"… And for missile defense"
This was how the fate of the future "Soviet Minuteman" - the first ampoule-type light intercontinental ballistic missile in the history of the USSR, was actually decided. The word of the then Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev determined the outcome of the rivalry between Yangel and Chelomey - at that stage. This is how it looks in the docs.
Loading an 8K84 rocket into a TPK into a silo launcher and a view of the silo head with an open protective device. Photo from the site
On March 23, 1963, the CPSU Central Committee sent a cover letter to the draft resolution on the start of work on a "light" intercontinental ballistic missile. It was signed by Deputy Chairman of the Government Commission on Military-Technical Issues Sergey Vetoshkin (the second person in this department after Dmitry Ustinov), Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, Head of the State Aviation Industry Committee Pyotr Dementyev, Chairman of the State Committee for Radioelectronics Valery Kalmykov, Chairman of the State Committee for Sredmash (in charge of the entire nuclear industry), Efim Slav Commander-in-Chief of Air Defense Marshal Vladimir Sudets and two more marshals - Sergei Biryuzov and Matvey Zakharov, the first of whom was then commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Forces and literally a few days later replaced the second, who served as chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. This is what his text was:
The draft that was attached to this letter, just a week later, was considered at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU and adopted practically unchanged, turning into the famous joint resolution No. 389-140 of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It is also worth it to bring it with small bills:
Ballistic Missile Bandolier
So the fate of the future most massive intercontinental ballistic missile of the Soviet Missile Forces - the famous "hundred" was decided. Alas, the development of OKB-586 under the leadership of Mikhail Chelomey, the "light" intercontinental missile R-37, has sunk into oblivion. She sank, despite repeated requests from the designer to the Central Committee of the CPSU and personally to Nikita Khrushchev with a request to fulfill in the heat of the moment the promise made in the winter of 1963 and to allow to modify not one system, but two. However, soon Khrushchev himself turned into a pensioner of union importance, and Leonid Brezhnev, who took his place, had nothing to do with that promise.
The launch pad at the Baikonur range, from which the first ground launches of the UR-100 were carried out. Photo from the site
And the UR-100 rocket, approved at the highest level, was hastily brought to embodiment in metal and put out for testing. They began on April 19, 1965 at the Tyura-Tam test site (Baikonur), launched from a ground-based launcher. Three months later, on July 17, the first launch from the silo launcher was carried out, and in total, until the end of the tests, that is, before October 27, 1966, the new rocket managed to make 60 launches. As a result, the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces received a "light" intercontinental ballistic missile with a launch weight of 42.3 tons, of which 38.1 tons were fuel, two warheads with a capacity of 500 kilotons or 1.1 megatons and a flight range of 10 600 km (with " light "warhead) or 5000 km (with" heavy ").
While the UR-100 was learning to fly, the OKB-52 subcontractors worked to create the appropriate infrastructure. Branch No. 2 of the design bureau, created immediately after the decision was made to develop the "weave", began work on the creation of a transport and launch container (TPK) for it. After all, the rocket had to not only be ampouled, that is, filled with fuel directly at the manufacturing plant - it had to be installed in the mine as quickly and simply as possible and did not require any complicated routine maintenance. This could be achieved by solving two problems. The first is to eliminate the possibility of leakage and mixing of high-boiling fuel components, which the designers achieved by installing diaphragm valves between the fuel tanks and the engine system. And the second is to ensure the most simple and automated maintenance, for which a fully assembled and fueled rocket was placed directly at the plant in a TPK, which the UR-100 left only at the moment of launch (or cutting).
This container was one of those unique technical devices that provided the UR-100 with a long military service. After the rocket took its place in the TPK, it was sealed from above with a special film - and the "weaving" no longer had contact with the environment, remaining inaccessible to corrosion and other dangerous chemical processes. All further actions with the rocket were carried out exclusively remotely - through four special connectors in the container, in which the wires of the external control and monitoring system and gas communications for pre-launch pressurization of fuel tanks with compressed nitrogen and air were connected.
Another technical innovation was the “separate launch” system, in which each silo launcher for the UR-100 was separated from the others by a distance of several kilometers. If we take into account that the composition of one missile regiment, which was armed with a 15P084 complex with an 8K84 missile (army code "weaving"), it becomes clear that even a nuclear strike on the location should not have disabled more than a couple of silos, allowing the rest to strike back.
The layout of the 8K84 missile in a silo launcher for a separate launch. Photo from the site
The very same mine launcher UR-100 was a shaft 22, 85 m deep and 4.2 m in diameter, into which a sealed TPK with a rocket inside was placed with the help of a special installation machine. The mine had a head, where ground testing and launching equipment and batteries were located, and was closed with a heavy cover with a diameter of 10-11 m, which drove off along the rails. Next to one of these mines there was also a pit-type command post, that is, built in a pit specially opened for it and assembled directly on the spot. Such a command post was, unfortunately, much worse protected from the effects of enemy nuclear weapons, and this disappointed the military. After all, if the silo of the UR-100 missile could withstand even a nuclear explosion at a distance of up to 1300 meters from the installation, then what was the use if the same explosion destroyed the command post - and give the command "Start!" there was simply no one ?! Therefore, later in the design bureau of heavy engineering, a universal mine-type gearbox was developed, which was located in a mine similar to a rocket - and had almost the same protection.
Another technical innovation used in the UR-100 rocket was the in-flight correction system. Traditionally, separate small engines were responsible for this, which required a separate fuel supply and control system. On the "hundred" the question was decided differently: for the change in course during the flight on the first stage, it was answered by the main engines, the nozzles of which could deviate in the horizontal plane by several degrees. But there were enough of them so that the rocket, at the command of the inertial guidance system, could return to the desired course if it strayed from it. But the second stage was equipped with a separate four-chamber steering engine, as usual.
Not for missile defense and not for the sea
Even before the UR-100 rocket went out for testing, the Khrunichev Moscow Machine-Building Plant began its serial production - according to the order established in the Soviet Union, since it was necessary to take the missiles for testing somewhere. And after the decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of July 21, 1967, the combat missile system with the 8K84 missile was adopted by the Strategic Missile Forces, the production of "hundredths" was also established at the Omsk aircraft plant number 166 (production association "Polet") and the Orenburg aircraft plant number 47 (production association "Strela").
Mine launcher of UR-100 missile with open protective device; the sealing film on the TPK is clearly visible. Photo from the site
And the first missile regiments, armed with the new complex, went on alert eight months before its official adoption. These were divisions stationed near the settlements of Drovyanaya (Chita Region), Bershet (Perm Region), Tatishchevo (Saratov Region) and Gladkaya (Krasnoyarsk Territory). Later, missile divisions were added to them near Kostroma, Kozelsk (Kaluga region), Pervomaisky (Nikolaev region), Teikovo (Ivanovo region), Yasnaya (Chita region), Svobodny (Amur region) and Khmelnitsky (Khmelnitsky region). In total, the maximum size of the UR-100 missile grouping in 1966-1972 was up to 990 missiles on alert!
Later, the first modifications of the UR-100 began to give way to newer ones, with improved operational characteristics and new combat capabilities. The first was the UR-100M (aka UR-100UTTKh): in comparison with the first "weaving", its control system was improved, the reliability of the lightweight warhead was increased, and a complex of means of overcoming missile defense systems was installed. The next was the UR-100K, which surpassed the previous modifications in firing accuracy, engine life and payload increased by 60%, as well as in reduced pre-launch preparation time and range, which reached 12,000 km. And the last modification was the UR-100U, which, firstly, received a dispersive type warhead (that is, separable without independent guidance of each unit) of three units with a capacity of 350 kilotons each. And although due to this, the range was reduced to 10,500 km, due to the scattering warhead, the combat effectiveness increased.
The first UR-100 entered combat duty in 1966 and were removed from it in 1987, then the UR-100M served from 1970 to, the UR-100K from 1971 to 1991, and the UR-100U stood on combat duty from 1973 to 1996, until the last missiles of this type, which received the NATO code name Sego - that is, the Kalohortus Nuttal lily (which, by the way, is a symbol of the state of Utah), were removed from combat duty and eliminated in accordance with the SALT-2 agreement.
A transport vehicle with a UR-100 missile in the form of an anti-missile system of the "Taran" missile defense system. Photo from the site
But the options for using the UR-100 as an anti-missile and sea-launched missile, conceived by Vladimir Chelomey, did not work out. Work on the first project, called the Taran missile defense system, was curtailed in 1964. Alas, the idea of intercepting American warheads in a confined space, through which, according to the developers, almost all the trajectories of attacking missiles pass, turned out to be utopian. And the point was not the impossibility of organizing an interception: for this, the capabilities of the TsSO-P radar station located half a thousand kilometers from Moscow and the RO-1 and RO-2 long-range radar detection posts (in Murmansk and Riga, respectively) should have been enough. The problem turned out to be the power of nuclear warheads, which were planned to be used on the UR-100 in the role of antimissiles. In particular, the developer of the first domestic missile defense system V-1000 Grigory Kisunko recalls how Sergei Korolev told him: “I spoke with Keldysh, his guys figured it out, taking into account that the Americans are not such fools as they are reported to Nikita Sergeevich: 100 warheads "Minuteman", one megaton each will need to spend at least 200 anti-missile "Taran" 10 megatons - total nuclear illumination in 2000 megatons! ". Apparently, in the end, these calculations were brought to the attention of the Soviet government, and by personal order of Nikita Khrushchev, given shortly before his dismissal, the topic of "Ram" was closed.
And the sea-based UR-100 within the framework of the D-8 submarine missile system had to be abandoned due to the fact that the adaptation of the "land" missile to launch from the submarines of the Skat project, developed specifically for them, or the unique submersible launch pad of the project The 602 brought with it more challenges than benefits. The dimensions of even a "light" intercontinental ballistic missile, adapted to be launched from a silo launcher, turned out to be too large. Alteration of it for other dimensions in terms of complexity and labor costs was comparable to the development of a new special sea-based missile. What, in fact, it was decided to do after the D-8 project in mid-1964, it was decided to close.
