How the secret Soviet recognition system "friend or foe" was created
Thirty-five years ago, in the USSR, it was decided to massively re-equip all military equipment, air defense forces and radar stations with the general-purpose state radar identification system “friend-foe” “Password”. The correspondent of "RG" met the general designer of the system, the hero of socialist labor Ildus Mostiukov. The scientist, whose activity was classified for many years, told him what the difficulties of developing the system were, why, before the advent of "Password", Soviet air defense, naval and air forces were "blinded" every three years, and how they were hampered by the US special services.
"Silicon" split
The system of identification "friend or foe" was born in the period of the Second World War. At first, she appeared in the US and British troops, where their losses from fire were 20-25 percent. Following them, a similar system was developed in the USSR. But it was not uniform - each kind of troops has its own frequencies and codes. By the year 1955 created the first combined-arms system "Silicon-2". But she also had a serious flaw - a small number of codes. Because of this, it was easily detected by radio intelligence and was very vulnerable in the event that the equipment fell into the hands of a potential enemy. And it happened every three years. Either our plane will fall somewhere, or the traitors in the factories will give information to foreign intelligence. After that, all codes were declassified. Thus, after the war, our country had the most powerful armed forces in the world, but the identification system was the weakest point in the defense of the USSR.
In the 1961 year, when once again the equipment fell into the hands of a potential enemy, a meeting of the defense department of the Party Central Committee was held. It brought together the ministers of the radio industry, shipbuilding, aviation, heads of departments of the Ministry of Defense, all the luminaries in the field of radar. There were about fifty people in the hall. Head of the Department of Defense of the Central Committee Ivan Serbin appeared on the scene. He pointed to the hall and said very evil: "Until when will you bring the country to its knees? Develop a system that is not afraid of discrediting!" And after that left. The meeting is over. We were all in shock. What to do? Then the Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR Roman Pokrovsky announced a closed competition for the solution of the task. Our Moscow head institute NII-17, which developed Silicon-2, suggested making a million instead of thirty codes. But this did not solve the problem, since radio intelligence worked well and the computing technology of that time was able to decipher them. We in OKB-294 offered another option. It was based on cryptographic coding methods. They can not be declassified, even if the equipment is in the wrong hands. It will simply turn into a piece of metal. Nothing can be done with it. Our proposal was accepted. And in 1962, with a special resolution of the CPSU Central Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers, our OKB was transformed into a leading institution in the country engaged in the development of the friend-foe system. I was appointed general designer.
On the verge of a military invasion
We had to start work from scratch. We could not rely on world experience in this area. He simply was not there. The Americans conducted their development of the recognition system in parallel, slightly ahead of us. But it was impossible to get information from them. Throughout our work, we tried to do this through the GRU, the KGB, but in vain. So this project was classified with them. But our special services were also patronized so that the spies could not find out anything. So we had such competitions with them. So development progressed hard. And in 1966, as luck would have it, our equipment again appeared at the foreign intelligence services. In Germany, a Soviet plane crashed, which flew from Nizhny Novgorod to the area where the Soviet troops were located. His engine failed at the moment when he was in the sky above Berlin. And in order not to fall on the city, the pilots sacrificed themselves and sent a plane into the lake in the "English zone". The commander of our group of forces in Germany, General Pyotr Kosheva, knowing the importance of the secrets that are on this plane, decided to enter there tank battalion and get the plane until it was taken by the British. But at that time the party congress was like, and from Moscow a command followed to avoid all sorts of international complications. The operation was canceled.
As a result, the British military dragged the plane from the lake, sent it to England, and the identification system was declassified.
A commission was created to investigate this incident, which I also included. Following the results of its work, a meeting was held, where the chairman of the military-industrial complex, the commanders of air defense, and the air force attended. And they all gave a very negative assessment of our identification system and the radio industry. Once again she fell into the wrong hands, and our air defense and navy forces were "blind." They no longer distinguished where their own, and where others. At this meeting I was reprimanded for the failure to meet the deadlines for creating a new system.
At that time, I could only offer to make a "patch" for the old system. What is it? It was necessary to re-equip the whole army in an emergency order, to change the equipment on all airplanes and ships. And many military installations were temporarily disabled, which caused great damage to the country.
"Pig" from Americans
And this was not the only obstacle that arose in the development process. When we practically prepared a technical project and were about to enter prototypes, the Americans planted a big pig for us. For the successful implementation of the new system in the transition period must operate at a single frequency with the old. And in the International Organization of Communication Regulations, the Americans were bested. And here they have given our frequency of identification to Western European television. We made models of new equipment, went to East Germany and conducted a test of how television affects the system. They realized that the television signals completely "clog" the channel. And we had to leave this frequency. And this immediately created a problem of accommodation on airplanes. The customer required the equipment to be located on the old installation sites. There are no others on the plane. And in the transitional period, the new equipment must include old equipment, which affects the size. She did not fit! And we solved this problem throughout the development with great difficulty. The deadlines were broken, every six months we were heard at the military commission. In the course of my work, I received six reprimands from the ministry, not counting the first. But, in the end, they coped with the task through microminiaturization.
Two systems for the whole world
In 1977, we completed state tests. He was headed by the Marshal Yevgeny Savitsky, the legendary pilot twice hero of the Soviet Union. The system was awarded the Lenin Prize.
And in the 1980 year passed military tests. The military considered that state testing was not enough for such a massive and very expensive equipment. To see her in action, the Ministry of Defense conducted large-scale military exercises. They were attended by hundreds of aircraft, radar systems, ships of the Black Sea Fleet in the Odessa Military District. And after that a decision was made on the massive rearmament of the army. It lasted for five years. Thirty plants of the Soviet Union participated in the project. It is very important that we completed the retrofit before the Yeltsin reforms.
If they were a bit late, the system would not have seen the light, because the plants had collapsed, and the country could not afford to spend that kind of money in 90-s.
This equipment will be in service for a very long time. It does not serve decoding. Airplanes with the “Password” system many times fell into the hands of a potential enemy, but it did not matter anymore. In the equipment there were no "flooded" codes. Thousands of their options change every second at random.
In the United States created a similar system just a little earlier than us. In general, only two countries in the world could afford such developments: the USA and the USSR. First, this is due to the fact that the United States leads NATO, and the Soviet Union was the leader of the Warsaw Pact countries. And, accordingly, all states entering into alliances accepted these systems. Secondly, the cost of the system is so huge that not every country will pull it. The chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin was personally involved in the search for money for our project. The development took about five billion dollars.
Now forty countries are using the Password system, including all CSTO members. And those countries that have drifted away from us after the collapse of the USSR switched to the American system. In particular, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia. It cost them, of course, a lot of money.
China does not yet have its own friend or foe national alert system, but is actively working on it. India is buying both the Russian and American system.
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