MULTIPLE TRAINING TARGET ENVIRONMENT

Boris Popov,
Director of the Vyatka Avitek Engineering Enterprise
Oleg Zhary,
Chief Designer
 

In recent years, the NATO countries use massive air strikes and cruise missile attacks as an argument in settling international disputes. Analysis of combat operations in Iraq, Yugoslavia and other regions has shown that their tactics resides, first of all, in neutralization of air defense assets by the Shrike type antiradar missiles followed by air strikes.

Target missile launching layout

Modern surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, which are in service with the Russian Air Defense Forces, are capable of repulsing massive strikes of air attack weapons. However, it is difficult to really check SAM potentialities due to the absence of a respective training target environment. Firing at electronically simulated targets is not revealing since real (not electronically simulated) targets are required for the surface-to-air missiles equipped with homing heads.

To qualitatively practice the combat readiness missions of the air defense assets, a multiple training target environment is required, which is characterized by various types and numbers of targets flying simultaneously at various altitudes and speeds from different directions. A simplicity of operation and low cost of training targets are an important factor of their use.

RM-9F841M

The 9F841 (Saman) target missile has been developed on the basis of the 9M33M2 SAM of the Osa-AK air defense system to simulate an attack of the Shrike antiradar missiles.

The RM-5V27A (Pishchal) and RM-5V27M target missiles have been developed on the basis of the 5V27 SAM of the S-125 air defense system, which are close to such air attack weapons as SRAM, Tomahawk, HARM, Martel, Tacit-Rainbow and others, in terms of their body geometry and speed characteristics.

RM-9F841M

The most efficient way of creating the multiple training target environment is the launch of target missiles from an autonomous target missile launching post based on the 5P73 mobile launcher of the S-125M1 air defense system. In this case, loading of the RM-5V27 target missiles on the launcher is regular, while the 9F841A target missiles are loaded through a special adapter attached to the 5P73 launcher. Each 5P73 launcher can mount up to four target missiles. The 5E96A 30-kW organic diesel power plant is used to supply launcher drives with electric power and spin the target missile gyroscopes during their preparation for launch. The preparation and launch are carried out by a special system (control panel) without using the automatic launching equipment of the S-125M1 SAM system. The preparation time does not exceed 30 s. The target missile is controlled autonomously from an onboard program device not requiring a missile guidance station. This factor makes it possible not to limit the number of flying target missiles that is a basis for creation of the the multiple training target environment. The skill of the SAM system’s crew enables the crewmembers to launch the target missiles and, therefore, a special training is not additionally required. The transportability of the 5P73 launchers and 5E96A diesel power plant makes it possible to create the multiple training target environment at any ranges and for any SAM system. The material costs for reequipping the 5V27 and 9M33M2 SAMs are insignificant and, consequently, the cost of the target missiles is low.full article is available for subscribes only