CGM-121B Seek Spinner

Boeing has already had the experience gained since 1979 of creating cruise missiles of this type, but they were not in demand in the US and on the international arms market, as a result of which work on them was stopped ^[5] . The long-term US Air Force procurement plan for 1985-1990, agreed with Congress, called for arming and launching mass production in 1990 of the AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow RDP , developed by Northrop Corporation. But after supporters of the acquisition of cheaper means of air attack were found in the US Senate Committee on Armed Forces , in 1987 the US Congress ordered the resumption of the Pave Tiger project, which was discontinued in 1985 ^[6] .

With an estimated cost of $ 20-25 thousand per missile, the adoption of the CGM-121B into service made it possible to carry out massive rocket fire at enemy air defense zones. Even if the coefficient of missiles reaching the targets was 1:20 (that is, 50 out of 1 thousand launched missiles), their use was regarded as expedient, and combat effectiveness as high. According to the estimates of American experts, including the Vice-Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General Lawrence Skane , the defeat with Seek Spinner missiles of about fifty Soviet radar stations in the flight directions of American bomber aircraft made it possible to neutralize the USSR air defense system ^[7] .

In September 1987, the U.S. Air Force Department signed a 18-month contract with Boeing Military Airplanes, a Boeing military aircraft design and manufacturing company, for a full scale development project on the subject of barrage anti-radar Seek Spinner missiles, legalization of the agreement with the Air Force took place on December 2, 1987 ^[8] . The main differences from the competing Tacit Rainbow project were a longer flight duration and launch from a ground launcher (Tacit Rainbow was launched from a carrier aircraft and, according to independent observers, had a lesser flying resource, inferior to Seek Spinner in both flight time and range application) ^[9] . Despite the fact that the development of the PRR was supervised by the Air Force and was carried out mainly in their own interests, the company Boeing tried to expand the market by including in the list of potential customers the US Army and the Marine Corps ^[6] .

The first test launch of the PRS Seek Spinner took place at the end of November 1987 , the duration of the first flight of the rocket was 140 minutes ^[6] .

Completion

In 1987, Congress ordered that $ 95.8 million be allocated for further testing of the anti-radar missile, but due to opposition from the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, funds were not actually allocated, and as a result, flight tests should be completed before the beginning of 1991 (when the plan was supposed to mass purchase of samples of RRP of a competing project) was not possible ^[8] .

After Congress instructed the US Department of Defense in 1987 to evaluate all surface-to-surface and air-to-surface weapons and, based on its results, to develop a plan for further work on the most promising weapons, representatives of the US Defense Department made their own assessment, in consultation with the Air Force, and in 1988, a plan was submitted to Congress that did not mention Seek Spinner ^[10] .

Debate in Congress

During the congressional hearings on further state funding for the project in the fall of 1988, a controversial situation arose in which the US Senate Committee on the Armed Forces called for the cessation of funding, while at the same time, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Forces found support for continued work and allocation Seek Spinner R&D Testing Budget. During the preliminary hearings, supporters of the Seek Spinner project from the lower house of Congress made amendments to allocate $ 50 million ^[10] , while they succeeded in halving the funding of the rival Tacit Rainbow project from $ 79.150 million to $ 39.323 million ^[11] . And representatives of the Senate (upper house) managed to push the opposite position and achieve the cessation of funding, as a result of which the project was curtailed. In this case, the situation with the legal side of the issue was as follows: the clause on canceling the work program was rejected by the lower house, that is, de jure no one forbade the Air Force to continue financing the project, but no budget funds were allocated for this by the upper house, which de facto meant termination of further testing and rejection of procurement ^[12] .

Officers from the US Air Force Department continued to fight for the Seek Spinner , arguing that continuing to work on it would provide valuable technical solutions to eliminate Tacit Rainbow flaws at a much lower cost, since both missiles had similar subsystems, identical GOS and warheads ^[13] . Later, in order to finally knock out any government funding from the project, opponents of further work on Seek Spinner were able to legislatively reinforce their position by directly prohibiting the US Air Force Department from spending public funds on this program in any configuration options ^{[14] [15]} . The arguments of the opponents were based on the fact that Seek Spinner could not enter the arsenal of the Navy or the U.S. Army because the tactical and technical assignment was declared only by the US Air Force Tactical Aviation Department and was not universal and interspecific since it did not fit other aviation components types of armed forces or at least the branches of the Air Force ^[10] .

Launcher

Missiles were launched from launch containers transported in piles in a towed trailer using a solid-propellant rocket accelerator , which was undocked from the rocket and fell immediately after launch ^[4] .

Rocket

The missile was equipped with a homing radar head that continuously monitored the radar background for the detection of radio emission sources, the signal from which the onboard computer of the rocket processed based on an embedded set of parameters according to the available technical data on Soviet radars, and if the parameters converged, the rocket attacked the detected target, rushing on a radio signal and focusing in flight on the fixed spatial coordinates of its source, and then dived at it to a point along discontinuity. The target was scanned in a circular search mode, the scan area in its configuration resembled the upper hemisphere. In the target search mode (barrage), the missile could spend exactly as much time as its engine resource and fuel supply allowed, without taking into account countermeasures from the enemy ^[4] .

Sources of information: ^{[3] [4] [16]}

• Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 100th Congress, 2nd Session . - Washington, DC: US ​​Government Printing Office, 1988. - Vol. 134 - Pt. 12.