The defeat of the Iraqi forces in January 1991 by the allies was achieved mainly through the use of the latest weapons, and above all high-precision weapons (WTO). It was also concluded that in terms of its combat capabilities and effectiveness, it can be compared with a nuclear one. That is why in many countries now new types of WTO are being intensively developed, as well as old systems are being modernized and brought up to the appropriate level.
Naturally, similar work is being carried out in our country. Today we are lifting the veil of secrecy over one of the interesting developments.
The background is briefly as follows. All of our tactical and operational-tactical missiles, which are still in service with the Ground Forces, are of the so-called "inertial" type. That is, the target is guided based on the laws of mechanics. The first such missiles had errors of almost a kilometer, and this was considered normal. In the future, inertial systems were refined, which made it possible to reduce the deviation from the target in subsequent generations of missiles to tens of meters. However, this is the limit of the "inertial" capabilities. Came, the kick says, "the crisis of the genre." And the accuracy, be that as it may, needed to be increased. But with the help of what, how?
The answer to this question was to be given by the employees of the Central Research Institute of Automation and Hydraulics (TsNIIAG), which was initially focused on the development of control systems. Including for various types of weapons. Work on the creation of a missile homing system, as it was later named, was headed by the head of the department of the institute, Zinovy Moiseevich Persits. Back in the fifties, he was awarded the Lenin Prize as one of the creators of the country's first anti-tank guided missile "Bumblebee". He and his colleagues had other successful developments. This time it was necessary to obtain a mechanism that would ensure the missile hit even small targets (bridges, launchers, etc.).
At first, the military reacted to the ideas of the Tsniyagovites without enthusiasm. Indeed, according to instructions, manuals, regulations, the purpose of missiles is primarily to ensure the delivery of a warhead to the target area. Therefore, the deviation measured in meters does not matter much, the problem will still be solved. However, they promised to allocate, if necessary, several outdated (already at that time) operational-tactical missiles R-17 (abroad they are called "Scud" - Scud), for which a deviation of two kilometers is permissible.
Self-propelled launcher R-17 with an upgraded optical homing missile
They decided to stake on the development of an optical homing head. The idea was like this. A picture is taken from a satellite or an airplane. On it, the decoder finds the target and marks it with a certain sign. Then this image becomes the basis for creating a standard that the "optics", mounted under the transparent fairing of the missile warhead, would compare with real terrain and find the target. From 1967 to 1973, laboratory tests were carried out. One of the main problems was the question: in what form should the standards be executed? From several options, we chose a photographic film with a 4x4 mm frame, on which a section of the terrain with a target would be filmed at different scales. At the command of the altimeter, the frames would change, allowing the head to find the target.
However, this way of solving the problem turned out to be unpromising. First, the head itself was bulky. This design was completely rejected by the military. They believed that information on board the missile should not come by putting "some kind of film" just before the launch, when the missile was already in a combat position in readiness for launch and all work should be completed, but somehow differently. Perhaps transmitted by wire, or better yet, by radio. They were also not satisfied with the fact that the optical head could be used only during the day, and in clear weather.
So, by 1974 it became clear: different ways of solving the problem were needed. This was also discussed at one of the meetings of the collegium of the Ministry of Defense Industry.
By this time, computer technology began to be introduced into science and production more and more actively. A more advanced element base was developed. And in the department of Persits newcomers appeared, many of whom have already managed to work on the creation of various information systems. They just proposed to make standards using electronics. An on-board computer is needed, they believed, in whose memory the entire algorithm of actions for the launch of the missile on the target, its capture, holding and, ultimately, destruction would be laid.
It was a very difficult period. As always, they worked 14-16 hours a day. It was not possible to create a digital sensor that could read the coded information about the target from the computer memory. We learned, as they say, in practice. Nobody interfered with the development. And in general, few people knew about them. Therefore, when the first tests of the system passed, and it showed itself well, this news came as a surprise to many. Meanwhile, views on the methods of waging war in modern conditions were changing. Military scientists gradually came to the conclusion that the use of nuclear weapons, especially in tactical and operational-tactical terms, could be not only ineffective, but also dangerous: in addition to the enemy, the defeat of their own troops was not ruled out. A fundamentally new weapon was required, which would ensure the completion of the task with a conventional charge - due to the highest accuracy.
In one of the scientific research institutes of the Ministry of Defense, a laboratory "High-precision control systems for tactical and operational-tactical missiles" is being created. First, it was necessary to figure out what kind of groundwork our "defense specialists" already have, and above all, from the Tsniyagovites.
The year was 1975. By this time, Persitz's team had prototypes of the future system, which was miniature and quite reliable, that is, it met the initial requirements. In principle, the problem with the standards was solved. Now they were put into the computer memory in the form of electronic images of the area, made at different scales. At the time of the warhead's flight, at the command of the altimeter, these images were recalled in turn from memory, and a digital sensor took readings from each of them.
After a series of successful experiments, it was decided to put the system on an airplane.
… At the test site, under the "belly" of the Su-17 aircraft, a mock-up of a missile with a homing head was attached.
The pilot was guiding the plane along the projected flight path of the rocket. The work of the head was recorded by a cinema camera, which "surveyed" the area with one "eye" with it, that is, through a common lens.
And here is the first debriefing. Everyone stares at the screen with bated breath. First shots. Height 10,000 meters. The outlines of the earth are barely guessed in the haze. The "head" smoothly moves from side to side, as if looking for something. Suddenly it stops and, no matter how the plane maneuvers, it constantly keeps the same place in the center of the frame. Finally, when the carrier plane descended to a four-kilometer altitude, everyone clearly saw the target. Yes, electronics understood the person and did everything in its power. There was a holiday that day …
Many believed that the "airplane" success was a clear evidence of the viability of the system. But Persitz knew that only successful missile launches could convince customers. The first of them took place on September 29, 1979. The R-17 rocket, launched at a three-hundred-kilometer range at the Kapustin Yar range, fell several meters from the center of the target.
And then there was a resolution of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers on this program. Funds were allocated, dozens of enterprises were involved in the work. Now CNIAG members no longer had to manually tweak the necessary details. They were responsible for the development of the entire control system, preparation and processing of data, input of information into the on-board computer.
TsNIIAG specialists with their brainchild - the head of a rocket with an optical homing head
Representatives of the Ministry of Defense acted in the same rhythm with the developers. Thousands of people worked on the assignment. Structurally, the R-17 rocket itself has changed somewhat. Now the head part has become detachable, rudders, a stabilization system, etc. have been installed on it. Special machines for entering information have been created at TsNIIAG, with the help of which it was encoded, and then transmitted by cable to the memory of the on-board computer. Naturally, not everything went smoothly, there were some failures. And it’s backwards: I had to do a lot for the first time. The situation became especially complicated after several unsuccessful missile launches.
This was in 1984. September 24 - unsuccessful launch. October 31 - the same thing: the head did not recognize the target.
The tests were stopped.
What started here! Session after session, pick-up after pick-up … At one of the meetings in the Military-Industrial Commission, the question of returning the work to the research level was even raised. The decisive opinion was the opinion of the then head of the GRAU, Colonel-General Yu. Andrianov, and other military specialists, who petitioned to continue the work in the previous regime.
It took almost a year to find the "hindrance". Dozens of new algorithms were worked out, all the mechanisms were dismantled and assembled by screw, but - my head was spinning - the malfunction was never found …
In the eighty-fifth we went to retests. The rocket launch was scheduled for the morning. In the evening, the specialists ran the program on the computer again. Before leaving, we decided to inspect the transparent fairings, which were brought up the day before and were soon to be placed on the missile warheads. Then something happened that has now become a legend. One of the designers looked into the fairing and … The light from the lamp hanging from the side, refracted in an incomprehensible way, did not allow to distinguish objects through the glass.
The fault was … the thinnest layer of dust on the inner surface of the fairing.
In the morning, the rocket finally fell into its intended place. Exactly where she was directed.
The development work was successfully completed in 1989. But research by scientists is still ongoing, so it's too early to sum up the final results. It is difficult to say how the fate of this development will develop in the future, something else is clear: it made it possible to study the principles of creating high-precision weapons systems, to see their strengths and weaknesses, and along the way - to make a lot of discoveries and inventions that are already being introduced into both military and civil production.
Scheme of the combat use of an operational-tactical missile with an optical homing head
