"No one will embrace the immense," Academician Boris Chertok complained in his four-volume memoirs "People and Rockets", sincerely believing that he wrote everything about the space of the USSR and Russia, but no one even tries to write about the combat theme of such a work.
The author of this article, having worked at the Moscow Order of Lenin (later twice the Order of Lenin) Institute of Heat Engineering for exactly thirty years (1970-2000), of which 13 years as a leading designer of mobile ground-based missile systems (PGRK), and then the same number of years as deputy head of the combat department. control and protection against unauthorized missile launches, will try, by virtue of its capabilities, to eliminate this deficiency. Moreover, he is only 71 years old - a child's age for writing memoirs.
CHIEF COMPETITION AND INCREASED SECURITY
As everyone knows, in the Soviet Union there were two chief designers in space - Sergei Korolev (later Vasily Mishin) and Valentin Glushko, three chief designers on missile combat strategic themes - Sergei Korolev, Mikhail Yangel (later Vladimir Utkin and Stanislav Konyukhov) and Vladimir Chelomey (later Herbert Efremov), two chief designers for ballistic missiles for submarines (SLBMs) - Vladimir Chelomey and Vladimir Makeev, three chief designers for missile control systems - Nikolai Pilyugin (later Vladimir Lapygin), Boris Konoplev (then Vladimir Sergeev and Yakov Eisenberg) and Nikolai Semikhatov (later). Since 1965, all of them have been part of the system of the Ministry of General Engineering and have been engaged, mainly in relation to the Strategic Missile Forces (Strategic Missile Forces), silo missile systems (RK) with liquid-propellant missiles.
Their competition practically led to the fact that gradually the issues of building the Republic of Kazakhstan and their management more and more went to the Strategic Missile Forces (General Staff, GURVO and NII-4), and the developers of the unified command posts (CP) - Boris Aksyutin (then Alexander Leontenkov) and Missile Forces combat control systems - Taras Sokolov (later Vitaly Melnik, Boris Mikhailov, Anatoly Greshnevikov, Vladimir Petukhov, Sergei Shpagin) worked directly on orders from the Missile Forces.
The tactical and operational-tactical combat missile theme with solid-fuel missiles, naturally mobile, was dealt with by the Ministry of Defense Industry at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering - Nikolai Mazurov and Alexander Nadiradze (Boris Lagutin, Yuri Solomonov), and then, after Alexander Nadiradze switched to a mobile strategic theme, Kolomenskoye Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering - Sergey Invincible.
Naturally, in the conditions of the strictest secrecy that reigned in the USSR, the chief designers received some fragmentary information only at the ministerial scientific and technical councils in the CPSU Central Committee and extremely rare meetings with the country's top command personnel, and their deputies - from the also secret collection Foreign Press about the Soviet Union. Here are just two examples: none of the 173 certificates of authorship of the honored inventor Alexander Nadiradze has yet been declassified, his name is absent even in the alphabetical index of the Russian State Library.
NEW GENERATION OF ROCKET COMPLEXES
By this time, the creation of third-generation missile systems was completed, each missile cooperation found its own niche: Yuzhnoye Design Bureau - silo liquid missiles, Miass - SLBMs with both liquid and solid propellants, MIT - solid-propellant missiles for PGRK.
The development of a new generation of rockets began. They are:
- deep modernization of the R-36 liquid-propellant ampulized rocket (Voevoda, or R-36M2), silo-based, tested at the Baikonur cosmodrome;
- a new solid-propellant rocket RT-23 mine and rail-based;
- solid-propellant rocket "Temp-2SM2" mobile ground-based, received in 1979 after clarifying the direction of work in connection with the signing of the SALT-2 Treaty the index "Topol", or RT-2PM.
State flight tests of RT-23 and Topol missiles were carried out at the Plesetsk cosmodrome. The chairmen of the State Commissions were the head of the Main Directorate for the Operation of Missile Weapons, Colonel General Georgy Malinovsky (for the RT-23 missile) and the First Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for Missile Weapons, Lieutenant General Anatoly Funtikov (for the Topol complex).
Based on the results of flight tests of the RT-23 rocket, it was decided to deploy it only as part of the 15P961 combat railway missile system (BZHRK), in the silo version, the rocket should not be deployed and to start work on the RT-23UTTKh rocket.
It should be noted that the main requirements for the fourth generation missile systems were not so much the traditional requirements for reducing the time of combat readiness and increasing accuracy, as the issues of increasing the survivability of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This was ensured by increasing the resistance to the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion of mine launchers, the creation of autonomous launchers for PGRK (autonomous modules for BZHRK).
And here, for the first time, the cooperation of various cooperatives began.
COOPERATION PROVIDES RESULT
After conducting, on the personal instructions of Dmitry Ustinov, an analysis of technical solutions for the 15P961 BZHRK, Deputy Chief Designer - Head of the Integrated Department of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering Alexander Vinogradov - proposed for the BZHRK with the RT-23UTTKh rocket the principle of creating a train with three missiles from three autonomous modules.
The extremely unsuccessful and unreliable design of the system for raising the RT-23UTTKh rocket to a vertical position during the prelaunch preparation and launch of the BZHRK was replaced by the system of rapid lifting of the rocket using a turbine with a powder pressure accumulator, proposed and worked out by the MIT development team under the leadership of the deputy head of the integrated department Valery Efimov, for that he was later awarded the title of laureate of the USSR State Prize.
And finally, an unprecedented case - the deputy chief designer of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering Vyacheslav Gogolev was included in the State Commission for joint (Ministry of Defense and Industry) tests of missile systems with the RT-23UTTKh missile!
Sometime in the mid-1980s, for the first time in the USSR, an interdepartmental council of three chief designers of missile weapons (Alexander Nadiradze, Vladimir Utkin, Vladimir Makeev) was created, which was involved in the unification of land-based and sea-based missiles for the next generation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The immediate result of these works was the creation already in Russia of a sea-based missile "Bulava-30" and the development of a new generation of ground-based missiles, which is currently being carried out by the corporation "Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering".
But back to the late 1980s.
MOSCOW ANSWERS WASHINGTON WITH MOBILITY
In response to the developments in the United States at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, work began on the creation of a mobile version of the basing of a heavy rocket developed by the Yuzhnoye design bureau RT-23UTTKh of a mobile soil complex on a 12-axle chassis and a mobile soil launch with a small-sized Kurier rocket for 5- axle chassis.
The chief designers of the missiles issued technical proposals for the creation of new and modernization of the missile systems already in service.
Design Bureau "Yuzhnoye" proposed the modernization of the RT-23UTTKh rocket (the work was stopped due to the collapse of the USSR) and the rocket for the mobile ground RK "Universal".
NPO Mashinostroyenia proposed to create an Albatross rocket with a planned cruise unit.
MIT was offered the option of modernizing the rocket and the Topol (Topol-M) complex with the development of a new launcher on an 8-axle chassis.
Based on the results of consideration of these works, in September 1989, a decision was issued by the Commission of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on military-industrial issues, providing for the development of a universal Topol-M missile as a mine (index 15P165, the parent enterprise - KB Yuzhnoye) and a mobile ground-based (index 15P155, headquarters - MIT).
The work on the creation of a single universal monoblock missile was also divided:
- the first stage of the rocket was developed by the Yuzhnoye design bureau;
- second and third stages - Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering;
- the planned warhead (subsequently never developed) - NPO Mashinostroyenia.
It was also envisaged to carry out work on the assembly of serial missiles for silo-based missiles at the Pavlogoradsk machine-building plant, for mobile-based missiles - at the Votkinsk machine-building plant.
Later, the Strategic Missile Forces formulated and issued to the industry tactical and technical requirements for the development of the complex, which consisted of three parts. The first part - the general one - was signed by all three chief designers and their main cooperation. The second - the requirements for the mine RK - was signed only by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau and its cooperation, the third - the requirements for the PGRK - only by the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering.
The tactical and technical requirements (TTT) of the Ministry of Defense provided for the creation of a new unified command post (UCP) 15V244, while it was stipulated that the development of this UCP should be carried out according to separate TTT of the customer. The developer of the UKP was the Central Design Bureau of Heavy Engineering (General Director - General Designer Alexander Leontenkov, his first deputy - Gleb Vasiliev).
For the first time in the practice of developing missile systems, it was envisaged to include in the complex stationary and mobile command posts of the division, as well as the air command post of the division. True, the cunning author of this article got from the head of the Main Directorate of Missile Weapons, Colonel-General Alexander Ryazhskikh, to include in the TTT text a note that is still valid to this day that “these command posts are being developed according to separate TTT MO within the framework of separate ROC and are included in the complex after their adoption into the armament of the Soviet Army."
The development of a draft design and design documentation began.
It was envisaged that the first for joint flight tests would be a silo version with the placement of missiles in re-equipped 15P030 and 15P035 launchers developed by GNIP OKB Vympel (chief designer Vladimir Baskakov and Dmitry Dragun, who soon replaced him in this position), then a variant of the complex with re-equipped silo installations R-36 missiles (silo 15P018 index) developed by the Design Bureau of Special Engineering (General Director Nikolai Trofimov, Chief Designer Vladimir Guskov).
In connection with the collapse of the USSR, the direction of work on the 15P165 complex was somewhat clarified:
- the development of the first stage of the rocket was transferred to the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering, and its assembly was transferred to the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant;
- it was decided, primarily for financial reasons, to abandon the development of a new PCD and modernize the PCD 15V222, which had previously passed joint tests as part of the mine RK 15P018M and 15P060;
- the transition to Russian cooperation was planned (and later almost completely implemented).
The first launch of a silo rocket was carried out on December 20, 1994 from the Plesetsk cosmodrome with a converted silo launcher Yuzhnaya-1.
Then missile launches were also carried out from the Yuzhnaya-2 site, from silos converted using serial technology. The last, tenth, launch was carried out in February 2000 from the Svetlaya-1 site from a silo 15P718M converted according to the standard technology.
The 15P165 complex was recommended by the State Commission for adoption by the Russian army in May 2000, and two months later it was adopted by a special decree of the President of the Russian Federation.
Experimental combat duty of the first regiment (in a truncated composition) of the 15P165 complex was started in December 1997 in the Tatishchevskaya missile division (Saratov region).
