User:Ian Blake 1999/Missile defense (balance Soviet coverage)

Article Draft
In the 1950s and 1960s, missile defense meant defense against strategic (usually nuclear-armed) missiles. The technology mostly centered around detecting offensive launch events and tracking inbound ballistic missiles, but with limited ability to actually defend against the missile. The Soviet Union achieved the first nonnuclear intercept of a ballistic missile warhead by a missile at the Sary Shagan antiballistic missile defense test range on 4 March 1961. Nicknamed the “Griffon” missile system, it would be installed around Leningrad as a test.

With the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the withdrawal of Soviet Milles from their strategic positions in Cuba, the USSR to begin thinking about a missile defense system. A year after the crisis on 1963 the Soviets created the SA-5. Unlike its predecessors like the SA-1 or Griffon systems, this system was able to fly much higher and further and was fast enough to intercept some missiles however its main purpose was to intercept the new XB-70 supersonic aircraft the U.S was planning to make. However, since these types of aircraft never went into production in the U.S, the project was abandoned, and the Soviets reverted to the slower, low altitude SA-2 and SA-3 systems. In 1964 the Soviets publicly unveiled their newest interceptor missile named the “Galosh” which was nuclear armed and was meant for high altitude, long range interception.

The Soviet Union began installing the A-35 anti-ballistic missile system utilizing these “Galosh” missiles around Moscow in 1965 and would become operational by 1971. It consisted of four complex around Moscow each with 16 launchers and two missile tracking radars. Another notable feature of the A-35 was that it was the first monopulse radar. Developed by OKB 30, the Russian Special Design Bureau, the effort design to create a monopulse radar started in 1954. This was used to conduct the first successful intercept in 1961.

There were known flaws with the design such as an inability to defend against MIRV and decoy style weapons. The reason for this was because the detonation of a nuclear interceptor missile like the “Galosh” creates a cloud of plasma that temporarily impairs radar readings around the area of the explosion limiting these kinds of systems to a one-shot capacity. This means that with MIRV style attacks the interceptor would be able to take out one or two but the rest would slip though. Another issue with the 1965 model was that it consisted of 11 large radar stations at six locations on the borders of Russia. These bases where visible to the US and could be taken out easily leaving the defense system useless in a concentrated and coordinated attack. Finally, the missiles that could be held on each base was limited by the ABM treaty to only 100 launchers maximum, meaning that in a massive attack they would be depleted quickly.

During installation, a Ministry of Defense commission concluded that the system should not be fully implemented, reducing the capabilities of the completed system. That system was later upgraded to the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system and is still operational. This upgrade period started in in 1975 and was headed by Dr. A.G. Basistov. When it was completed on 1990, the new A-135 system had a central control multifunctional radar called the “Don” and 100 interceptor missiles. Another improvement was the layering of interceptor missiles where high acceleration mislles are being added for low flying targets and the “Galosh” style missiles where improved further for high altitude targets. All of these missiles where moved underground into silos to make them less venerable which was a flaw of the previous system.

MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles)

Another way to counter an AMB system is to attach multiple warheads that break apart upon reentry. If the ABM is able to counter one or two of the warheads via detonation or collision the others would slip though radar either because of limitations on ABM firing speeds or because of radar blackout caused by plasma interference. The first MIRV Polaris A-3 which had three warheads and was launched from a submarine. Before regulations on how many warheads could be stored in a MIRV, the soviets had up to twenty to thirty attached to ICBMs.

Jammers

Jammers use radar noise to saturate the incoming signals to the point there the radar cannot discern meaningful data about a target’s location with meaningless noise. They can also imitate the signal of a missile to create a fake target. They are usually spread over planned missile paths enemy territory to give the missile a clear path to their target. Because these jammers take relatively little electricity and hardware to operate, they are usually small, self-contained, and easily dispersible.