NAVAL WEAPONS

Red Star. November 15, 2001. By Anatoly Dokuchaev

Third volume of the Encyclopedia "Russia's Arms and Technologies. The XXI century Encyclopedia" is dedicated to naval weapons. It involves the reader into the world of military battles at seas, as well as impresses with the scale of creators' conception and the craftsmanship of implementation. No doubt, there were no such projects in Russia and, probably, in the world. And the Publishing House "Arms and Technologies" can be proud of that. It should be noted that the Encyclopedia is being issued under common supervision of Defense Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Ivanov. It is a result of collaboration between competent experts from the Russian defense industry and from military institutions, scientists, historians and journalists.

Do you know, dear reader, what is "Sunburn"? Information about it began to filter into the press at the beginning of 90's.

"The US Department of Defense tries to obtain new lethal weapon of the Russians - a cruise missile that flies so fast that it is able to break military ship into two pieces, even without exploding." These lines, belonging to Jonathan Broder, an observer from the American newspaper "We", were published in summer 1993. The cold war seemed to be over by that time. The great and powerful Soviet Union did not exist. US and Russian officials spoke: our states are allies. But Pentagon was still anxious about Russian secret weapons.

The publication author reported that brains of DoD specialists became obscured by Russian supersonic cruise missile "Moskit", known in western countries as SS-N-22 or "Sunburn". American military experts concluded: the USA has nothing similar that could compare with this missile. And there were no means of protection against it. "Sunburn" is able to fly at the height of three meters over the sea surface with the speed as high as 2450 km/h. Prior hitting the target it makes maneuvers making interception almost impossible.

It was noted in the press of western countries that, after "Sunburn" creation, it became possible to hit US air defense electronic systems, able to deviate enemy's missiles from their trajectories. The US Navy became vulnerable. "Sunburn" can be adapted for nuclear warhead, noted officials of the US defense industry, but its speed is so high that the warhead is not needed at all. "The kinetic energy is so high that the sip will be broken into two pieces before we understood what happened" - publicly declared one of industrial representatives.

Briefly, Pentagon and commanders of the US Navy had a reason for anxiety about "Sunburn", and the reason was quite serious. Today it is possible to know about the naval missile system 3M-80E "Moskit" just from professionals and see it on beautiful photos. It is destined for hitting battle and cargo ships. The concept "fire and forget" is implemented in it. The missile is able to hit targets at distances from 10 to 120 km, flying to them with the speed as high as 2.5M. A number of complicated scientific and technical problems has been resolved during the missile design. But, nevertheless, the new book does not begin with a story about this, though unique, missile.

Third volume is a comprehensive and professional story about modern and prospective models of Russian naval weapons. It is a guide to largest companies and enterprises of the Russian defense industry designing, manufacturing and exporting naval weapons. It contains 630 pages of textual and illustrative materials.

The volume begins with ballistic missile systems for submarines, including those being regularly launched from a depth at Barents Sea and hitting targets at the firing ground Kura in Kamchatka. There are eight naval strategic systems with ballistic missiles designed and entered service in our country: from D-1 with the missile R-11FM (1959) to D-9RM with the missile R-29RM (1986), as well as 12 their modifications. Besides of that, two systems - D-5 with the anti-ship self-guiding ballistic missile R-27K and D-11 with the solid-propellant midrange missile R-31 have been designed and entered experimental service at one submarine each.

Few lines about the most perfect system. The system D-9RM is destined for hitting strategic objects at global ranges. It is placed on strategic missile submarines of the project 667BDRM and includes 16 R-29RM missiles. The missile is the most perfect one among ground-based and naval native and foreign strategic missiles due to its energy to mass ratio. Besides the astronomic correction, it implements the radio correction by navigation satellites (world priority), as well as the variable and arbitrary zones of warhead separation. The R-29RM is the only three-stage liquid-propellant missile in the world.

The authors report that about 4000 modern serial ballistic missiles have been manufactured, and more than 1200 of them have been launched. There were more than 96% successful launches. Crews of strategic missile submarines share this triumph with specialists of the State Rocket Center "Academician V.P.Makeev Design Bureau".

It is the first time when anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons, together with companies manufactured them, were described so completely and systematically as never before in Russia and other countries. The reader becomes familiar with a set of missile systems for ships and aircraft designed by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "NPO Mashinostroenie" headed by rocket genius Vladimir Chelomei during the period of 25 years. These include air-based cruise missiles "Malakhit" and "Yakhont", coast missile systems "Redut" and "Bastion", missile systems "Bazalt" and "Granit", and a universal weapon system with the cruise missile "Alpha". There are also described missiles of the Machinery Design Bureau "Raduga". These include a missile system with the anti-ship cruise missile P-15, the universal missile system "Rastrub", the coast missile system "Rubezh", and the missile system 3M-80E "Moskit", the story about which was at the beginning of this article. In total there are 37 models of shipborne and coast missile systems, strategic cruise missiles and airborne cruise missiles described in the book, as well as five defense enterprises manufacturing them.

Shipborne air missiles, artillery systems, and anti-submarine bombs are described in three sections of the volume. The reader has a possibility to learn such exotic models like, for example, the shipborne system for self-defense "Klinok" or the anti-submarine system "Smerch-3", as well as to see the full picture in these weapon classes and become familiar with possibilities of defense enterprises manufacturing these models.

Description of modern torpedoes, anti-submarine and naval mines, anti-mine weapons, and control systems for torpedoes and anti-submarine weapons, - takes a significant part of the book. Modern radio-electronic warfare equipment, hydro-acoustic facilities including hydro-acoustic stations and systems for submarines and ships, as well as stationary hydro-acoustic facilities, are described in detail. The book contains complete information about modern radio-technical equipment; facilities for communication, control and information processing; antennas and switching systems. In total there are more than 300 models of weapons and naval equipment described in the book.

I have to repeat, the materials published in the book have been prepared by scientists from scientific and research institutes, by specialists from enterprises of defense industry, and by people from the Ministry of Defense. These materials give a solid view of Russian naval weapon systems and ways of their evolution at the beginning of XXI century. The volume contains analytical articles of Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroedov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy; Vladimir Pospelov, the Director General of the Russian Shipbuilding Agency; Rear-Admiral Igor Zakharov, the head of the 1st Central Scientific-Research Institute at the Ministry of Defense; Valentin Pashin, the director of the Academician A.N.Krylov Central Scientific-Research Institute. No doubt, the book will be a good helper for specialists in the sphere of naval weapons, representatives of companies and enterprises operating on the market of weapons. Use of the Common Classifier of Supply Items for Russian Armed Forces, which is compatible with similar foreign classifiers by its parameters, makes this book convenient.

And, finally, the most important advantage of the project being implemented (in total 14 volumes about arms and technologies from the Russian defense industry) is, on my opinion, the absence of advertisement of Russian weapons being exported. The reader sees a full palette of weapons and their capabilities, and he can compare them with any foreign model, if a similar one exists. Modern advertising booklets look nice, but they have a defined vector, and this reduces their value.

"The main part of weapons we describe will be never offered for sale", - says Nikolai Spassky, the General Director of the Publishing House "Arms and Technologies". "Shall we ever sell nuclear weapons? Russia is not going to offer naval strategic cruise missiles to the world community, if we talk about third volume. They have been created merely for defense of our country. But we tell about these weapons because we see another task of larger scale - to provide impartial and complete description of Russian arms and capabilities of the Russian defense industry. For this purpose we involve creative potential of hundreds outstanding specialists. If, reading our books, our citizens become proud of talents of our designers, engineers, and workers continuing glorious traditions of Russian armourers, it means that we have reached our goal..."

It is impossible to analyze the book without such terms as "first time", "unique", and "skillfully". But the editorial board considers the book as containing mistakes and waits for wishes and notes. Well, it is self-critical.