Development and role of air defense missile systems in the air defense system. Part 1
The first guided anti-aircraft missiles (missiles) were created during the Second World War in Germany. Work on anti-aircraft missiles intensified in the 1943 year, after the leadership of the Reich came to the realization that only fighters and anti-aircraft artillery are not able to effectively resist the destructive raids of Allied bombers.
One of the most advanced developments was ZSAS Wasserfall (Waterfall), in many respects it was a reduced copy of the A-4 (V-2) ballistic missile. In an anti-aircraft missile, a mixture of butyl ether and aniline was used as fuel, and concentrated nitric acid was used as an oxidizing agent. Another difference was the small trapezoidal wings with swept along the leading edge 30 hail.
Targeting missiles at the target was carried out using radio commands using two radar stations (radar). In this case, one radar was used to track the target, and in the radio beam the other radar was moving a rocket. The marks from the target and the rocket were displayed on one screen of the cathode ray tube, and the operator of the ground point of the missile’s guidance using a special control knob, the so-called joystick, sought to combine both marks.
In March 1945, missile test launches took place, at which Wasserfall reached a speed of 650 m / s, an altitude of 17 km and a range of 50 km. Wasserfall successfully passed the tests and in the event of the establishment of mass production could take part in repelling the allied raids aviation. However, preparations for the mass production of the rocket and the elimination of "childhood diseases" took too much time - the technical complexity of fundamentally new control systems, the shortage of necessary materials and raw materials, and the overload of German industry with other orders affected it. Therefore, the Wasserfall serial missiles did not appear before the war ended.
Another German Zour, brought to the stage of readiness for mass production, was the anti-aircraft guided missile Hs-117 Schmetterling ("Butterfly"). This rocket was created by Henschel using a liquid-jet engine (LRE), which worked on a two-component auto-igniting fuel. Tonka-250 composition (50% xylidine and 50% triethylamine) was used as a fuel, nitric acid, simultaneously used for cooling the engine, was used as an oxidizing agent.
A relatively simple radio command guidance system with optical observation of the rocket was used to target the missile at the target. For this purpose, a tracer was equipped in the rear part of the tail section, followed by an operator through a special device and using a control stick to point a missile at the target.
A missile with a warhead weighing about 40 kg could hit targets at altitudes up to 5 km and horizontal range up to 12 km. At the same time, the flight of the missile defense system was about 4-s minutes, which was quite enough. The flaw of the rocket was the possibility of using it only in the daytime, in conditions of good visibility, which was caused by the need to visually guide the rocket by the operator.
Fortunately for the pilots of the Allied bomber, the Schmetterling, like the Wasserfal, could not be brought to mass production, although some Germans attempted to use the anti-aircraft missiles in combat.
In addition to these projects, anti-aircraft missiles, which have reached a high degree of readiness for mass production, in Germany, work was underway on solid-propellant missiles R-1 Rheintochter (Daughter of the Rhine) and liquid Enzian (Gorechavka).
After the capitulation of Germany, a significant number of ready-made rockets, as well as documentation and technical personnel, fell into the United States and the USSR. Despite the fact that German engineers and designers did not succeed in introducing a guided anti-aircraft missile ready for combat use into serial production, many technical and technological solutions found by German scientists were embodied in post-war developments in the USA, USSR and other countries.
Tests of captured German missiles in the postwar period showed that they are unpromising against modern combat aircraft. This was due to the fact that in the several years that have passed since the end of World War II, combat aircraft made a giant leap in terms of increasing speed and altitude.
In different countries, primarily in the USSR and the United States, the development of advanced anti-aircraft systems began, primarily designed to protect industrial and administrative centers from long-range bombers. Of particular relevance to these works was the fact that at that time bomber aircraft was the only means of delivering nuclear weapons. weapons.
Soon, the developers of new anti-aircraft missiles developed an understanding that the creation of effective anti-aircraft missile weapons is possible only in the complex at the same time as developing new and improving existing enemy air reconnaissance tools, requesters of the system for determining state ownership of the air target, missile control devices, means of transporting and loading SAM, etc. d. Thus, it was already talking about the creation of an anti-aircraft missile system (SAM).
The first to adopt the mass air defense system was the American MIM-3 Nike Ajax. Production of serial missiles of the complex began with the 1952 year. In the 1953 year, the first Nike-Ajax batteries were put into service and the complex took up combat duty.
The Nike-Ajax system used a radio command guidance system. Target detection was performed by a separate radar station, the data from which was used to target the target radar. The launched rocket was continuously tracked by the beam of another radar.
The data supplied by radars, the position in the air of the target and the rocket were processed by a counter-decal device operating on vacuum tubes, and broadcast over the radio to the rocket board. The device calculated the calculated meeting point of the rocket and the target, and automatically corrected the course. Undermining of the warhead (BC) of the rocket was made by a radio signal from the ground at the calculated point of the trajectory. For a successful attack, the rocket usually rose above the target, and then swooped into the calculated interception point.
MIM-3 Nike Ajax - a supersonic, two-stage, with a separating body of the starting tandemly located solid-propellant engine (RDTT) and sustainer LRE (fuel - kerosene or aniline, oxidizer - nitric acid).
A unique feature of the Nike-Ajax anti-aircraft missile was the presence of three high-explosive fragmentation warheads. The first, weighing 5,44 kg, was placed in the nasal section, the second - 81,2 kg - in the middle, and the third - 55,3 kg - in the tail. It was assumed that this rather controversial technical solution would increase the probability of hitting the target, due to a longer cloud of fragments.
The effective range of the complex was about 48 kilometers. The rocket could hit the target at an altitude of up to 21300 meters, while moving at a speed of 2,3 M.
Initially, the Nike-Ajax launchers were deployed on the surface. Subsequently, with the increasing need to protect the complexes from the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion, underground rocket storage facilities were developed. Each in-depth bunker stored 12 rockets, fed horizontally through the drop-down roof with hydraulic tools. Raised to the surface of the rocket on a rail carriage was transported to the horizontally lying launch. After fixing the rocket, the launcher was set at an angle of 85 degrees.
The Nike-Ajax complex was deployed by the US Army from 1954 to 1958 a year. By the year 1958, around the 200 batteries were deployed in the United States as part of 40 "defensive areas". The complexes were deployed near major cities, strategic military bases, industrial centers to protect them from air attack. Most of the Nike-Ajax air defense system was deployed on the East Coast of the United States. The number of batteries in the “defense area” varied depending on the value of the object: for example, two batteries covered the Barksdale air base, while the Chicago area was protected by 22 Nike-Ajax batteries.
On May 7, by decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Soviet air defense system C-1955 was adopted ( 1000 targets in one C-25 salvo ("BERKUT") (SA-1 Guild) ). This complex was the first to be adopted in the USSR, the first operational-strategic air defense system in the world and the first multi-channel air defense system with vertically launched missiles.
C-25 was a purely stationary complex, to create the infrastructure for the deployment of this air defense system required a large amount of construction work. The missiles were mounted vertically on the launching table - a metal frame with a conical flame divider, which in turn was based on a massive concrete base. Radar stations of the sector review and guidance of missiles B-200 were also stationary.
The air defense system of the capital included 56 anti-aircraft missile regiments of the near and far echelons. Each 14 regiment formed a corps with its own sector of responsibility. Four corps made up a special purpose 1 Army. Due to the excessive cost of living and the complexity of the construction of capital structures, the C-25 air defense system was deployed only around Moscow.
Comparing the first American Nike-Ajax air defense system and the Soviet C-25, one can note the superiority of the Soviet air defense system in terms of the number of simultaneously fired targets. The Nike-Ajax complex had only single-channel guidance, but it was structurally much simpler and cheaper and due to this it was deployed in much larger quantities.
The real mass became the Soviet air defense system of the C-75 family (The first Soviet mass ZRK C-75). Its creation began when it became clear that C-25 could not become truly massive. The Soviet military leadership saw a solution in creating a highly mobile air defense system, albeit inferior in its capabilities to a stationary system, but allowing in a short time to regroup and concentrate air defense forces and weapons in threatened areas.
Taking into account the fact that in the USSR then there was no effective recipe for solid fuels, it was decided to use an engine that runs on liquid fuel and an oxidizer as the main one. The rocket was created on the basis of the normal aerodynamic scheme, it had two stages - the starting one with a solid-fuel engine and the cruise one - with a liquid one. They also deliberately abandoned homing, using a developed radio command guidance system based on the theoretical half-flattening method, which allows them to build and select the most optimal rocket flight trajectories.
In 1957, the first simplified version of the CA-75 Dvina, operating in the 10-cm frequency range, was adopted. Further emphasis was placed on the development and improvement of more advanced C-75 versions operating in the 6-cm frequency range, which were produced in the USSR before the beginning of the 80-s.
The first combat complexes deployed on the western border near Brest. In the 1960 year, the air defense force already had 80 C-75 regiments of various modifications - one and a half times more than part of the C-25 grouping.
The C-75 complexes defined a whole epoch in the development of the country's national air defense forces. With their creation, rocket weapons went beyond the Moscow region, providing cover for the most important objects and industrial areas throughout almost the entire territory of the USSR.
The C-75 SAM systems of various modifications were widely shipped abroad and used in many local conflicts (Combat use of C-75 anti-aircraft missile system).
In 1958, the MIM-3 Nike Ajax in the United States was adopted by the MIM-14 "Nike-Hercules" complex (American anti-aircraft missile system MIM-14 "Nike-Hercules"). A big step forward with respect to Nike-Ajax was the successful development for a short time of solid-propellant missiles with high characteristics at that time.
Unlike its predecessor, the Nike-Hercules has an increased combat range (130 instead of 48 km) and height (30 instead of 18 km), which is achieved by using new missiles and more powerful radar stations. However, the schematic diagram of the construction and combat work of the complex remained the same as in the Nike-Ajax system. Unlike the stationary Soviet C-25 air defense system of Moscow, the new American air defense system was single-channel, which significantly limited its ability to repel a massive raid, the probability of which, however, given the relative small number of Soviet long-range aviation, was low.
Later, the complex was upgraded, which allowed it to be applied to the air defense of military units (by imparting mobility to military means). And also for missile defense from tactical ballistic missiles with flight speeds up to 1000 m / s (mainly due to the use of more powerful radar).
Since 1958, the MIM-14 Nike-Hercules missiles have been deployed in the Nike system to replace the MIM-3 Nike Ajax. A total of 1964 Nike-Hercules batteries (145 was built anew and 35 re-equipped from Nike-Ajax batteries) were deployed in 110 US air defense systems, which made it possible for all major industrial areas to provide effective cover from Soviet strategic bombers.
Most of the positions of the US air defense missile systems were deployed in the northeastern United States, on the most likely path of breakthrough Soviet long-range bombers. All the missiles deployed in the US carried nuclear warheads. This was due to the desire to make the Nike-Hercules anti-missile system anti-missile, as well as the desire to increase the probability of hitting the target in terms of jamming.
In the US, the Nike-Hercules air defense system was produced before the 1965 year, they were in service in the 11 countries of Europe and Asia. In Japan, licensed production was organized.
The deployment of the American MIM-3 Nike Ajax and MIM-14 Nike-Hercules SAMs was carried out in accordance with the concept of object defense. The implication was that the objects of air defense: cities, military bases, industry, each must hide behind their own batteries of anti-aircraft missiles, tied to a common control system. The same concept of building air defense was adopted in the USSR.
Air Force representatives insisted that the “anti-aircraft object” in the age of atomic weapons was not reliable, and suggested an ultra-long-range air defense system capable of carrying out “territorial defense” - preventing enemy aircraft from being even close to the defended objects. Given the size of the United States, such a task was perceived as extremely important.
The economic evaluation of the draft proposed by the Air Force showed that it is more expedient, and will be released approximately 2,5 times cheaper with the same probability of defeat. At the same time, fewer staff were required, and a large area was protected. However, the Congress, wanting to get the most powerful air defense, approved both options.
Lobbied by the Air Force representatives of the new air defense system CIM-10 Bomark (American CIM-10 "Bomark" anti-aircraft missile system of extra long range) was an unmanned interceptor integrated with existing early-warning radars as part of NORAD. The SAM was guided by the commands of the SAGE system (English Semi Automatic Ground Environment) - a system of semi-automatic coordination of interceptors by programming their autopilots on the radio using computers on the ground. Which led interceptors to the approaching enemy bombers. The SAGE system, which worked according to the NORAD radars, ensured the interception of the interceptor to the target area without the participation of the pilot. Thus, the Air Force needed to develop only a missile integrated into the already existing interceptor targeting system. At the final leg of the flight, the radar homing was switched on when entering the target area.
According to the design of the missile "Bomark" was a projectile (cruise missile) of the normal aerodynamic configuration, with the placement of the steering surfaces in the tail section. The launch was carried out vertically, with the help of a launch accelerator, which accelerated the rocket to the speed of 2M.
The flight characteristics of the Bomarka remain unique to this day. The effective range of the modification “A” was 320 kilometers at speed 2,8 M. The modification “B” could accelerate to 3,1 M, and had a radius 780 kilometers.
The complex entered service in 1957 year. Serially, rockets were manufactured by Boeing from 1957 to 1961. Total manufactured 269 missiles modification "A" and 301 modification "B". Most of the deployed missiles were equipped with nuclear warheads.
The missiles were launched from block-shaped reinforced concrete shelters located on well-protected bases, each of which was equipped with a large number of installations. There were several types of launch hangars for the Bomark air-defense system: with a sliding roof, with sliding walls, etc.
The initial deployment plan for the system, adopted in 1955, provided for the deployment of 52 missile bases with 160 missiles on each. This was supposed to completely cover the territory of the United States from any type of air attack. 1960 deployed the entire 10 positions - 8 in the USA and 2 in Canada. Deploying launchers in Canada is associated with the desire of the US military as far as possible to move the line of interception from its borders. This was especially true in connection with the use of nuclear warheads at the Bomark missile defense system. The first squadron "Bomark" was deployed in Canada 31 December 1963 of the year. The missiles remained in the Canadian Air Force arsenal, although they were considered US property and were on alert under the supervision of American officers.
However, it took a little more than 10 years, and the Bomark air defense system began to be removed from service. First of all, this was due to the fact that at first 70-x the main threat to objects in the United States were not bombers, but the Soviet ICBM deployed by that time in a significant amount. Against the ballistic missiles, the Bomarki were absolutely useless. In addition, in the event of a global conflict, the effectiveness of the use of this air defense system against bombers was highly questionable.
In the case of a real nuclear attack on the USA, the Bomark air defense missile system could function effectively until the SAGE interceptor’s global targeting system was alive (which is very doubtful if a full-scale nuclear war began). Partial or total loss of performance of even one link of this system, consisting of radar guidance, computer centers, communication lines or command transmission stations, inevitably led to the impossibility of withdrawing CIM-10 anti-aircraft missiles to the target area.
To be continued ...
Based on:
http://www.army-technology.com
http://rbase.new-factoria.ru
http://geimint.blogspot.ru/
http://www.designation-systems.net/
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