The most important elements of strategic deterrence in Russia's nuclear triad are Topol mobile missile systems. But the "poplars" did not grow in one day, and the road to them was paved by the design team headed by Alexander Nadiradze. The first step on this path was the Temp-S and Temp-2S complexes.
NEW CLASS OF WEAPON
Alexander Davidovich Nadiradze was born on August 20, 1914 in the city of Gori (Georgia), but his whole life is inextricably linked with Russia. After completing his studies at the Moscow Aviation Institute, he worked in various defense design bureaus. In 1958, on the recommendation of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, he was transferred from the design bureau of Vladimir Chelomey to KB-1 and was appointed chief designer of NII-1.
NII-1 was established in 1946 on the outskirts of Moscow (on Berezovaya Alley) on the basis of some repair shops in the structure of the Ministry of Agricultural Engineering in pursuance of the now widely known resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "Questions of jet weapons" dated May 13, 1946.
NII-1 was engaged in the development of relatively small ammunition: aerial bombs, mines, torpedoes, etc. The position of chief designer before the arrival of Nadiradze was not in the structure of NII-1.
NII-1 was headed by a director, the development of each ammunition was headed (supervised, coordinated) by a leading designer. By the way, NII-1 was widely known in defense circles because its director from the moment of its foundation until his death in 1961 was Sergei Bodrov, who had previously been removed from the post of Deputy Minister of Agricultural Engineering by personal order of Joseph Stalin.
In 1961, Alexander Nadiradze was appointed director - chief designer of NII-1 (in 1965 renamed the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering, now the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering") and headed it for 26 years, until his death in 1987.
From the moment he joined KB-1 and especially after 1961, Alexander Nadiradze concentrated the efforts of his team on the creation of a new class of weapons that the Soviet Army urgently needed - mobile operational tactical front-line missiles as a means of delivering nuclear weapons to the corresponding theaters of military operations.
Naturally, such missiles could not, by definition, be liquid-propellant because of their low combat and operational characteristics - a long preparation time for launch, a limited time on duty in a fueled state, the need to deliver to the missile deployment sites and store fuel components there. On the other hand, solid propellant powder charges of the required power did not exist then either in the USSR or in the world.
Selflessly working under the leadership of Boris Zhukov, the team of the Lyubertsy Design Bureau "Soyuz" managed to create the required powder charges, but even the theoretical possibility of maintaining the stability of characteristics, especially during mass serial production, aroused great doubts.
In such conditions, the development of the Temp missile system was started and proceeded at a rapid pace. In these conditions, the first genius character trait of Alexander Davidovich manifested itself.
Without falling into euphoria from the first successful launches, without rubbing glasses with military customers and the country's leadership, he insisted on the need to clarify the direction of work - the transition to composite fuel. In general, reliability, high quality of pre-flight ground testing, the ability to withstand any administrative pressure such as "How will we meet May Day?" is still the "highlight" of the staff of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering.
In the shortest possible time, the Temp-S mobile missile system was developed and flight tested. In total, more than 1200 missiles were manufactured and were in service with the Soviet Army from 1966 to 1987.
The second characteristic feature of Alexander Nadiradze was the absence of fear of laying at the beginning of the development of the limiting characteristics in all parameters, not only of missiles, its charges, but also of all components of the complex. And about his ability to "squeeze" out of subcontractors in the process of further work, all possible and impossible "juices" are still legendary.
I will give just one example. For the "Temp-S" complex, the design bureau of the Minsk Automobile Plant under the leadership of Boris Lvovich Shaposhnik specially created a 4-axle MAZ-543 chassis. With a dead weight of 20 tons, it had the same carrying capacity (ratio 1: 1).
Later, on the chassis of the MAZ-543 family (MAZ-543A, MAZ-543V, MAZ-543M), dozens of weapons were mounted and today they are in service with the Ground Forces, Air Defense Forces, Missile Forces and others. This chassis is widely used in the national economy. Alexander Nadiradze "paid off" with the collective of Boris Shaposhnik, not with reprimands or orders, but with apartments, residential buildings, skillfully knocked out by him from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus.
For the creation of the Temp-S complex, the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering was awarded the Order of Lenin. Alexander Davidovich, as well as his first deputy Vyacheslav Gogolev and deputy director of the institute for research and design Boris Lagutin were awarded the title of laureates of the Lenin Prize.
It just so happened that in the future, the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering further dealt with the topic of class missiles only on paper, since the Temp-S complex did not require replacement in the troops. The extension of the warranty period of the complex ensured its long life.
In the future, the development of mobile missile systems for the Ground Forces of a shorter, army range was undertaken by the Kolomenskoye Design Bureau under the leadership of Sergei Invincible, who later created the Oka and Iskander missile systems.
COMPLEX "TEMP-2S"
In 1965, after the removal of Nikita Khrushchev, the sectoral system of managing the national economy was restored. It is also well known that the so-called "nine" was created - a complex of branch defense ministries. Less is known about the consolidation of the functions of these ministries.
Without pretending to be a complete analysis, the author will allow himself to touch upon only one aspect that is directly related to the topic of this article - the creation of mobile strategic missile systems. On the one hand, space and military missile topics were transferred to the newly created Ministry of General Machine Building, on the other hand, all teams with at least some experience in creating mobile missile systems were included in the recreated Ministry of Defense Industry.
As they say, the circle is complete.
This is not to say that the Ministry of General Chemistry did not try to deal with solid-fuel and mobile missile topics. The 8K96 complex with a solid-propellant medium-range missile (launcher index - 15U15), developed at KB Arsenal (chief designer - Petr Tyurin), was developed and at the end of the 60s at the Kapustin Yar test site was successfully tested.
Without explaining the reasons for the armament of the Soviet Army, the complex was not accepted. At about the same time, the 8K99 complex with an intercontinental missile developed at the Yuzhnoye design bureau under the leadership of Mikhail Yangel was undergoing flight tests at the Plesetsk test site.
Unlike the 8K96 rocket, the 8K99 rocket (launcher index 15U21) had a mixed configuration - the first stage of the rocket was solid-propellant, the second - liquid. The initial period of flight tests was marked by a number of setbacks, in connection with which the flight tests were terminated by the corresponding government decision.
Mikhail Yangel was allowed to finish shooting the remaining missiles, however, despite the fact that about 10 more launches were successful, the fate of the complex was a foregone conclusion.
At the same time, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, who, unlike Mikhail Yangel's design bureau and Vladimir Chelomey's design bureau, fundamentally refused to switch to heptyl and other "poison" in liquid-propellant rocket technology, made an attempt to compete with them in combat rocketry.
A silo missile system 8K98 (8K98P) was developed with a three-stage solid-propellant intercontinental missile (launch weight - 51 tons). Albeit with some difficulties, the complex passed flight tests at the Plesetsk test site under the command of Colonel Pyotr Shcherbakov.
Further, since I was not a direct participant in the events, I quote from the book "Polygon of Special Importance" (Moscow, Publishing House "Consent", 1997).
On November 4, 1966, at 11 o'clock Moscow time, the combat crew of the Separate Engineering and Testing Unit under the command of Yu. A. Yashin, under the technical guidance of test engineers and chief specialists of the Test Site, launched the RS-12 rocket. This was the first test launch at landfill …
Flight tests of the RS-12 rocket after modernization continued until January 1972, fifty-one launches were carried out. During the experimental watch, the test department carried out one hundred and forty-two combat training launches of missiles of this class."
The 8K98P complex was adopted by the Soviet army and deployed mainly in the missile division in the area of Yoshkar-Ola.
However, the serial production of 8K98P missiles was minimal - about 60 missiles. No further attempts were made to return to the solid fuel (until the end of the 70s) and mobile (ground) subjects of the Ministry of General Machinery enterprises.
And with the complete skepticism of the Ministry of General Affairs ("there are many such") and the neutral indifference of the Ministry of Defense Industry ("not our profile"), Alexander Nadiradze sets a task for himself and the team: "Creation of a mobile ground complex with a solid-propellant intercontinental missile with a monoblock warhead."
After carrying out the corresponding pre-design and design studies, the corresponding development work receives the Temp-2C index in 1967.
As for the Temp-S rocket, all charges for the Temp-2S rocket were developed at the Soyuz Design Bureau in Lyubertsy under the leadership of Boris Zhukov and his first deputy Vadim Vengersky. The work went hard, but confidently.
The former secretary of the party committee Viktor Protasov was "seconded" from the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering to the Khotkovo design and technological bureau near Moscow, who created the best design and production organization in the country for the development of fiberglass (later carbon materials) products from scratch. The housings of the engines, the transport and launch container of the rocket, the bunker of the launcher - all this is fiberglass, and all of this is KTB. And today the Central Research Institute of Special Engineering under the leadership of Vladimir Barybin occupies a leading place in these matters not only in Russia, but also in the world.
By the end of 1968, it became clear that the rocket was being made. Two important issues remained unresolved: making a decision on the launch weight of the rocket (talk about this below) and about the developer of the missile control system.
The development of a control system for the Temp-2S missile was entrusted to the Central Research Institute of Automation and Hydraulics, which was part of the Ministry of Defense Industry, which, to put it mildly, "did not pull" in this matter. For the sake of objectivity, I must say that the Central Research Institute of Automation and Hydraulics has always been and still is the main developer of the hydraulic drive (the chief designer is now, alas, the late Yuri Danilov) of all missiles of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, as well as the developer of a ground hydraulic drive for all launchers on which these missiles ever lay.
And again, Alexander Nadiradze makes courageous decisions: he increases the launch weight of the rocket from 37 to 44 tons and at the same time appeals to the country's leadership with a proposal to replace the developer of the missile control system.
In July 1969, the corresponding decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued, the main cooperation was clarified (Nikolai Pilyugin was appointed the chief designer of the missile control system) and the main tactical and technical characteristics, the basic terms of work were established. The customer - the Rocket Forces, gritting their teeth, issues, as prescribed by the decree, "Tactical and technical requirements for the development of the Temp-2S mobile missile system # T-001129".
SOME DETAILS
The previously mentioned 15U15 and 15U21 launchers for the 8K96 and 8K99 complexes were developed at KB-3 of the Kirov plant under the leadership of Deputy Chief Designer Nikolai Kurin on the basis of the T-10 heavy tank. If we characterize them very briefly, then the main task they performed - they drove and fired from them. The author, who was still a young specialist in their creation and missile launches, does not remember any serious complaints during launches against KB-3.
At the same time, if we characterize these launchers as a weapon system, we can say that they drove poorly (in particular, only off paved roads, since they broke asphalt, the travel resource was only 3000-5000 km), it was extremely difficult their operation (access to many elements of the chassis is difficult, the replacement of some special systems required the dismantling of adjacent systems, etc.).
Therefore, on the one hand, the development of a tracked launcher (index 15U67) for the Temp-2S rocket was entrusted to KB-3 of the Kirov plant (and the design bureau team did an excellent job with the task - for a rocket with a launch weight of 37 tons), and, on the other hand, Alexander Nadiradze simultaneously envisaged the development of the Temp-2S rocket and a self-propelled launcher on an automobile chassis (index 15U68). The development of the 15U67 launcher and the ground equipment of the complex as a whole was entrusted to the same creators of the launcher and chassis for the Temp-S missile - the design bureau of the Volgograd plant "Barrikady" (chief designer - Georgy Sergeev), the design bureau of the Minsk automobile plant under the leadership of Boris Shaposhnik.
Now about the main thing, without which, according to the author, no mobile ground-based missile systems, capable of carrying combat duty, would ever have been created.
Here the author is obliged to cite a relatively long quote from Mikhail Koltsov's story "Night blindness", written in 1932: "I don't know what a" complex "is. at numerous meetings, primarily in the State Planning Committee, she lost it forever. "Complex" is called anything, but most often nothing. At the word "complex" I shut up. I have nothing to object to "complex".
So, if I needed to characterize the life and work of Alexander Davidovich Nadiradze in one phrase, I would say this: "He was a genius in rocketry and a man who perfectly understood the importance of the word" complex ".
If the task of overseeing the creation of a launcher, means of ensuring transportation, reloading of missiles (the so-called KSO - a complex of service equipment) was somehow managed by a small department of ground equipment of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering under the leadership of Kirill Sinyagin, whose main task was to develop a transport and launch container, no one at the institute knew what a "complex" was.
I think that then no one in the USSR understood this either.
In any case, the regular regimental structure, which had already undergone joint flight tests of the 8K96 and 8K99 complexes, consisted of six tracked launchers standing in a circle and a mobile regiment command post located in the center of the circle, consisting of many machines on different types of automobile chassis. Somewhere nearby there is the same mobile power engineering. The fact that people need to sleep and eat, that they need to be protected, Pyotr Tyurin and Mikhail Yangel either did not think, or believed that this was the business of the military. I'm not sure if they understood or did justice to concepts such as "camouflage", "survivability."
In the bowels of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, these issues (from the point of view of experienced "aksakals" - purely secondary) were of interest only to a small group of very young engineers, organizationally formalized first as sector 19 in the structure of the SKB-1 missile, led by Boris Lagutin, and then, after the appointment the last deputy director for scientific work and design, - in an independent department 110. What these guys do, what they draw there, very few people knew and even more so understood, but since "products" in the form of piles of drawings, blueprints, etc. they did not give out, but sprinkled some reports, posters, etc., everyone considered them, if not idlers, then, in any case, second-class people.
And so, being guided, obviously, by the well-known Stalinist principle "Cadres decide everything," Alexander Nadiradze makes a revolutionary cadre decision.
In October 1970, an order of the Minister of Defense Industry was issued, by which the pure rocket engineer Vyacheslav Gogolev moved from the post of first deputy director - chief designer to the position of deputy chief designer for design, he was entrusted with supervising only two departments (for the rocket and propulsion systems); 43-year-old Boris Lagutin is appointed to the post of first deputy director - chief designer.
By the very first order of Alexander Nadiradze, after the announcement of the order of the minister, a complex department (department 6) was created in the structure of the institute, and 30-year-old Alexander Vinogradov was appointed its head. Department 6 becomes the head department at the institute.
"TEMP-2S" AS A WEAPON SYSTEM
The main unit of the complex was a missile regiment.
The regiment consisted of 3 divisions and a mobile command post of the regiment.
Each division consists of 9 vehicles: 2 self-propelled launchers on a 6-axle MAZ-547A chassis, a preparation and launch vehicle on a MAZ-543A chassis, 2 diesel power plant vehicles (each with 4 diesel units with a capacity 30 kW each) on the MAZ-543A chassis, 2 household support vehicles (canteen car, dormitory car) on the MAZ-543V chassis, 2 security vehicles (a car on duty guard change on the MAZ-543A chassis and a car combat post based on the BTR-60 chassis).
The regiment's mobile command post also includes 9 vehicles: combat control vehicles and communication vehicles on the MAZ-543-A chassis, a tropospheric communication vehicle on the MAZ-543V chassis, 2 diesel power station vehicles, 2 household supply vehicles and 2 security cars.
All machines were developed within the framework of a unified development work "Creation of the Temp-2S missile system", underwent joint flight tests as part of it and were adopted by the Soviet army by a single decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
The complex also included equipment that ensures the life cycle of missiles and ground equipment assemblies: means for transporting and reloading missiles, storing them in arsenals, routine and training facilities.
Joint flight tests of the Temp-2S complex (RS-14 complex) were launched by the launch of the first rocket on March 14, 1972 at 21:00 from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. The flight design stage in 1972 was rather difficult: 2 launches (second and fourth) out of 5 were unsuccessful.
However, there were no further failures. In total, during the flight tests, 30 launches were carried out. Joint flight tests were completed in December 1974 with a salvo launch of 2 missiles.
The Temp-2S mobile ground-based missile system was adopted by the Soviet Army by a resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers in 1976. However, in accordance with the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, it was considered as if not deployed.
All 42 mass-produced Temp-2S missiles were on alert at the Plesetsk training ground at the point of permanent deployment in storage facilities.
For the creation of the complex, the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering was awarded the second Order of Lenin. Alexander Nadiradze was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
Two employees of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering (Alexander Vinogradov, Nikolai Nefedov), the chief designer of the Minsk Automobile Plant Boris Lvovich Shaposhnik, the first deputy chief designer of the OKB of the Volgograd plant "Barrikady" the designer for testing the Research Institute of Automation and Instrumentation Igor Zotov, as well as the chairman of the State Commission for joint flight tests of the complex, Lieutenant General Alexander Brovtsin, were awarded the title of laureates of the Lenin Prize.
More than 1,500 workers of the cooperation that created the Temp-2S complex were awarded government awards, about 30 were awarded the titles of laureates of the USSR State Prizes.
Despite the seemingly relatively modest deployment of the Temp-2S complex, it should not be forgotten that it not only served as the basis for the further development of mobile missile technology in the USSR, but also made it possible to gain operational experience and train both civilian and military personnel. I hope that I will have the opportunity to talk about civilians in the future, but here, in conclusion, I will only mention the further service of some military specialists of the Plesetsk test site, who were directly involved in the joint flight tests of the complex.
The head of the test site, Lieutenant General Hero of the Soviet Union Galaktion Alpaidze, after retiring in 1975 for about 20 years, was deputy director of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering for Guarantee Supervision, made a worthy contribution to the deployment and operation of the Pioneer and Topol complexes.
The head of the test unit, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Mazyarkin, with the rank of Lieutenant General, commanded the Kapustin Yar training ground. He died in retirement in the city of Minsk.
The head of the complex department of the test department, Lieutenant Colonel Gennady Yasinsky, was seconded by the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1973 at the disposal of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering. Major General, permanent technical head of tests, in 1992-1997, first deputy general designer and director of the institute, from 1997 to the present - first deputy general designer for testing and warranty supervision.
His deputy lieutenant colonel Mikhail Zholudev, the head of the group, Major Albert Zhigulin - major generals, completed their service as deputy commanders of the Plesetsk range.
Major Vasily Kurdaev, Lieutenant Alexander Bal, the commanders of the first combat crews, Lieutenants Dmitry Bespalov, Evgeny Rezepov resigned from various command positions in the central apparatus of the Ministry of Defense and the Plesetsk training ground with the ranks of colonels.
Excuse me, those who have not been named.
In conclusion. The author is infinitely grateful for the school of life to the honorary director - honorary general designer of the Moscow twice Order of Lenin Institute of Heat Engineering Boris Nikolayevich Lagutin and Alexander Konstantinovich Vinogradov, who left us untimely.
The author hopes that he will still manage to persuade Boris Nikolayevich Lagutin to write his memoirs about Alexander Davidovich Nadiradze into a book that veterans would like to publish long before the 100th anniversary of his birth.
