A little challenge for those interested - the SA-10 'Sprintski'

[Graham1973]

This is a post I've been planning to make for some time. I am posting it here as I think it's the most appropriate place. (If anyone thinks otherwise, please move it to the appropriate area.)

In the 1988 technothriller 'Ambush at Osiriak' by Herbert Crowder (Author of two other novels in the early 1990s, one of which is a sequel to 'Ambush at Osirak'.) is one of the last 'wild assed guess' Soviet weapons to appear as Glasnost started to have it's effect on Russia.

The SA-10 'Grumble' is a long range Surface-to-Air missile system. The one in the novel (Which I've dubbed the SA-10 'Sprintski') appears to be a point defense system.

Described as follows:

...galling to the Americans when they found out: that they had been beaten by their own technology. The SA-10 guidance that enabled multiple missiles to attack separate targets simultaneously was an adaption of the Phoenix missile guidance in the first-line US Navy fighter the F-14 Tomcat. And the SA-10 propulsion, the controlled explosion that shot the missile so rapidly into intercept position - the key to the missile's quick reaction - was almost a carbon copy of an abandoned antiballistic missile technique. In fact the new Russian missile with its cone shaped aerodynamic surface, was a dead ringer for the US Sprint missile...

...the Soviets had added a secret ingredient of their own that was the warhead. ...a tactical nuclear device, it's lethality equivalent to detonating 10 tons of TNT in the target vicinity.

Here is the only clue as to the size of the missile.

In his preoccupation, he failed to see the gleaming metallic cone, half the size of his own warplane, hurtle down past his left wing tip, and was unaware of the closeness of his brush with death. Unaware until the Strike Eagle...

I thought it might be a fun exercise to figure out what the launch vehicles/radars might look like and to work out the parameters of the weapon. That information is not provided by the author, though it is made clear that the missiles can be evaded by rapid altitude changes and the radars cannot detect (or are unable to lock on to) small targets such as precision guided munitions. Now that PGM is launched from an F-15SE at 30,000ft and the missiles are not fired at the controlling aircraft implying they must have an altitude ceiling.

Anyone up for the challenge.

 

[sferrin]

Sounds like HiBex.

http://www.alternatewars.com/WW3/WW3_Documents/DARPA/DARPA_II_HIBEX.htm

 

[Graham1973]

Interesting, as the quote from the book indicates the author may only have been aware of Sprint.

 

[stealthflanker]

The closest equivalent to the launcher vehicle and radar would be the S-300V.

The radar system. 9S32 "Grill Pan"

The launcher would be like 9A83.

The missile even pretty much similar and same as Sprint at 1st stage it use fluidic thrust vectoring although the Soviet analogue use hot gas injection instead of freon. The difference will of course be the Active radar homing like Phoenix. The kinematic performance will be immense as the missile may have average speed of like Mach 3 to 6. If we limit the timeline to 1990's Where S-300V system was quite "young". The range will be about 75-100 Km.

The other components is probably a search radar it will be like Obzor (9S15)

 

[sferrin]

"The range will be about 75-100 Km. "

That doesn't sound like a point defense system.

 

[stealthflanker]

i only read the Phoenix like part