MODERN SYSTEMS AND WEAPONS OF AIR DEFENSE AND TACTICAL MISSILE DEFENSE

Yakov Bezel, Director General of the Proton+Servis JSC, General Designer of the Moscow Instrument Automation Research Institute, D. Sc. (Technology), Professor
 

History has shown that execution of uncoordinated orders for and deliveries of defense weapons to build point air defense in a country or region without conducting requisite design and development work on its defense system leads to the ineffective use of these defense weapons in regional and local conflicts.

The intensive development of attack weapons, the ever increasing mission complexity and the overall cost of weapons have necessitated a systematic approach to the development of defense systems and, in particular, a transition from air defense systems to integrated air defense and tactical missile defense systems. This will ensure the simultaneous accomplishment of traditional air defense missions and new tactical missile defense tasks.

History has shown that execution of uncoordinated orders for and deliveries of defense weapons (including those for export) to build point air defense in a country or region without conducting requisite design and development work on its defense system leads to the ineffective use (and in some cases total discredit) of these defense weapons in regional and local conflicts.

A defense system can be implemented to the utmost effect at the present level of financing — with its further development and stage-by-stage buildup of effectiveness during subsequent years — only with a systematic approach which takes into account the geostrategic and military-economic position of a country (region).

The design and implementation of automated air defense and tactical missile defense systems of countries (regions, sectors, areas) and vital objects from a carefully planned, systematic approach are carried out for foreign customers by the Proton+Servis JSC which has been established by leading Russian research organizations, production enterprises and the Rosvoorouzhenie State Unitary Enterprise.

Modern air defense and tactical missile defense systems are designed and implemented with due regard for:

— expected potential adversary for a particular country or region (types and characteristics of attack weapons, their formation variants, strike directions, profiles and flight trajectories of attack weapons, details of strike forces at objects under cover, defense system assets, expected levels of interference, etc.);

— features of objects requiring protection from potential strikes — industrial facilities, transport nodes, air force and navy bases, administrative and political centers, etc. (their location, dimensions, degree of importance);

— client requirements for the effective protection of objects, a region or a country as a whole from attack weapon strikes;

— client traditional defense system;

— existing organization and structure of forces ensuring the functioning and combat employment of the defense system;

— possibilities for the maximum use of the client’s weapons and equipment (including those supplied by a third country) as part of the system being created (upgraded);

— geography of a region (terrain features and underlying surface at areas of objects under cover, positions of defense system weapons at directions of probable attack weapon strikes);

— agreed order of operations necessary to create (develop) the defense system, as well as the client’s readiness to finance them on an annual basis.

Our experience in the design and creation of similar systems in the Russian Federation — even with the use of previous generation weapons and equipment — has demonstrated that the effectiveness of defense for regions and objects against the most complicated types of threats (mathematical expectation of the number of destroyed targets in an attack weapon strike group) reaches:

— 0.9 to 0.98 for strategic cruise missiles flying at extremely low altitudes;

— 0.8 to 0.85 for aircraft missiles launched along ballistic trajectories.

Figure 1. represents a typical air defense and tactical missile defense system which uses the Universal-1E automated equipment complex as the main system-forming management automation element at the defense system command post (in order to create defense systems of small countries or large regions).

The defense systems of smaller regions and critical objects may employ the Baikal-1E ACS as a system-forming element (the basic characteristics of the above means are presented in Table 1).

Both automation means are essentially assets to control weapons, i.e., air defense missile systems (complexes) and interceptor fighters, either directly or via automated command posts of appropriate units (subunits). Both means significantly enhance the combat capabilities of weapon systems, especially of the multichannel SAM systems for point and field air defense.

Radars and automation means of electronic reconnaissance units of the Fundament-1E, -2E and -3E type offered for defense systems provide high-quality information on air targets (the errors in determining plane coordinates and altitudes of unjammed objects equal 800 to 1,000 m, while those of active jammers are 1,800 to 2,500 m) during combat operations when target designation data are fed from the defense system command post (CP) or from the command posts of subordinate units. This ensures virtually searchless detection of targets by air defense missiles and a high probability of directing interceptor fighters (group of interceptors) to air targets.

The different types of weapons, information equipment and means of automated control and electronic warfare offered to foreign clients for the creation or upgrading of their defense systems are presented in Figure 1. These means can detect, track (extrapolate trajectories) and engage tactical and theater ballistic missiles, control antiaircraft and tactical missile defense systems. Their combat capabilities can be expanded by modification or modernization.

The general principle of defense system functioning during repulsion of strikes by aerodynamic and ballistic threats is tractional, except for some substantial features during repulsion of attacks by ballistic (tactical and theater) threats.

First of all, it is necessary to simultaneously solve the problem of anti- aircraft and tactical missile defense by one and the same mix of defense system assets, which requires the availability of special high-speed priority programs for ballistic target information processing and target designation in the automated control equipment, as well as the automated switch of a portion of information and air defense missile assets, corresponding to the attack threat, to the sector modes of operation against targets of this type.

It is necessary to ensure the possibility of engaging tactical and theater ballistic missiles at all stages: during their movement to launch sites, directly at launch sites and during their flight to targets. In this respect, it is difficult to overestimate the role and potential of the system’s electronic reconnaissance facilities located in a front-line (border-line, maritime) zone for the prompt detection of the launch and launch area by reverse extrapolation of the tracked tactical (theater) ballistic missile trajectories. The defense system information on the site and time of launch, along with other intelligence data, must be transmitted to a higher combined arms CP as a request for immediate strikes at launch areas by appropriate attack weapons (missiles, artillery, reconnaissance and strike complexes, etc.).

It should be noted that forces and weapon systems at operational and tactical levels of field air defense are detailed (operationally subordinated) to the system to repulse the first strike of attack weapons while further on, depending on the existing situation, they can be withdrawn therefrom to fulfil specific tasks of field air defense.

At the initial phase of development of the existing defense system, which considerably increases its effectiveness, it is suggested to equip the system CP with the Universal-1E complex and to deploy remote automated work stations of this complex at subordinate and cooperating non-automated command posts. In this situation, the sources of information deployed in these systems (high, medium and low altitude radars with analog output or appropriate command (control) posts of radar subunits) are equipped with unified modules (taken from the automated equipment complex of the Fundament-E type) for the pickup, primary and secondary processing and transmission of target track information to a higher CP.

An increase in the effectiveness of control over the defense system assets is ensured by:

— coordination of secondary radar information at all command (control) posts of the defense system, cooperating CPs and air traffic control bodies;

— high accuracy characteristics and the absence of radar information interruptions.

The measures for the creation (development) of air defense and tactical missile defense systems of a country (region, vital object) comprise two stages:

— stage 1: development of a comprehensive design of the system, its defense initiatives and presentation to the client;

— stage 2: practical implementation of a particular defense system, its testing and fielding.

The main tasks of the comprehensive design developed at the first stage are:

— consideration of possible variants within the defense system creation (development) with due regard for all the aforementioned factors, substantiation and selection of the optimum variant of the defense system implementation with client’s preference and effectiveness-cost criterion taken into account;

— elaboration of recommendations to a client on a rational sequence of purchases and deployment of Russian-produced systems with due regard for the client’s planned annual appropriations for these purposes, as well as suggestions on the order and times of operations necessary to create or develop the defense system.

The final, second stage involves stage-by-stage deliveries, deployment of defense systems at their sites, individual and integrated adjustment and functional checks of separate assets and the system as a whole. This stage also involves the elaboration and adoption of specific design solutions for the modification of defense system hardware and software, thus ensuring their inclusion into previously deployed assets supplied by third countries.
 

*Hereinafter, including information from ballistic threats (tactical and theater ballistic missiles)