THE WORLD'S FIRST WITH NUCLEAR HEADS, THE FIRST INTERCONTINENTAL, MASSIVE AND HEAVIEST
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, forever divided the 20th century, and with it the entire history of mankind, into two so far unequal epochs: pre-nuclear and nuclear. The second symbol, alas, is the mushroom cloud, and by no means the silhouette of a nuclear power plant (although the largest number of fissile materials is used today in peaceful industries). And the main means of delivery were missiles - from operational-tactical to intercontinental ballistic ones.
Rocket weapons were not a product of the twentieth century: the idea of using firecrackers for military purposes occurred to Chinese inventors a good millennium earlier. And the century before last was the time of large-scale rocket experiments. For example, on March 30, 1826 in St. Petersburg, thanks to the efforts of one of the Russian pioneers of rocket science, Major General Alexander Zasyadko, a Rocket Facility was opened, which became the first industrial production of military missiles in Russia. A year later, by order of the same Zasyadko, the first permanent rocket company in Russia was created, armed with 18 machines for 20-pound, 12-pound and 6-pound missiles.
However, it took completely new technologies and completely new sciences like aerodynamics to transform missiles from exotic weapons into mass weapons. And in this process, Russia, despite the social cataclysms that shook it, remained at the forefront: Soviet Katyushas became worthy heirs of Zasyadko's rocket companies. So it is quite natural that the world's first missile with a nuclear warhead and an intercontinental ballistic missile, like a space launch vehicle, were created in Russia. Just like the world's most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-36M, which has earned the gloomy name "Satan" in the West. The last of the combat modifications of this missile - the R-36M2 Voyevoda - entered combat duty on July 30, 1988 and continues to serve to this day. “Historian” tells about her and about five other famous Soviet military missiles today.
R-5M - THE WORLD'S FIRST ROCKET WITH A NUCLEAR WARNING HEAD
Type: ground-based medium-range ballistic missile
Number of steps: one
Maximum range: 1200 km
Warhead weight: 1350 kg
The number and power of warheads: 1 × 0, 3 or 1 Mt (R-5M)
Introduced into service: 1956
Out of service: 1964
Units, total: 48
On February 2, 1956, Operation Baikal was carried out in the Soviet Union, about which there were no reports either on the radio or in the press. She also did not bother the secret services of a potential enemy: yes, they noted that a nuclear explosion with a capacity of up to 80 kilotons was carried out on Soviet territory, but they considered it a routine test. Meanwhile, this explosion marked the beginning of a completely different time: at a distance of 1200 km from the test site, Kapustin Yar hit the target and detonated the world's first nuclear ballistic missile warhead.
With the advent of the world's first missile with a nuclear warhead, two notable abbreviations are associated - RDS and DAR. The first had the official decoding "Special jet engine" and the unofficial "Russia makes it itself", but in practice, these three letters hid nuclear special ammunition. The second abbreviation stands for "Long-range nuclear missile" and meant what it meant: a modification of the R-5 ballistic missile capable of carrying special ammunition. It took a little over two years to develop it, and soon the world's first atomic combat missile was successfully tested. Academician Boris Chertok described them best and shortest of all in the book of memoirs “Rockets and People”: “The launch went through without any overlaps. The R-5M rocket, for the first time in the world, carried a warhead with an atomic charge through space. Having flown the prescribed 1200 km, the head without destruction reached the Earth in the region of the Aral Karakum Desert. The percussion detonator went off, and a land-based nuclear explosion marked the beginning of the nuclear-missile era in human history. There were no publications about this historical event. American technology did not have missile launch detection equipment. Therefore, the fact of an atomic explosion was noted by them as another ground test of atomic weapons. We congratulated each other and destroyed the entire supply of champagne, which until then had been carefully guarded in the canteen of the executive staff."
R-7 - THE WORLD'S FIRST INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC ROCKET
Type: intercontinental ballistic missile
Number of steps: two
Maximum range: 8000–9500 km
Warhead weight: 3700 kg
The number and power of warheads: 1 x 3 Mt
Introduced into service: 1960
Out of service: 1968
Units, total: 30-50 (estimated data; only combat modifications R-7 and R-7A)
The intercontinental ballistic missile R-7, oddly enough, is known to everyone who at least once saw on the screen or live the launch of space rockets such as "Vostok" or "Soyuz" and their later modifications. Simply because all launch vehicles of this type are nothing more than different kinds of variations of the very same "seven", which was the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 made its first flight on May 15, 1957, and no one knows when the last one will take place.
The first document that formulated the requirements for the R-7 rocket was a top secret resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the plan of research work on long-range missiles for 1953-1955", adopted on February 13, 1953. The second paragraph of this document determined that the future "seven" should have the following characteristics: "The greatest aiming flight range: not less than 8000 km; maximum deviation from the target at the maximum aiming flight range: in range - +15 km, in the lateral direction - ± 15 km; warhead weight not less than 3000 kg. " A little over a year later, another secret resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 956-408ss "On the creation of a rocket for a payload of 5.5 tons, with a range of at least 8000 km" appeared, which already featured the missile index - R-7.
"Seven" became a long-lived rocket, however, only in the field of space launches: as a combat rocket, it was not very successful. Too much time - from two to eight hours - was required to prepare it for launch. This process was too time-consuming and expensive, and the associated costs were too high: in fact, each combat position required its own oxygen plant, which provided the missiles with fuel. As a result, the R-7 and its more powerful modification, the R-7A, remained in service for only eight years, and even at the peak of their deployment, only six sites were on alert: four in Plesetsk and two at Baikonur. At the same time, the G7 played its colossal role in politics superbly: when the United States and its allies learned that the USSR possessed a full-fledged intercontinental ballistic missile, this news cooled even the hottest hawks.
R-11 - THE FIRST SOVIET OPERATIONAL TACTICAL MISSION
Type: ground-based tactical missile
Number of steps: one
Maximum range: 150 km
Warhead weight: 950 kg
The number and capacity of warheads: 1 x 10, 20 or 40 Mt
Introduced into service: 1955
Retired from service: 1967
Units, total: 2500 (according to foreign data)
One of the most famous Soviet missiles outside the USSR was the Scud - Scud, that is, the Shkval. This characteristic and meaningful name, as a rule, refers to mobile missile systems with the R-17 missile, which have become widespread and glorified Soviet missile engineers. However, for the first time this code name in the West was given to the R-11 missile, which was the first domestic operational-tactical missile with a nuclear warhead. And it also became the first Soviet sea-based missile, "registered" on the submarines of the AV-611 project and the first specialized submarine missile carriers of the 629 project.
The R-11 is the first not only in this: it was also the first domestic rocket using high-boiling fuel components, in other words, using kerosene and nitric acid. According to the theory prevailing at that time, such a fuel was suitable only for medium and short-range ballistic missiles (although it later became clear that intercontinental missiles also fly perfectly on it). And while Sergey Korolev was finishing the "oxygen" R-7, his subordinates designed and finished the "acid" R-11. When the rocket was actually ready, it turned out that it could not only be stored for a long time in a fueled state, but also made mobile by loading it onto a self-propelled chassis. And from here it was not far from the idea of placing the R-11 on a submarine, because until then all the missiles required exclusively ground launch sites with a complex and extensive infrastructure.
The R-11 rocket made its first flight on April 18, 1953, and after a little over two years it was adopted by the Soviet army as part of a complex consisting of the rocket itself and a self-propelled tracked chassis. As for the R-11FM naval modification, it went on its maiden flight from the B-67 submarine on the evening of September 16, 1955, and was put into service in 1959. Both modifications of the R-11 - both sea and land - did not last long, although they became an important stage in the development of domestic missile weapons, allowing its creators to accumulate the most valuable and most important experience.
UR-100 - THE FIRST LARGE-SCALE INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC ROCKET OF THE USSR
Type: intercontinental ballistic missile
Number of steps: two
Maximum range: 5000-10 600 km
Warhead weight: 760-1500 kg
The number and power of warheads: 1 x 0, 5 or 1, 1 Mt
Introduced into service: 1967
Discontinued: 1994
Units, total: at least 1060 (including all modifications)
The UR-100 missile and its modifications were milestone for the Soviet missile industry and the Strategic Missile Forces. "Sotka" was the first large-scale intercontinental ballistic missile in the USSR, the first missile that became the basis of a ballistic missile system built on the principle of "separate start", and the first ampoule missile, that is, one that was completely assembled and refueled at the plant, was also placed in a transport and launch container in which she was lowered into a silo launcher and in which she stood on alert. This allowed the UR-100 to have the shortest preparation time for launch among the Soviet missiles of that period - only three minutes.
The reason that caused the birth of the UR-100 rocket and the missile complex based on it was the significant superiority of the United States in intercontinental ballistic missiles, which arose by the beginning. 1960s. As of March 30, 1963, that is, by the day of the official start of the development of the "hundred", in the Soviet Union there were only 56 intercontinental ballistic missiles on alert - one and a half times less than America's. In addition, two-thirds of American missiles had silo launchers, and all domestic ones were open, that is, very vulnerable. Finally, the main threat was posed by the American solid-fuel two-stage missile LGM-30 Minuteman-1: their deployment was an order of magnitude faster, and this could force the US leadership to abandon the doctrine of a retaliatory nuclear strike in favor of a preventive one. Therefore, the USSR needed to get a rocket that would make it possible to reduce the gap in the shortest possible time, or even create an advantage in its favor.
The UR-100 became such a missile. She was born as a result of a competition between two famous designers - Mikhail Yangel and Vladimir Chelomey. For a number of reasons (including very personal ones), the political leadership of the USSR chose the variant of the Chelomey Design Bureau, and in two years - from 1965 to 1967 - "weaving" went all the way from the first test launches to being put into service. The missile turned out to have a large modernization reserve, which made it possible to improve it for almost three decades, and fully fulfilled its purpose: its group, deployed in the shortest possible time, completely restored the Soviet-American missile parity.
R-36M - THE MOST POWERFUL BALLISTIC ROCKET IN THE WORLD
Type: ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile
Number of stages: two (plus a dilution block for later modifications)
Maximum range: 10,200-16,000 km
Warhead weight: 5700–8800 kg
The number and capacity of warheads: 1 x 25 Mt, or 1 x 8 Mt, or 10 x 0.4 Mt, or 8 x 1 Mt, or 10 x 1 Mt
Introduced into service: 1975
Out of service: on alert
Units, total: 500
A noteworthy fact: the R-36 rocket, which was the predecessor of the "thirty-sixth" family, was named the main task facing the Mikhail Yangel Design Bureau at the same meeting in the Filyovsk branch of the OKB-52, at which the fate of the UR-100 was decided. True, if "weaving" was considered a light rocket and had to take, so to speak, by number, then "thirty-sixth" - by mass. In the truest sense of the word: this missile is the heaviest intercontinental ballistic missile in the world, both in terms of the mass of the thrown warhead and the total launch weight, which in the latest modifications reaches 211 tons.
The first P-36 had a more modest starting weight: "only" 183-184 tons. The warhead equipment also turned out to be more modest: throw weight - from 4 to 5.5 tons, power - from 6, 9 (for a multiple warhead) to 20 Mt. These missiles did not remain in service for long, only until 1979, when they were replaced by the R-36M. And the difference in attitudes towards these two missiles is clearly visible from their code names, which were given to NATO. The P-36 was called Scarp, that is, "Escarp", an anti-tank obstacle, and its successor, the P-36M, and her entire family - Satan, that is, "Satan".
R-36M received all the best from its progenitor, plus the most modern materials and technical solutions that were available at that time. As a result, it turned out to be three times more accurate, its combat readiness was four times higher, and the degree of protection of the launcher increased by orders of magnitude - from 15 to 30 times! This was, perhaps, no less important than the weight of the thrown warhead and its power. After all, to the second floor. In the 1970s, it became clear that one of the most important targets for missiles is the missiles themselves, more precisely, their launching positions, and whoever manages to create a more protected one will eventually gain an advantage over the enemy.
Today, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces are armed with the most modern modification of the R-36M - the R-36M2 Voevoda. The service life of this complex was recently extended, and it will remain in service until at least 2022, and by that time it should be replaced by a new one - with the fifth-generation RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile.
