Notable missile systems such as Scud, Scaleboard and Scarab
gave Soviet commanders the means to strike deep into the enemy’s lines of
communication and across the battlefield. The initial generation of mobile
medium- and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles such as the SS-4
Sandal and SS-5 Skean were transported by cumbersome trailers. (The latter
systems gained some infamy after they were involved in the Cuban missile
crisis.) These were followed by much more mobile self-propelled missiles
mounted on their own transporter-erector-launchers (TELs).
The Soviet Union viewed its strategic rocket forces as the
heart of its defensive system and the rocket personnel as the very elite of the
Soviet forces. The strategic rocket forces evolved from the Soviet Army’s
artillery, and the first commander-in-chief was also head of the artillery.
They were formed in 1959 and were responsible for all Soviet land-based
missiles with ranges over 1,000km. (Missiles with lesser ranges were assigned
to the rocket and artillery branches of the ground forces.) Notably, the
strategic rocket forces were considered the ‘primary service’ and their
commander-in-chief took precedence over all other military supreme commanders.
SS-1 Scud
Medium-Range Ballistic Missile
The SS-1C, known to NATO as the Scud B, was a medium-range
surface-to-surface missile intended for battlefield strikes to hit troop
concentrations, defences, depots and railways up to a distance of 280km. The
missile was 11.4m long and could take high explosive, chemical and nuclear
warheads. The rocket was a single-stage missile employing a liquid propellant.
The Scud A and B were initially deployed on tracked carriers derived from the
IS-3 (Joseph Stalin III) heavy tank chassis, but were later transported on the
eight-wheeled MAZ-543. This had eight-wheel-drive, with the front four wheels
steerable, and weighed 28 tons with the missile. The crew compartment consisted
of a heated and air-conditioned cab divided into two by the missile. The
original version was first seen in 1957, and the longer B variant five years
later. The SS-1C Scud B was widely deployed with all the Warsaw Pact armies, as
well as in Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Syria. The Egyptians fired a number at
Israeli targets in the Sinai in 1973, but missed. Around a thousand Scud B
missiles were fired at Mujahideen targets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The
longer-range Scud C and D missiles were largely superseded by the SS-12
Scaleboard and the short-lived SS-23 Spider.
SS-4 Sandal Theatre
Ballistic Missile
The SS-4 Sandal, with a range of 2,000km, was an upgraded
version of the earlier SS-3 Shyster. It became operational in the late 1950s
and was deployed in some numbers with Soviet field armies. This missile system,
though, was not really very mobile as it required twelve vehicles towing
special trailers, and the missile itself had to be erected and fuelled before
firing. From the late 1970s it was replaced by the fully mobile SS-20 Saber,
although this process was not completed until the late 1980s. The longer-range
silo-based SS-5 Skean that appeared in the early 1960s was essentially a
scaled-up version of the Sandal. It was withdrawn from service from the
mid-1970s onwards.
SS-12 Scaleboard
Medium-Range Ballistic Missile
The SS-12 Scaleboard, first reported in 1967, was previously
known as the SS-1D Scud C, but Scaleboard was a much more powerful missile than
the Scud. Its range of 800km made it more of a strategic weapon than one for
battlefield support. Scaleboard missiles deployed in East Germany could have
reached much of eastern and south-eastern England. The SS-12 was very similar
in appearance to the earlier SS-1C and employed the same MAZ-543 chassis as the
transporter/launcher, but with a more fully enclosed body behind the cab. The
missile was erected for firing in a similar way but was contained in a ribbed
casing until ready for launch. The longer-range SS-23 Spider was eliminated in
the late 1980s under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
SS-14 Scapegoat
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
The SS-14 Scapegoat and SS-15 Scrooge were monstrous
long-range ballistic missiles carried on tracked chassis. Neither was deployed,
and subsequently the Soviets opted increasingly for heavy wheeled vehicles. The
SS-14 was carried in a cylindrical container mounted over the carrier vehicle.
Before launching, the container was raised hydraulically and placed in a
vertical position on a launch pad lowered from the rear of the vehicle. The
container was then opened and removed, leaving the exposed missile ready for
firing. First observed on a mobile launch pad in May 1965, the SS-14 was an
intermediate-range (3,500km) missile with a nuclear warhead; it measured about
10.7 metres in length and was propelled with a solid-fuel rocket. Due to poor
mobility and slow missile deployment time, the system did not enter service and
the missiles were replaced in 1970.
SS-15 Scrooge
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
The SS-15 Scrooge was an even larger intercontinental
ballistic missile, measuring 18.3 metres, likewise carried in a tube on the
back of a tracked vehicle. While erected in a similar way to the SS-14, it was
fired direct from the tube. Propelled by a solid-fuel rocket, it could reach up
to 5,600km. The carrying vehicles for both the SS-14 and the SS-15 were very
similar, though their missile erecting systems differed. Interestingly, the
running gear was derived from components of the IS-3 heavy tank or its later
T-10 derivative.
The transporter had eight small road wheels (whereas the
IS-3 had six and the T-10 seven) sprung on torsion bars. The long upper track
was supported on five return rollers on each side, which were unevenly spaced.
Power transmission was via rear drive sprockets and the engine was believed to
have been a V-2 cylinder diesel similar to that in the T-10, which was capable
of producing 700hp. In both systems the crew travelled in a superstructure at
the front. Again the SS-15 was deemed simply too ungainly for use in the field.
SS-16 Sinner
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
This was the Soviet Union’s very first mobile ICBM, with a
range of around 10,000km. The three-stage solid-propellant 18.5 metre-long
missile was transported on a massive 12×12 TEL. According to the Soviets, it
was never deployed, although Western Intelligence believed it had gone
operational in the late 1970s, by which time 200 missiles had been built. Of
these, fifty were deployed at the test training site in Plesetsk, but these ran
foul of the SALT II Treaty and by the mid-1980s they had been removed from the
training sites. Design work on this missile influenced both the SS-20 and the
SS-25.
SS-19 Stiletto
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
The Stiletto, unlike the other nuclear missiles described
here, was not mobile, but was a fourth generation silo-launched
liquid-propelled ICBM (supplementing the earlier SS-9, SS-11, SS-13, SS-17 and
SS–18). Alongside the mobile Soviet strategic rocket forces, the SS-19 was the
backbone of the silo-launched missile force. It was initially deployed in the
1970s but was replaced by the upgraded SS-19 Mod 3. This had a storage life of
twenty-two years and was armed with six MIRVs. By 2008 Russia still had 126
operational missiles, but the mobile SS-25 remained the most numerous ICBM.
Clearly Moscow felt that mobile systems offered a greater deterrence and first
strike capability.
SS-20 Saber
Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile
In light of the Warsaw Pact’s numerical superiority in
ground forces, NATO developed a tactical nuclear weapons option that could form
part of a graduated nuclear response. In order to neutralise these forces in
Western Europe Moscow developed a new mobile intermediate-range ballistic
missile with a nuclear warhead with a range in excess of 5,000km. This was
given the NATO reporting name of SS-20 Saber, and entered service in 1976. The
system was also intended to supersede the old SS-4 and SS-5 missiles.
A 37 ton, 16.5 metre-long missile based on two solid-fuel
fibreglass-clad stages originally designed for the abandoned SS-16 Sinner
mobile ICBM programme, the Saber initially had a single warhead but was made
MIRV-compatible and transported on a 12×12 MAZ-547A/MAZ-7916 TEL. This mobile
system so alarmed NATO that it responded by deploying ground-launched cruise
missiles to Western Europe. By the mid-1980s an estimated 350 Sabers had been
deployed, with 240 in eastern Russia threatening Europe and the remainder in
Siberia targeting China and Japan. In total, 654 SS-20 missiles and 499 TELs
were built, but they were withdrawn from service in the late 1980s under the
terms of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and destroyed in 1991.
SS-21 Scarab Short-Range
Ballistic Missile
The smallest member of the Soviet Union’s family of
short-range ballistic missiles was the mobile SS-21 Scarab, with a range of
120km (compared to the 50km of the SS-23 and the 900km of the SS-12M). Mounted
on a 6×6 TEL, the SS-21 could take fragmentation, nuclear, biological or
chemical warheads. Developed in the late 1960s, it was used to replace the
shorter-ranged FROG-7 battlefield rocket.
The Scarab A entered service with the Soviet Army in 1975
and was forward-deployed into East Germany in the early 1980s. From there, it
could have destroyed NATO’s early warning radar and surface-to-air missile
sites prior to air strikes. The longer-range Scarab B appeared in 1989, with a
third version developed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. By this
stage Scarabs had replaced most of the FROG-7 rockets in Eastern Europe and had
been supplied to Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Syria.
SS-24 Scalpel
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
Unlike the SS-19, the SS-24 Scalpel was deployed in 1987 as
both a railway-based and silo-based missile. The rail-mounted version
understandably had limited utility in time of war. In total, fifty-six
rail-based systems were produced but they have since been decommissioned.
SS-25 Sickle
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
Development of the SS-25 Sickle by the Soviets commenced in
the late 1970s as an improved three-stage solid-propellant single-warhead
mobile ICBM. The missile was deployed in a TEL canister on a 14×14 chassis.
Measuring over 29 metres long and 1.7 metres in diameter, the missile was
mounted on the MAZ-7310 or MAZ-7917. The TEL was normally supported by a mobile
relay station and command support vehicle. Understandably, because the Sickle
was fully mobile, it was vastly more expensive than the silo-based ICBMs. The
first regiment equipped with it was activated in 1985; by 1991 the Russians had
deployed 288 SS-25 missiles and five years later this figure had risen to 360.
They were used to equip three strategic rocket forces missile armies totalling
seven divisions.
#
Like those of the USA, the Soviet Union’s first post-war
missile was a development of the German A-4; this led to the SS-1A (NATO = ‘Scunner’)
with a range of 300 km and a 750 kg high-explosive warhead. The first nuclear
battlefield missile to enter service (in 1957) was the Scud-A, which was
mounted on a converted JS-3 heavy-tank chassis and carried a 50 kT warhead over
a range of some 150 km. This was later supplemented by the Scud-B system, which
carried a 70 kT warhead over a range of 300 km. Although Scuds were supplied to
many other countries, nuclear warheads were only ever issued to the Soviet army
and the system served throughout the Cold War, as plans to replace it with the
SS-23 were cancelled as part of the INF Treaty.
The SS-12 (‘Scaleboard’) was a road-mobile, solid-fuelled
ballistic missile, which was first fielded in 1962, followed by a modified
version, the SS-12B (initially designated SS-22), in 1979. The missile had a
maximum range of 900 km and a CEP of 30 m, carrying either a high-explosive or
a 500 kT nuclear warhead, and system reaction time was estimated at sixty
minutes. The SS-12B was withdrawn under the terms of the INF Treaty, and all
missiles were destroyed.
One of the significant features of both the SS-1 and the
SS-12 was that later versions were transported by 8 × 8-wheel TELs. These were
highly mobile for off-road driving, were air-conditioned, accommodated the full
crew and all necessary equipment, and even had an automatic
tyre-pressure-regulation system. All these features enabled the missile
detachment to move into a new location, set up the missile quickly, launch, and
then move to a resupply point – the so-called ‘shoot-and-scoot’ tactic.
All Warsaw Pact exercises made use of battlefield nuclear
weapons in support of attacks. A typical scenario, used some 233 weapons in the
first strike, followed by 294 in the second strike. As used in these exercises,
the intended purpose was to eliminate NATO forward troops – Area B, for
example, coincided with the North German Plain. Following such a strike, the
Warsaw Pact tank and motor-rifle units would have been able to advance rapidly
into NATO rear areas.
The Soviet equivalent of the Honest John was known to NATO
as the FROG (for Free Rocket Over Ground). The last model, the FROG-7, had HE,
chemical, and nuclear warheads and a range of 42 miles. The SS-1C, known to
NATO as the SCUD-B, was a guided missile with a range of 180 miles. During the
Persian Gulf War, Iraqi-made crude versions of the SCUD proved widely
inaccurate but were a tremendous nuisance to the Coalition, especially when
Iraq fired them at Israel in a failed attempt to broaden the conflict. The
Soviet SS-21 guided missile was a divisional-level system with a range of only
60 miles.
The SS-23 was an army-level system with a range of 300
miles. The SS-12 was a theater-level system with a range of 540 miles. All
these Soviet systems carried nuclear warheads. Under the provisions of the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the United States agreed to eliminate the Pershing
and the Soviets agreed to eliminate the SS-12 and SS-23.
Summit meeting between U. S. President Ronald Reagan and
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev held in Moscow during 29 May–2 June 1988. It
was the fourth such meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev since 1985. For
Reagan, the conference coincided with congressional hearings on the Iran-Contra
Affair. Because of this, some critics speculated that the president was trying
to divert attention from the scandal by creating a newsworthy achievement at
the meeting. The major accomplishment of the summit was the signing of the
already-ratified 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on 1 June
1988. It did not represent a breakthrough in arms control.
From the Soviet perspective, the 1988 summit greatly
enhanced Gorbachev’s domestic and international prestige. This was because of
the obvious close relationship between the two leaders and Reagan’s
international reputation as an anticommunist hard-liner. Gorbachev’s heightened
prestige gave him important political capital, which was needed as he continued
to move forward with his perestroika and glasnost reforms.
The meeting was carefully crafted to focus on the INF
Treaty. The treaty had been forged at the December 1987 Washington summit
meeting between the two leaders and was approved by North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) leaders in March 1988 and by the U. S. Senate on 29 May
1988. The treaty called for the destruction of 2,611 intermediate-range
ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with flight ranges of 300–3,400 miles. Included in
the treaty were U. S. Pershing II missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles
as well as Soviet SS-4, SS-12, SS-20, and SS-23 missiles. It also specified
very detailed on-site inspection and verification procedures. In accordance
with the treaty, by 1991 both countries would have eliminated all intermediate-
range nuclear missiles.
MOBILE ICBMS
To increase the survivability of land-based intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs), military planners have always turned to mobility in
order to complicate the calculations of an attacker. For the Soviet Union,
development of mobile ICBMs was slow until the late 1960s owing to concerns
about command and control and the ability to maintain positive control of
Soviet missiles under all circumstances. Lack of communications links were an
additional Soviet concern. In the United States, high operating costs and the
need to operate systems over enormous expanses of land limited interest in
mobile missiles. The U. S. Air Force pursued the railmobile Minuteman option in
1960, which would have been deployed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, but for
budgetary reasons Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara canceled the planned
procurement of additional Minuteman ICBMs, which eliminated the need for the
deployment scheme. As the accuracy of ICBMs improved, creating concerns about
the survivability of ICBMs deployed in fixed silos, both superpowers revisited
the issue of deploying mobile ICBMs.
The Soviets first attempted to use a tank chassis as a
transporter for the SS-15 in 1968. After discovering that vibration of the
chassis caused missile component failures, they canceled the system after ten
test flights. After reviewing its options, the Soviet Strategic Forces decided
that a truck chassis was a better vehicle than a tank chassis as a missile
transporter, offered better road speeds, was relatively easy to maintain, and
created fewer vibration problems. The SS-16 system that emerged in 1972 was
concealable, highly mobile, and successful. It also became one of the major
stumbling blocks in superpower arms control talks. The United States could not
detect the missile launchers using reconnaissance satellites and tried to have
mobile missiles banned. The SS-16 was specifically banned in the treaty
resulting from the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), although the
Soviets kept the missile in their inventory in violation of the treaty. It was
eventually withdrawn from service when better systems were ready for
deployment.
After the SS-16 was decommissioned, the designs were used in
the highly successful SS-20 intermediate- range ballistic missile (IRBM) that
entered the Soviet arsenal in the 1970s. Soviet planners also decided that they
required a secure second-strike capability and eventually deployed the
road-mobile SS-25 and the rail-mobile SS-24 ICBMs. The SS-25 carried a single
warhead, while the SS-24 carried ten multiple independently targetable reentry
vehicles (MIRVs). The SS-24 was deployed on missile trains that carried three
missiles, their launchers, support equipment, and security railcars. These
missile trains usually patrolled for about five days out of garrisons that were
situated along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In order to keep its defense
posture as other strategic arms treaties entered into force, Russia replaced
the SS-25 with the SS-27, another road-mobile missile.
TRANSPORTER-ERECTOR-LAUNCHER
A transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) is a self-propelled
vehicle that transports and erects a missile to the vertical position in order
to launch it. In the 1950s and 1960s, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
were too heavy and too susceptible to vibration damage while being moved on a
transporter. Development of a mobile ICBM was thus a high priority for both the
United States and the U. S. S. R. The Soviet Union had a string of failures
with its SS-14 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) and its SS-15 ICBM,
which were mounted on a tracked tank chassis. These two systems were never
widely deployed because the tracked TELs could barely carry the weight of the
massive ICBMs. Only with the development of the SS-16 ICBM and the SS-20 IRBM
did the Soviets achieve their goal of a wheeled TEL.
The TEL carries not only a missile that is environmentally
protected, but also electronics to monitor the missile, alignment equipment,
and communications links to receive orders from headquarters. To increase the
pre-launch survivability of the missile, the TEL must be able to traverse a
variety of terrain types and move quickly over a large distance, especially to
disperse to operating areas when placed on alert or during a crisis.
Russia currently uses a slightly larger TEL for its SS-25
and SS-27 ICBM force. Other nations have developed but not deployed mobile ICBM
TELs. The United States developed a complex vehicle for the single-warhead
Midgetman ICBM that could withstand a nuclear blast by hugging the ground. The
MX missile also could have been TEL mounted, but it was never deployed in this
configuration. Other short-range missile systems, most notably the Scud
missile, often are mounted on trucks or simple tracked vehicles.
Reference Podvig,
Pavel, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
A History of Strategic Arms Competition, 1945-1972, vol. 3, A Handbook of
Selected Soviet Weapon and Space Systems (Washington, DC: United States Air
Force, June 1976), pp. 204, 205, 209, 216. Jane’s Weapon Systems 1987-88
(London: Jane’s Publishing Company, 1988).
