RUSSIAN  DESERT FOX  HUNTERS

Vladimir Svetlov, Member of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences,
General Designer of Fakel Engineering Design Bureau
 

In the near future, the latest versions of the ADM systems, ground-based and shipborne, will receive the new 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles developed by the Fakel Engineering Design Bureau.

In the light of this situation, the development of air defense missile systems has been given top priority over the last few years. Indeed, their availability and conformity with up-to-date standards, or, conversely, their obsolescence or mere deficiency, predetermine, to a large extent, the behavior of a state on the international arena and influence its ability to respond adequately to the emerging conflicts in which air attack assets are likely to be used. Such countries and regions as Lybia, the Balkans, Sudan, Afghanistan or Iraq, which has now turned into a testing ground for the latest technological developments in the field of air attack capabilities, are just a few examples over the past years, confirming this premise. The events materializing around the Russian-made S-300PMU 1 air defense missile (ADM) system, planned to be delivered to Cyprus, may be added to the list.

What all this means is that effective protection against possible air attacks must continue to be of vital importance to all nations. The strategic, tactical and maritime aviation airplanes and helicopters armed with various precision-guided missiles and bombs, as well as the missiles fired from ships are the basic components of modern air attack assets. Today, any modernization or development program envisions extensive use of  stealth  technology to make aircraft undetectable by radar and enhance their rates of survivability (use of armor-protected pilot cabins; protection of fuel tanks, autopilots, control systems against fragments, etc.).

The effectiveness of modern air defense (AD) systems is largely dependent upon their ability to counter tactical ballistic missiles currently operational in more than a dozen states. The substantial differences between aircraft and missiles in their performance characteristics and methods of combat employment, demand a solution of specific and, often, almost contradictory problems. Ballistic missiles are primarily noted for their high speed and the extremely short time that they are in an AD coverage zone, the unpredictability of their employment due to the difficulty of detecting mobile missile launchers, and the inability to detect a missile launch. The low vulnerability of ballistic missiles, achieved due to their specific design features and small dimensions of main components, is also becoming a factor. This was vividly demonstrated by the repulsion of Iraqi Scuds by U.S.-made Patriot missles. Cruise missiles, and other precision-guided missiles, may be considered somewhat antipodal to ballistic missiles. They fly at an extremely low altitude (including in the terrain-following mode), and their large radius of action and high target accuracy alone presents a severe problem for the defender. Furthermore, recent dramatic breakthroughs in electronics have allowed designers to create highly accurate weapons with a standoff launching range far beyond the reach of the majority of AD systems currently in service. Modernization and development programs of such weapons call for the introduction of  stealth  technology into their design, the reduction of the weight of onboard equipment, the employment of low-sensitivity explosive compounds to enhance survivability and, consequently, to increase the weight of the warhead and the flight range. Presently, a whole range of antiship and other low-flying supersonic missiles capable of performing intensive approach maneuvers are either in the design or flight-test stages. Naturally, designers of ADM systems the world over are trying to solve the complex engineering problem of countering targets of various classes through the use of multipurpose ADM systems which are capable of effectively engaging ballistic and aerodynamic targets. Development of weapons systems suited for this role can be justified from the engineering, tactical and economic viewpoints. The world s best ADM systems which can perform a whole range of missions are the Russian S-300, U.S.-made Patriot (version PAC-2) and Patriot PAC-3 nearing adoption for service, as well as the Franco-Italian SAMP/T with the Aster-15 and Aster-30 missiles.

In Russia, multipurpose ADM systems have, for years, been developed by an association of manufacturers, research institutes, and design bureaus. In recents years, their cooperative effort has led to such operational ADM systems as the S-300PMU, -1, -2, and their shipborne versions, designated Rif and Rif-M. These systems integrate, to a maximum possible degree, the abilities that make them effective against ballistic and aerodynamic targets. In the near future, the latest versions of the ADM systems, ground-based and shipborne, will receive the new 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles developed by the Fakel Engineering Design Bureau and incorporated in the Oboronitelnye Systemy (Defense Systems) Ffinancial and Industrial Group.

The 9M96E missile

These missiles are a new step in the creation of ADM systems. Obviously, the development of a new missile is a fairly long process and, therefore, it is very important for its designers to make a correct assessment of current trends in the evolution of air attack and air defense weapons.

Today, new generation of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) have come to replace their predecessors. This tendency manifests itself most vividly in the replacement of medium-range SAMs which constitute the backbone of air defense systems in the majority of the world s most developed nations. While basic components of the ADM systems such as radars, communications systems, and command posts are being improved gradually, surface-to-air missiles have made a dramatic qualitative leap forward in their development. This is primarily attributed to the revolutionary advances that have been made in the missile flight control methods and in the on-board equipment itself.

New generations of SAMs feature a combination of active homing heads with devices ensuring their high agility. This innovation has brought about a dPACtic increase in the missile target accuracy and has made it, basically, a sort of a kinetic weapon, i. e. a weapon that kills its target with a direct hit. Another feature of these new missiles is the significant reduction in their launching weight: from 1 - 1.8 t (U.S.-made Patriot PAC-1 and PAC-2, and Russian-made S-300PMU SAM systems) to 300 - 500 kg (U.S.-made Patriot PAC-3, Franco-Italian Aster-15, and Aster-30, as well as Russian-made 9M96E and 9M96E2).

In October 1998, Russian missiles were displayed for the first time in October 1998 at the Defendory  98 exhibition in Athens. With such advanced foreign counterparts as the PAC-3 and Aster, the Russian missiles stood out from the rest in terms of their performance characteristics. The 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles carry similar onboard equipment, payload and are identical in construction. The only difference between the two missiles is that the 9M96E2 model is equipped with a more powerful propulsion motor featuring a greater power-to-weight ratio. With little difference in size and weight, the 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles may engage targets at a range of 1 to 40 km (9M96E) and 120 km (9M96E2) and at an altitude of 5 m to 20 km (9M96E) and 30 km (9M96E2), outperforming their foreign counterparts.

To develop new missiles, engineers and designers had to revise traditional approaches, devise fundamentally new engineering solutions, review previous experience and investigate current trends. The experience gained by Fakel in developing reliable high-rate-of-fire missiles was also taken into account. The new missile concept and architecture have been chosen in close cooperation with the country s leading research and design organizations. Owing to this coordinated effort, the new developments incorporate the latest engineering advances and have been devised with a view to virtually all major SAM development trends. Confident of the precision and soundness of the assessments made, Fakel developed the required technical documentation for the missiles, using the most advanced CAD methods. The flight tests performed in the late 1980s demonstrated the basic advantages of these new missiles.

As the work on the 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles was going on, all efforts were focused on creating highly effective surface-to-air missiles capable of destroying all currently operational and future missiles and aircraft.

The primary aim of an air defense missile is to destroy the incoming missile s payload in the interception phase, lest it should fall in the area of a protected installation (e.g. near an electric power station or ship). The attacking missile s payload can be destroyed either by a direct hit on the payload section or, in the event of an insignificant miss, by the SAM s warhead splinters.

Each container holds four 9M96E or 9M96E2 missiles

To understand how this mission can be accomplished by new missiles, consider the principle of their operation in the target interception phase. Unlike foreign counterparts, the 9M96E (9M96E2) missile uses the so-called  cold  vertical lift-off: before its sustainer motor is started the missile is expelled from its container to a height of over 30 m. While the missile is ascending, its gas-dynamic system causes the weapon to tilt towards the target. Once the sustainer motor is started the missile assumes inertial control via radio link at the initial and mid-course legs of the flight path (to assure maximum noise protection). In the target interception phase, the missile switches over to the radar homing mode. Whenever the missile has to perform a maneuver to get to its rendezvouz point it can activate a  superagility  mode, for which purpose the gas-dynamic control system is enabled. The system increases the missile s aerodynamic overload capacity by about 20 units within 0.025 seconds.

It should be pointed out here that the  superagility  feature of the 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles, augmented by their enhanced guidance accuracy, provides a guided path most suitable for target engagement by the missile, as well as the lethality of the missile s payload.

The introduction of a considerable number of new components in the new missiles called for a profound optimization of their design features, component units and assemblies on the ground in the most realistic operational and flying conditions. A multitude of laboratory and rig tests (fire, heat resistance, environmental, weather, special electronic, etc.) were carried out.

While development work on the 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles was in progress, extensive use was made of advanced computer-aided modeling methods which allowed the designers to use the results of the ground and flight-rig tests of individual components as the input data. The results of the tests indicated the ability of the new missiles to destroy the payload of the Scud ballistic missile (or its updated version) and the Harpoon antiship missile with a probability of 70 percent. The 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles carry a 24-kg warhead which produces a controlled killing zone. The use of such a warhead makes these missiles highly effective against all aircraft types.

The provision of the 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles with the data-ware-controlled payload is another way to enhance the effectiveness of modern air attack means. This kind of payload is designed to  stop  a piloted target, i.e. cause its structural disintegration upon interception, and to destroy (disable) the payload carried by remote-piloted vehicles (RPVs).

The payload is activated via radio fuze which uses all the data available on board the missile for its adaptation to the conditions of the target-missile rendezvous. The radio fuze sets the time the payload should be detonated. To destroy the vulnerable portion of the target, the set time must agree with the velocities of fragments and fragmentation spray direction.

The directed spray is achieved with the aid of a controllable blast-fragmentation warhead using a multipoint initiation system. Once the radio fuze generates a command for the initiation of the warhead in the controlled mode in the presence of the  miss  information, the system activates initiation of the explosive charge at peripheral points facing the required direction (towards the target). As a result, the energy of the explosion is concentrated in this direction and the bulk of the fragmentation field is flung towards the target at an increased velocity. If there is no  miss  information in the system, the warhead s explosive charge is initiated at the center and fragments scatter symmetrically in all directions.

The 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles are fully adapted for use in air defense systems of the Air Force and Navy. A considerable reduction in their size and weight has made it possible to accommodate four missiles into one container, which has the same dimensions as the one used by the S-300PMU, Rif-5V55R, 48N6E and 48N6E2 ADM systems. The greater number of missiles at hand makes the system more flexible in action, and allows it to remain operational for a longer time before running out of missiles as a result of heavy attacks conducted by the enemy using precision-guided munitions or RPVs.

Fakel s designers and engineers have developed missiles which outperform their foreign counterparts, including American and French ones, and incorporate the latest technological advances in the field made by the military-industrial complexes of the USA and Western Europe.

These new missiles fully meet the requirements of the 21st century. They incorporate the advances of Russia s missile-building industry, science and technology made over the past decade, and demonstrate that Russia, despite the economic and financial crisis, is still one of the world s leading missile-producing nations.