Weird & Wonderful Nuclear AAMs

[SOC]

There's some confusion over the SA-5. There were two missiles that ended up with this designation. The first was the DAL that became the V-1000 and that was a semi-ABM. Then you get the S-200 that was built in large numbers. DAL (aka V-400 and then V-500) and the V-1000 never really went into full production and only a few DAL were deployed around Leningrad. The DAL was superceded by the V-750 / SA-2 Guideline. The V-1000 was the Soviet Union's first attempt at a viable ABM.

The SA-1 (aka S-25 Berkut) was a system designed to shoot down a 1000 bomber raid of the WW 2 type. It was ungodly expensive and didn't have the altitude or speed as a missile to take down an SR 71.

V-1000 and Dal were entirely different. V-1000 (the missile shown in post 29 above) was a Fakel missile designed as part of the experimental System A ABM system intended to study and refine the ABM concept. This led to the operational System A-35 deployed around Moscow. Dal (the missile shown in post 35 above) was a SAM system produced by Lavochkin that was abandoned during its development. The three Dal sites built around St. Petersburg were eventually used by S-200 and S-300 batteries. V-1000 never received the SA-5 designator, that was Dal - which was briefly referred to as SA-5 GRIFFON after being spotted in a Moscow military parade.

 

[Hanse]

V-1000 and Dal were entirely different. V-1000 (the missile shown in post 29 above) was a Fakel missile designed as part of the experimental System A ABM system intended to study and refine the ABM concept. This led to the operational System A-35 deployed around Moscow. Dal (the missile shown in post 35 above) was a SAM system produced by Lavochkin that was abandoned during its development. The three Dal sites built around St. Petersburg were eventually used by S-200 and S-300 batteries. V-1000 never received the SA-5 designator, that was Dal - which was briefly referred to as SA-5 GRIFFON after being spotted in a Moscow military parade.

I remember the first time I saw S-200 referred to as "SA-5" and thinking, "what happened to the giant Guideline?" I think they were still calling Dal "SA-5" in this book, which was my only source in grade school.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

While initial plans were to provide S-25 for all major cities of USSR - Moskva, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Vladivostok - the resulting cost was so enormous, that even plans for Leningrad array were scrapped (there was one other problem there; since Leningrad is a coastal city, the defense array must be partially build in sea...)

I believe they were going to get around this by building one of the site on Kronstadt.

 

[Dilandu]

I believe they were going to get around this by building one of the site on Kronstadt.

As far as I knew the project never reached that far. The S-50 system around Leningrad was actually planned to be a massive downgrade of the S-25; it was supposed to have only three multi-channel stations controlling most important threat vectors, and sixty-five simplified single-channel stations, covering the rest. Even those plans were later abandoned in favor of S-75 transportable SAM's.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I'd forgot about the two different SA-5s, IIRC in Bill Gunston's excellent 1978 "All the World's Missiles and Rockets" encyclopedia he had the SA-5 Griffon, missile below:

That was the SA-5 mentioned.



IIRC the SA-2 Guideline was basically a mobile, budget version of the SA-1.

The photo is of a DAL series but it's hard to tell which variant it is. What it isn't is the later S-200 series that became the NATO official version of the SA-5.

SA-5 / S-200 in foreground, SA-2 / V-750 in the distance

The SA-2 was developed from the alternative V-300 missile that was developed for S-25 Berkut. The SA-1 that went into service as designated the V-300 and by Lavochkin at OKB-301 as the ZUR 205. That was a single-stage missile, that bore a distant lineage to the German wartime Wasserfall in concept, if not design.
The alternative design for the V-300 was the 32-B developed in-house at KB-1, section 32 by D L Tomashevich. This missile used a solid fuel booster with liquid fuel sustainer, could be launched at any angle rather than just vertically like the ZUR 205, and was judged to be a superior design to Lavochkin's. 40 were produced and fired between 1954 and 1956. It formed the basis for the SA-2 (V-750) while the Lavochkin design was proceeded with for S-25 Berkut because it was felt that his design was more certain to work being based largely on tried technology from NII-88 like the engine.

Oh, note that Berkut (Golden Eagle) was the Stalinist era name for the system, while S-25 was adopted after his death for it to erase any connection to Stalin from it. Also, Sergi Beria, son of Lavrentiy Beria who was the head of Stalins NKVD secret police was the lead designer / project manager for S-25 until Stalin died when he was arrested and sent to the gulag...

 

[MadRat]

Why would an AAM use that particular configuration?

Do you mean about the pointy shape or the two stages. Because as for the shape, its very maneuverable and the booster has the bulk of its mass. If you were looking to command guidance a missile towards a target 100 miles away within mere seconds, you are going to go for a similar shape using a booster. Sprint was nuclear tipped afaik. For propellants of that day it was pretty exceptional and you wanted engagement at hypersonic closing rates as far out away from the site being guarded. The same results can be done with much smaller packages and non-nuclear KE warheads in 2024. But that was not the case then.

 

[NMaude]

Do you mean about the pointy shape or the two stages.

I'm referring to the shape, that's not a practical configuration for airborne launch.

Sprint was nuclear tipped afaik.

It used the W66 ER warhead.

 

[Bruno Anthony]

In the thin air on high altitude, the shockwave propagate less efficiently - and neutrons more efficiently. Also, the destruction of aircraft may cause more problems, because bombs could survive it. You see, USAF generals assumed that all Soviet nukes would have dead hand setting on their fuzes (i.e. if the plane got shot down, bombs would explode on impact). And since they were thinking about multi-megaton nukes... the fallout from massive ground explosion would be extremely devastating even if bomb fell short of target. So making bombs fizzle was actually a priority.

Links or documents. Tanknet habits die hard.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Links or documents. Tanknet habits die hard.

He's more or less correct. Neutrons are absorbed / slowed to ineffectiveness by anything in their path to varying degrees. Blast is far, far less effective in low pressure or a vacuum. An interesting one is that in XSAM-19 Plato, it was proposed to fire and set off several missiles using nuclear warheads along the projected ballistic path of an incoming missile such that it would have to pass through more than one nuclear detonation. If one missed, the next could get it.

 

[Bruno Anthony]

He's more or less correct. Neutrons are absorbed / slowed to ineffectiveness by anything in their path to varying degrees. Blast is far, far less effective in low pressure or a vacuum. An interesting one is that in XSAM-19 Plato, it was proposed to fire and set off several missiles using nuclear warheads along the projected ballistic path of an incoming missile such that it would have to pass through more than one nuclear detonation. If one missed, the next could get it.

We’re talking about an anti bomber weapon,not BMD. Please show documents that the main use of the nuclear anti bomber rockets was to disarm their bombs.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

We’re talking about an anti bomber weapon,not BMD. Please show documents that the main use of the nuclear anti bomber rockets was to disarm their bombs.

That I never said. The reason small nukes were adopted was to shoot the plane down and do so by making up for the guidance systems of the era being inaccurate. As guidance and accuracy improved, the need for nukes for AAM's and SAM's diminished. Even against ballistic missiles, nukes were being used to get close enough to shoot one down. In the XSAM-19 Plato design project for example, the engineers went so far as to propose using three nuclear armed missiles detonated along the predicted track of the target in a line to ensure that at least one would get it.

 

[Bruno Anthony]

He's more or less correct. Neutrons are absorbed / slowed to ineffectiveness by anything in their path to varying degrees. Blast is far, far less effective in low pressure or a vacuum. An interesting one is that in XSAM-19 Plato, it was proposed to fire and set off several missiles using nuclear warheads along the projected ballistic path of an incoming missile such that it would have to pass through more than one nuclear detonation. If one missed, the next could get it.

It’s Dilandu. I want documents stating that was their intended use in an anti bomber role not retroactive scientific deliberations.
Knowing some science is not the same as that’s what the Genie and similar were intended to do.

 

[Dilandu]

It’s Dilandu. I want documents stating that was their intended use in an anti bomber role not retroactive scientific deliberations.
Knowing some science is not the same as that’s what the Genie and similar were intended to do.

Okay:

Arming America’s Interceptors: The Hughes Falcon Missile Family

GAR-11/AIM-26 was primarily a weapon-killer. The bomber(s, if any) was collateral damage. The weapon was proximity-fused to ensure detonation close enough so an intense flood of neutrons would result in an instantaneous nuclear reaction (NOT full-scale) in the enemy weapon’s pit; rendering it incapable of functioning as designed. Our strategists assumed enemy weapons, like our own, would be salvage-fused - ie, once over enemy territory armed to function during a crash and thus prevent anyone from salvaging the critical material. Back then the weaponeers [sic] also assumed the bigger a bomb the better, thus shooting down the bomber only to have a 20 [megaton] bomb go off at ground level was not really one for our side. Fallout anywhere would be disastrous. Hence the neutron flux. … [O]ur first “neutron bombs” were the GAR-11 and MB-1 Genie.

I hope you would not use the "I don't like those documents, show me another ones" excuse?

 

[Dilandu]

P.S. Some data about blast wave of explosions as function of air density on different altitudes. I would not claim that I understood it well - it's pretty far from my speciality - but it seems that peak overpressure on the 10-15 km altitudes make blast wave from even nuclear explosion rather inefficient:

https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/SUSI18/SUSI18004FU1.pdf

 

[Bruno Anthony]

Okay:

Arming America’s Interceptors: The Hughes Falcon Missile Family

I hope you would not use the "I don't like those documents, show me another ones" excuse?

You don’t mind posting the source material behind your posts, do you? The original PDF
does not have the paragraph on nuclear Falcons with the W-54 as a bomb neutralizer. This is from I assume the 2012 update on Kopp’s website. Will have to check with SOC on his source.

MediaFire

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

download1500.mediafire.com

 

[NMaude]

You don’t mind posting the source material behind your posts, do you? The original PDF
does not have the paragraph on nuclear Falcons with the W-54 as a bomb neutralizer. This is from I assume the 2012 update on Kopp’s website. Will have to check with SOC on his source.

MediaFire

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

download1500.mediafire.com

I do believe this is the article you're linking to:

The Hughes Falcon Missile Family

 

[Bruno Anthony]

I do believe this is the article you're linking to:

The Hughes Falcon Missile Family

Yes and it links to the original PDF

 

[Hanse]

 

[publiusr]

What would blast effects of those be if exploded in Venus atmosphere?

Say during a solar storm---enough to remove a little?

 

[T. A. Gardner]

It’s Dilandu. I want documents stating that was their intended use in an anti bomber role not retroactive scientific deliberations.
Knowing some science is not the same as that’s what the Genie and similar were intended to do.

Well, in the case of Plato, that comes from Sylvania's Missile Division reports during the R&D phase--which got no further.

DTIC AD0366003: PLATO. ANTI-MISSILE MISSILE PROGRAM XSAM-19. PHASE TWO : Defense Technical Information Center : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The objective of Phase 2 of Project Plato is to refine and optimize the proposed design of the guided anti-missile system and to prepare a program that will...

archive.org

 

[T. A. Gardner]

In the case of AAM's for the US, both AIR 2 Genie and the AIM 26 Falcon were designed to ensure a bomber kill in an era where fire controls and guidance systems were often iffy and could be unreliable. Both were designed to have about a 1000 ft (300 yard) kill radius. If the interceptor could get the missile close to the target, the target was going down.

ABM systems used nukes for the same reason. The fire controls and guidance systems through at least the 70's just couldn't obtain the necessary accuracy to ensure a kill otherwise. That was the idea Sylvania proposed. Fire multiple missiles at the target along its predicted trajectory where one would be certain to get it.