Intercontinental ballistic missile

The world's first intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was successfully tested in the USSR on August 21, 1957, adopted in 1960 . The American intercontinental ballistic missile SM-65 Atlas was successfully tested in 1958, and was put into service in 1959 (a year earlier than the R-7). Currently, intercontinental ballistic missiles are in service with Russia , the United States , Britain , France and China .

Israel on the issue of its availability of intercontinental range missiles adheres to the same policy as on the issue of possession of nuclear weapons - neither confirms nor denies the presence of such missiles. Thus, Israel benefits from the situation in two ways: by not joining the international treaty to control the proliferation of rocket technologies and at the same time keeping the countries of the region in tension about their real capabilities ^[2] . At the same time, both Russian sources and sources in other countries, given the country's availability of a proven three-stage Shavit solid-propellant space launch vehicle, do not doubt Israel’s ability to create an ICBM ^{[3] [4]} . The first two stages of the Shavit LV are of “combat” origin, as such, the stages of a medium-range ballistic missile Jericho-2 were used . Reliable data on the characteristics of the Jericho-3 missile, considered an intercontinental combat variant of the Shavit LV, are missing.

India , DPRK and Pakistan are developing their ICBMs, with:

• In April 2012, India successfully conducted the first flight test of an Agni-V type ICBM, its full-scale production and adoption was planned for 2014 ^[5] , and the capabilities of non-combat Indian space launch vehicles (for example, GSLV ) have long exceeded those required for ICBMs mass and energy characteristics;
• The North Korean ICBM , whose work began in 1987 ^[6] , is considered to be a number of sources tested under the guise of space launch vehicles of the Eunha series .

Iran , according to some observers ^{[ what? ]} , using the space exploration program, he will develop technologies to create his own ICBMs. In particular, the Iranian space launch vehicle Safir-2, when launched along a suborbital trajectory, can deliver warheads at a distance of 4,000-4,500 km.

South Africa to confront both the countries of the Soviet bloc and the West in the 1980s developed the RSA-3 ICBM (with the assistance of Israel), but refused to accept it after the collapse of the apartheid regime.

World War II

The first of the countries that began work on the creation of intercontinental ballistic missiles was Nazi Germany . In the summer of 1942, under the leadership of Werner von Braun , the America launched the A9 / A10 missile project. It was a two-stage liquid fuel rocket weighing 100 tons with a declared range of about 5,000 km. Although according to modern classification, the A9 / A10 formally refers to medium-range missiles , it was created as an intercontinental weapon that could strike on the east coast of the United States . Technically, the A9 / A10, however, was not a ballistic missile, as it included the upper winged stage, which is de facto a supersonic cruise missile.

The missile was guided at the beginning and in the middle of the flight using radio beacons pre-installed on the target and activated at a certain moment, on the final part by a pilot who, shortly before the target, had to leave a small cockpit by parachute and be brought down in the Atlantic Ocean after he made a suborbital space flight ^[7] . According to some sources, the tests in the framework of the creation of the A9 / A10 were carried out at least twice - on January 8 and 24, 1945 , but the matter did not come to combat use. ^[8] According to other sources, the work on the program did not advance further than the sketches (which is more likely). Due to the underestimation by the Germans of the complexity of the planning flight at supersonic speeds (which was a key element of the project), probably the A9 / A10 system would never have been able to function.

After the defeat of Germany, the United States and the USSR brought to themselves a large number of specialists, documentation and the material base for missile development.

Cold War

Liquid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles

In the United States, work on the creation of long-range (subsequently intercontinental) ballistic missiles has been carried out since 1946 as part of the Convair RTV-A-2 Hiroc program . In 1948, several launches of a small prototype of a promising ICBM were carried out, however, due to the weak attention of the US Air Force to ballistic missiles, the program was closed. However, in the future the program served as the basis for the creation of the first American ICBM SM-65 Atlas

After a long series of trials of three prototypes, the missile with the SM-65D index was launched on April 14, 1959 , and was adopted in September 1959. This missile, as well as the American Titan, which was adopted in 1961 , were initially placed on unprotected launch complexes, but subsequently began to be deployed first in buried reinforced concrete silos (SM-65E, since 1960), and then in reliably protected shafts (SM-65F, since 1961). Preparation of missiles for launch took from 15 minutes to half an hour.

In the Soviet Union, scientific research on the possibility of creating an ICBM began in 1950 . In 1953, a preliminary design of such a rocket was ready. In 1954, the direct creation of a rocket with the R-7 index was entrusted to OKB-1 under the leadership of Sergei Korolyov . The two-stage Seven was capable of delivering one 3-megaton nuclear charge to a distance of 8,800 km. Her first successful test (after three failures) took place on August 21, 1957 . Since 1954, the main work on the creation of intercontinental ballistic missiles in the USSR was transferred to the newly formed OKB-586 under the leadership of M.K. Yangel . In 1959, the R-12 missile was adopted in the USSR , which became the basis of the created separate kind of troops - the Strategic Missile Forces, and in 1962 - the R-16 missile, the modification of which became the first Soviet missile based in a silo launcher and the world's first missile starting from the mine (the American SM-65 Atlas was only stored in the mines, before starting it was lifted to the surface by elevator).

Solid-fuel ballistic missiles

In the same 1962, the United States Air Force entered service with the first solid fuel ICBM: LGM-30A . The advantages of solid-fuel ICBMs — simplicity and safety of maintenance and storage, constant readiness for launch — were such that in the 1960s, the United States deployed more than 800 LGM-30A ICBMs, completely replacing the old Atlas and Titan-I liquid-fuel rockets ^{[9 ]} . In the future, the United States made no more attempts to develop liquid-fuel rockets.

To gain experience in the field of long-range solid fuel missiles in the USSR, in 1959, work began on a three-stage solid-fuel rocket RT-1 (8K95) on ballistic gunpowder (due to the lack of technology for mixed fuels), but this project did not leave the test stage ( the launch accident rate was high), although it made it possible to work out a number of technologies, for example, the RT-1-63 modification was used to test the upper stages of the first Soviet solid-fuel ICBM RT-2 (8K98), the work on which was launched simultaneously with the RT-1, within one ko the complex regulations. RT-2 was adopted only in 1968 .

Multiple Warhead Missiles

An important stage in the development of rocket technology was the creation of systems with separable warheads. The first options for implementation did not have individual guidance of warheads: the benefit of using several small charges instead of one powerful one is greater efficiency when exposed to area targets, and also hampered the actions of a possible enemy missile defense. So, in 1970, the Soviet Union deployed R-36 missiles with three 2.3 Mt combat units.

In the same year, the United States put on duty the first Minuteman III systems, which had a completely new quality - the ability to breed warheads along individual trajectories to hit several targets. For this purpose, the missile was equipped with a reconnaissance unit: an additional stage with shunting engines, which, one after the other, brought the warheads on course.

The first mobile ICBMs were adopted in the USSR: the Temp-2C on a wheeled chassis ( 1976 ) and the RT-23 UTTX rail-based ( 1989 ). In the United States, work was also carried out on similar complexes, but not one of them was adopted.

A special direction in the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles was the work on "heavy" missiles. In the USSR, the R-36 became such missiles, and its further development of the R-36M , adopted by the armed forces in 1967 and 1975, and in the USA in 1963 the Titan-2 ICBM came into service. In 1976, Yuzhnoye Design Bureau began the development of a new RT-23 ICBM, while in the USA since 1972 work was underway on the MX missile; they were adopted in 1989 (in the RT-23UTTX version) and 1986 , respectively. The R-36M2 , which entered service in 1988 , is the most powerful and heaviest in the history of missile weapons: a 211-ton missile, firing at 16,000 km, carries 10 warheads with a capacity of 750 Kt each.

Ballistic missiles, as a rule, launch along a trajectory close to optimal, given the density of air and the force of gravity that vary with height ^[10] . Typically, rockets will start vertically for faster exit from the dense layers of the atmosphere, since up to 17-20% of engine thrust is used to overcome air resistance ^{[10] [11]} . Having received, after passing through the troposphere, a certain translational speed in the vertical direction, the rocket, with the help of a special program mechanism, equipment and controls, gradually begins to move from a vertical to an inclined position towards the target.

By the end of the engine’s operation, the longitudinal axis of the rocket acquires an inclination ( pitch ) angle corresponding to its longest flight range, approximately 45 °, which decreases with increasing rocket speed, for example, at a speed of 7 km / s and a flight range of slightly more than 9000 km, the inclination angle is 26 ° ^{[12] [13]} , and the speed becomes equal to a strictly set value that ensures this range.

When flying along an optimal trajectory at an intercontinental range, the rocket rises to a height of up to a thousand or more kilometers ^[14] and is thus visible on radars at a very large distance. Therefore, in real combat conditions, more energy-intensive floor trajectories can be used, the apogee height of which is reduced to tens of kilometers.

After the engine stops working, the rocket makes its entire further flight by inertia, describing in the general case an almost strictly elliptical trajectory. At the top of the trajectory, the flight speed of the rocket takes its least value. The apogee of the trajectory of ballistic missiles is usually located at an altitude of several hundred kilometers from the surface of the earth, where due to the low density of the atmosphere air resistance is almost completely absent.

In the descending section of the trajectory, the flight speed of the rocket due to altitude loss gradually increases. With a further decrease in the dense atmosphere, the rocket passes at tremendous speeds. In this case, there is a strong heating of the shell of the ballistic missile, and if the necessary protective measures are not taken, then its destruction can occur.

Basing Method

According to the method of basing, intercontinental ballistic missiles are divided into:

• Launched from land-based stationary launchers: R-7 , Atlas ;
• Launched from silo launchers (silos) : RS-18 , PC-20 , Minuteman ;
• launched from mobile units based on a wheeled chassis: " Poplar ", " Midzhitmen ";
• Launched from railway launchers: RT-23UTTH ;
• launched from the bottom of the seas and oceans in pop-up capsules: “ Skiff ”;
• ballistic missiles of submarines : " Mace ", " Trident ".

The first basing method went out of use in the early 1960s, as it did not meet the requirements of security and secrecy. Modern silos provide a high degree of protection against the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion and can reliably hide the degree of combat readiness of the launch complex. The remaining three options are mobile, which means they are more difficult to detect, however, they impose significant restrictions on the size and mass of missiles.

Repeatedly offered other ways of basing ICBMs, designed to ensure the secretive deployment and security of launch complexes, for example:

• on specialized aircraft and even airships with the launch of ICBMs in flight;
• in super-deep (hundreds of meters) mines in rock formations, of which transport-launch containers (TPK) with missiles must rise to the surface before launch;
• at the bottom of the continental shelf in pop-up capsules;
• in a network of underground galleries through which mobile launchers are continuously moving , but not one of such projects was brought to practical implementation.

Engines

Early versions of ICBMs used liquid-propellant rocket engines and required long-term refueling with propellant components immediately before launch. Preparations for the launch could last several hours, and the time for maintaining operational readiness was very small. In the case of cryogenic components ( R-7 ), the equipment of the launch complex was very cumbersome. All this greatly limited the strategic value of such missiles. Modern ICBMs use solid-propellant rocket engines or liquid-propellant rocket engines with high-boiling components with ampouled refueling. Such missiles come from the factory in transport and launch containers. This allows them to be stored in a ready-to-start condition for the entire service life. Liquid rockets are delivered to the launch site in an empty state. Refueling is performed after the TPK with the missile is installed in the launcher, after which the missile can be in combat readiness for many months and years. Preparation for launch usually takes no more than a few minutes and is carried out remotely, from a remote command post, via cable or radio channels. Periodic checks of rocket systems and launchers are also carried out.

Modern ICBMs usually have a variety of means of overcoming the enemy missile defense . They may include maneuvering combat units, means of setting radar interference, false targets , etc.

The firing accuracy of ICBMs ( circular probable deviation , CVO) is a very important characteristic, since an increase in accuracy of 2 times allows the use of 5 times less powerful warhead. Accuracy is limited by the accuracy of the navigation system and the available geophysical information. Many government programs, such as GPS , GLONASS , Earth remote sensing satellites , are also used to improve the accuracy of navigation information. The most accurate ballistic missiles have a CWS of less than 100 meters, even at intercontinental range.

The maximum flight range of ICBMs is 16 thousand km, providing almost global reach for a missile strike, regardless of the location of the launcher. Starting mass - 16-200 tons, payload - up to 10 tons, the apogee of the trajectory - up to 1000 km.

The descent to the target occurs at a speed of more than 6 km / s. Ground-based ICBM flight time from Russia to the USA lies in the range of 25-30 minutes. For underwater missiles, flight time can be significantly less, up to 12 minutes ^[15] .

Orbital rockets ( R-36orb ) have an unlimited range, but they are withdrawn from service under the OSV-2 agreement.

In the USSR and the USA , ICBMs that have served their term are used as launch vehicles for launching space objects into low circular near-Earth orbits .

For example, with the help of the American ICBMs Atlas and Titan , the spacecraft Mercury and Gemini were launched. And the Soviet ICBMs PC-20 , PC-18 and the naval R-29RM served as the basis for the creation of launch vehicles Dnepr , Strela , Rokot and Shtil .

• Submarine Ballistic Missiles
• Astroinertial Navigation
• Missile defense

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