ATGM "Chrysanthemum" was developed on the personal instructions of the Minister of Defense of the USSR Marshal Dmitry Ustinov and became the most powerful anti-tank weapon in the world.
… In fact, Sergei Pavlovich Invincible was going to make a completely different rocket.
"The system," says the former general designer of the Kolomna KBM, "must be designed from the very beginning so that it will not become obsolete in 15 years, but in 25 years it will be suitable for modernization!" Looking into the future, Invincible was already 25 years ago convinced that promising missile systems should hit tanks from above, since, on the one hand, missiles that are guaranteed to open the frontal armor are not very transportable, and on the other hand, physically protect the roof of the tank just as effectively impossible … But for such ATGMs, neither laser, nor radio command, and even more so wired control systems were no longer suitable, something completely new was needed. Sergei Pavlovich even became interested in telepathy, but the solution was eventually found in another area. However, it was only a matter of principle, at the level of confirmation of the physical effect, and the prototypes were still very far away …
But the work was interrupted at the very beginning.
In the summer of 1981, the wave of the Zapad-81 combined-arms exercises swept across the Belarusian fields. The organizers overdid it with demonstration shooting, and a real wall of dust and powder smoke stood in front of the Minister of Defense D. F. Ustinov. Dmitry Fedorovich, however, this demonstration of firepower was not at all happy: how, one wonders, will laser guidance and target designation systems work on such a battlefield, which, with his active participation, were widely introduced in all branches of the military?
Statements that in a real battle there would not be so much dust, the marshal (and the long-term head of the defense industry) only angered, and Ustinov demanded that a technical solution be found. It was entrusted to the Invincible …
Since it was urgently needed, there was only one solution - radio control. But after all, the transition from a radio wave to a laser beam was not accidental: in addition to the compactness of the equipment and the inevitability of using high frequencies in radio guidance, which are dangerous for their own, much shorter optical waves also gave a smaller divergence of the control beam, which increased the accuracy of shooting. To maintain the accuracy characteristics, a transition to submillimeter waves was required, and there was simply no such equipment suitable for use in the ground forces in the USSR.
The complex still turned out to be heavy, transportable. To increase efficiency, it was decided to leave laser guidance in case of clear weather. This is how the world's first two-channel ATGM appeared.
The bench model of the microwave channel started working already in 1984, but … according to the test results, it had to be completely redone. The complex called "Chrysanthemum" reached the series only 15 years later.
So, the 9M123-2 anti-tank guided missile. Despite certain similar details, it is wrong to call it a continuation of "Sturm" - in fact, only the side nozzles of the main engine and the shape of the carrying wings are inherited. But the aerodynamic scheme is normal, the wings are at the center of mass, the rudders are at the rear, on the instrument compartment.
By the way, the rudders themselves (as usual, in the same plane; the plane of maneuver is determined by the angle of rotation of the rocket rotating around the longitudinal axis) - a little-known national priority. They are made in the form of a lattice of thin supersonic profiles, standing across the air flow. This solution combines compactness when folded (the rocket is launched from the TPK) and the highest aerodynamic efficiency in the working position. Lattice stabilizers have long been used on heavy ballistic missiles, and rudders simultaneously with the Chrysanthemum appeared on the newest air-to-air missile R-77.
The instrument compartment became much more massive: it was necessary to "trample" the radio receiver, the laser receiver, and the steering cars into it. But in front of them, in fact, there was no place - a huge over-caliber warhead commands respect for its mere appearance! The tandem cumulative warhead of the 9M123-2 missile penetrates 1, 1–1, 2 m of armor BEYOND ERA. And the 9M123F-2 is equipped with a volume-detonating warhead (the one that not too competent "commentators" call vacuum).
Although the missile of the new complex has become much smarter, the main thing remains in the 9P127-2 combat vehicle. The complex with a total weight of about 3 tons is regularly mounted on the BMP-3 chassis (therefore, it can float at a speed of 10 km / h and shoot from the water). The crew consists of two people: a driver and an operator. The chassis houses an automatic ammunition rack for 15 missiles, a twin retractable launcher, and control equipment.
In any weather, the radar with a retractable antenna, operating in the range of 100-150 GHz, allows you to shoot at targets on the ground, moving at a speed of 10-60 km / h, air (up to 340 km / h), surface, radio-contrast stationary. For the first time in an ATGM, firing occurs automatically: the SAM system detects a target with the specified parameters, prepares a missile, controls its flight … The operator only has to make a decision and press the "Start" button.
In conditions of good visibility (regardless of the illumination level), the laser channel can be used. In this case, guidance is, as usual, semi-automatic. The complex is capable, using different channels, to simultaneously shoot at two different targets: the automation guides one missile with a radio beam, the operator with a laser - the second.
Of course, the composition of the Chrysanthemum complex is not limited to combat vehicles. It includes the commander's combat vehicle with reconnaissance equipment and data transmission lines, control and testing vehicles for the installations themselves (9V945) and missiles (9V990), a simulator for operators 9F852.
In principle, "Chrysanthemum" can be put on other types of chassis, built into the foundation of a bunker or put on a combat boat. The aviation option was not developed.
In 1999, the world's most powerful anti-tank missile system went into mass production and began to enter service with the Russian army. Despite the regular presentation of "Chrysanthemum" at all military-technical exhibitions for the past 15 years, there were no foreign supplies. And the ATGM, which S. P. Invincible dreamed of in the late 1970s, remains on paper in our country …
