The Three Deaths of Iskander
The word "Iskander" reveals awe at impressionable Europeans. Behind this word they imagine “a terrible Russian cudgel”, which at any moment can fall upon them.
This is an operational-tactical missile system (OTRK) "Iskander-M". It was put into service in 2006 year and since then every year plays an increasing role in the traditional (since the time of Peter the Great) dialogue between Russia and Europe about building relationships between these two worlds.
Placed in the Kaliningrad region, "Iskander" can sweep half of Europe. Since these complexes are extremely mobile, which was well shown by the teachings of the rocket men of the Western Military District, which took place in early December last year, it is almost impossible to destroy them preventively if the situation in the European theater of operations becomes complicated with conventional weapons that NATO has here. Therefore, any mention of the fact that Russia, as a sovereign state, can put Iskanders in the vicinity of Kaliningrad, causes a panic attack on impressionable European politicians. However, few people know that it was they and their overseas partners who directly contributed to the fact that Russia had this formidable weapon.
The fact is that by the mid-80s of the last century, American and European politicians finally managed to break the military-political parity with the Soviet Union in their favor. A number of international treaties signed at that time, in fact, disarmed our country in areas of strategic importance to NATO. One of them is operational-tactical missile systems with nuclear charges, with the help of which the USSR could really "break through" any resistance in the European theater of operations (in the Russian classification with the OTRK include complexes with a range of 100 to 1 thousand km, in the western - from 300 to 3,5 thousand km). And it was these complexes of the Elbrus type (firing range up to 300 km), Temp-S (900 km) and Oka (407 km) that in many respects provided a balance of forces between the Warsaw Treaty countries and NATO countries in Europe. For example, the Oka and Temp complexes were hit by the positions of American ballistic Pershing-2 and ground-based Tomahawk cruise missiles. Moreover, it was precisely the Soviet strategy - NATO was guided by the development of shock aviation with high precision weapons. But, in fact, the Soviet strategy at that time was more effective than the western one. “Unlike aviation, which had weather restrictions and the need to pre-conduct complex organization of air operations, missile systems could be used for nuclear attacks immediately. The enemy did not have any protection against ballistic missiles, ”emphasized historian Yevgeny Putilov.
Reference: "Iskander" in the basic version is a self-propelled wheeled launcher, armed with two solid-fuel missiles, which deliver combat units weighing up to 500 kg each to a distance of 480 km. Missiles can be equipped with high-explosive fragmentation, penetrating, high explosive incendiary, cluster, cumulative, space-detonating and even nuclear warheads. The launch time of the first rocket "from the march" - 16 minutes.
Interval between shots - 1 minute. Each machine is fully autonomous and can receive target designation even on photographs. “The complex does not depend on reconnaissance satellites or aviation. Targeting can be obtained not only from them, but also from a special combined-arms reconnaissance vehicle, a soldier artillery spotter or from a photograph of the terrain, which will be inserted into the onboard computer directly at the combat position through a scanner. Our homing head will accurately lead the rocket to the target. Neither fog, nor a moonless night, nor an aerosol cloud specially created by the enemy can prevent this, ”noted one of the founders of Iskander, Nikolay Gushchin.
The 9М723К1 rocket of the Iskander-M complex with a launch weight of 3800 kg develops a speed of up to 2100 m / s at the initial and final stage of the flight. It moves along a quasi-ballistic (up to 50 km altitude) trajectory and maneuvers with overloads of the order of 20-30 units, which makes it impossible to intercept it by all existing means of missile defense, since they would have to do times overload with 2-3 overload.
In addition, the rocket is made using stealth technology, which also makes its detection extremely difficult. Accuracy of hitting the missile at the target (depending on the method of guidance) - up to 1 to 30 meters. Another modification of the Iskander is armed with P-500 cruise missiles. Their speed is 10 times less than that of 9М723К1 missiles, however, Р-500, according to some sources, can fly over 2 thousand km at a height not exceeding a few meters above the ground.
Therefore, in 1987, the United States and its allies convinced the then leadership of the USSR to sign an agreement on the elimination of short and medium range missiles (INF). He touched, first of all, OTRK Temp-S; However, in fact, the new Oka went under the knife. “The official motivation of the Americans in demanding the reduction of the 9K714“ Oka ”missile system within the framework of the INF Treaty was that the American missile of the same size could have a range of 500 kilometers. The Soviet "Oka" on tests showed the maximum range of 407 kilometers. However, the position of Soviet negotiators allowed the Americans to demand a unilateral reduction of the Oka complexes under the slogan “You promised.” What was done "- recalled Yevgeny Putilov.
The decision to liquidate the Oka and cease work on the Oka-U (firing range is more than 500 km) and OTRK Volga (he had to change the Temp-S), of course, was a terrible blow for the team Mechanical Engineering ”(KBM, Kolomna), which was engaged in the development of tactical and operational-tactical missile systems from 1967 of the year, and personally for the chief and general designer of KBM Sergey Pavlovich Invincible. By that time, as the head organization, KBM had already developed and organized the mass production of almost 30 missile systems for various purposes, including the Shmel, Malyutka, Malyutka-GG, Storm-V anti-tank missile systems, and Sturm-S, equipped for the first time in the world with a supersonic rocket, Attack, Strela-2, Strela-2M, Strela-3, Igla-1 anti-aircraft missile systems, and high-precision mobile tactical and operational-tactical missile systems "Tochka" (70 firing range to ), "Tochka-U", "Oka", "Oka-U". Therefore, Invincible did the almost impossible - he went to the Central Committee of the CPSU and achieved that the Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers in 1988 decided to start experimental design work on creating a new OTRK with a range of up to 500 km. Moreover, with the liquidation of the Oka, our country really remained completely without OTRK, since Elbrus had already been, in fact, removed from service, and Tochka-U worked only at a distance of 120 km.
Thus was born the "Iskander." However, a year later, it seemed, the project would be closed, because at the end of 1989, Sergei Pavlovich the Unbeatable resigned as head and general director of KBM. They say they left loudly, slamming the door, saying unflattering words about “orders” that were imposed on the leading defense enterprise by “perestroika” .... (He further worked as the Chief Scientific Officer of the Central Research Institute for Automation and Hydraulics, was the scientific director of the Reagent Scientific-Technical Center, and then returned to KBM as an adviser to the chief and chief designer of this enterprise).
But work on the Iskander continued. Moreover, he became “two-horned,” that is, it was decided to install on the launcher not one, as was always done in the Soviet engineering school, but two missiles. “The KBM was given the task: the Iskander should destroy both fixed and moving targets. At one time, the same task faced Oka-U. Oki-U prototypes were destroyed along with Oka under the same INF Treaty. The reconnaissance-strike complex, into which the Iskander was to be included as a means of fire destruction, was called Equality. A special reconnaissance aircraft was developed, which is also a gunner. A plane detects, for example, tank column on the march. Transmits coordinates to the OTRK launcher. Further, it corrects the flight of the rocket depending on the movement of the target. The reconnaissance-strike complex was supposed to hit from 20 to 40 targets per hour. It took a lot of rockets. Then I suggested placing two missiles on the launcher, ”recalled Oleg Mamalyga, who from 1989 to 2005 was the chief designer for the KBM OTRK.
In 1993, the President issued a decree on the deployment of development work on the Iskander-M OTRK, for which TTZ was issued, based on a new approach to building the complex and optimizing all solutions. However, now the economy is in the way of a new weapon. The scope of the test OTRK 20 suggested rocket launches. According to the recollections of the employees, there was enough money to launch ... only one rocket a year. They say that the then leadership of GRAU, together with the staff of the KBM, personally traveled to the enterprises - manufacturers of components for the "Iskander", and asked to make the "required" number of parts. Another six years - 2000 on 2006 year, took to conduct state tests of the new PTRC. And, in fact, only with 2011, the Iskander-M began to be mass-produced, as part of a long-term contract between Engineering Design Bureau and the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Abroad, the complex is not yet available - it is not enough. And since the holy place is never empty, the place of the Soviet-Russian OTRK on the world arms market was taken by the Americans with their ATACMS complex developed by Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control with an inertial guidance system and a firing range from 140 to 300 km, depending on the modification. They are in operation with the 1991 of the year and are launched from MLRS M270 MLRS launchers (on the tracked base of the BMNUMX Bradley BMP) and HIMARS (on the wheel base of the FMTV tactical truck). The USA actively used these complexes during the wars with Iraq of 2 and 1991 and actively sold them to Bahrain, Greece, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, etc.
The armies of Western European countries now, in practice, have abandoned the use of operational tactical missiles (OTR). The most significant number was in France. But this country removed them from service in the 1996 year, and since then there is no serial production of OTP in Europe. But Israel and China are actively working on this topic. In 2011, the Israeli Armed Forces adopted the OTRK with a solid-propellant ballistic missile LORA (firing range - up to 280 kilometers) with an inertial control system integrated with the CRNS “Navstar” (GPS) and a television homing head. China, according to some data, annually produces up to 150 tactical and operational tactical missiles with a firing range of up to 200 km. He not only intensively saturates his southern coast with them, but also offers to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Pakistan. And China is not at all embarrassed to get any sanctions on the part of anyone.
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