operation of this system is simple (in scientific terms it is called “correlation extremal”). Optical equipment forms an image of the terrain in the target area (digital map), which is constantly compared in the on-board computer with a standard, that is, with a given photo, after which corrective commands are issued for the rocket's controls - its steering wheels and nozzles. The rocket is enough to bring the homing head to a given area, and then everything will be done by automation. Flying to a target with a supersonic speed and a maneuvering head part is not able to knock off anybody or anything from the trajectory.
True, any optics, experts know, there are some minor flaws. It is badly affected by cloudiness and fog. But, in order that these natural and meteorological conditions do not become an obstacle for the Iskander, its missile’s warhead is also integrated with a radar guidance system, of which no bad weather is an obstacle. And now any target can be hit even on a moonless night.
During the last Vostok-2014 exercises, the Iskander-M complex was airlifted near Vorkuta, where at the Pemboi test site it launched a rocket through one of the buildings of the abandoned village Halmer-Yu (translated from Nenets River in the valley of death ). Those who watched its launch, assure that the head of the rocket entered the window of the house, like a thread in the needle eye. It was just a fantastic sight.
POLITICAL WEAPONS
The unique fighting properties of the Iskander-M, and no one country in the world has such a missile system, the NATO countries and the United States are very worried. They claim that the Russian tactical complex threatens the Baltic states and Poland, they say that it is deployed to the Kaliningrad region and the Crimea and can use nuclear weapons against Russia’s neighbors. There were also statements by US congressmen that cruise missiles P-500, which can also be armed with complexes, violate the INF Treaty, as they fly to a distance over 500 km.
The Chief of the Rocket Forces and Artillery of the Ground Forces, Major General Mikhail Matveyevsky, told the author of this article that “the P-500 missiles do not fly over a distance of more than 500 km.” “We faithfully observe the requirements of the INF Treaty,” he stressed. Although, as rocket men say, the laws of physics cannot be abolished. And if it is necessary, if Russia, following the example of the United States, which left the 1972 ABM Treaty, withdraws from the INF Treaty, it’s not a problem to increase the range of Iskander missiles. Let NATO, which places its bases on our borders, think about this well.
The Land Forces rockets with whom we spoke on the eve of their professional holiday also informed me that there are no Iskander-M complexes in the Kaliningrad region. But it was recalled that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had already warned the United States twice in November of 2008, and then in November of 2011, that if they start deploying their missile defense system in Poland, then Iskander OTRK complexes will appear in the Kaliningrad region. The range of its missiles will allow neutralizing the threats that the American missile defense system carries for our country.
By the way, at the request of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the brigade kits of the operational-tactical complex Iskander-M are transferred to the Ground Forces only when all the necessary infrastructure has been created in the places of their deployment. Including warm boxes for the storage of military equipment. According to General Matveyevsky, they constantly maintain humidity at the level of 70%, and the temperature is at least five plus. “This allows the complex to operate for more than 15 years without serious factory maintenance,” the head of the PBA said. “Under the open sky, in the field, in rain and frost, this period could be reduced to three years.”
In addition to caring for equipment, the general said, the soldiers who serve in the Iskander complexes are surrounded by the same care. First, 70% of them are contract soldiers. Secondly, for all the officers, their families, contract soldiers, and conscripts in military camps, all the necessary conditions for normal life and service have been created. In Birobidzhan, perhaps the most remote garrison of the Missile Forces and Artillery, even a gym and a swimming pool are being built for them.
I remember such residential towns with sports halls and swimming pools, houses of officers and television studios used to be built only for the garrisons of the Strategic Missile Forces. And if they are now being created for the Iskander-M OTRK brigades, this means that in ensuring the security of the country, these missile systems are on a par with the Strategic Missile Forces divisions.
Information