The A-35 anti-ballistic missile system was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

military

anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to Missile defense, destroy in-flight ballistic missiles. They achieve this explosively (chemical or nuclear), or via hit-to-kill Kinetic projectile, kinetic vehicles, which ma ...

(ABM) system deployed around

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

to intercept enemy

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are powered only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) typic ...

s targeting the city or its surrounding areas. The A-35 was the only Soviet ABM system allowed under the 1972

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, also known as the ABM Treaty or ABMT, was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ball ...

. In development as of the 1960s and in operation from June 1972 until the 1990s, it featured the nuclear-armed A350 exoatmospheric interceptor missile. The A-35 was supported by two

Dunay radar Dunay radar ( literally Danube; NATO Reporting Name, NATO: Cat House, Dog House) was a system of two Soviet radars used to detect American ballistic missiles fired at Moscow, Russia, Moscow. They were part of the A-35 anti-ballistic missile syst ...

s ( NATO reporting names: Cat House and Dog House) and the Soviet early warning system. It was followed by the A-135 in the early 1990s.

System A

The first Soviet anti-ballistic missile system was System A, which began development at Sary Shagan's Test Range A in July 1956, followed by testing starting in 1959. System A used the V-1000 missile to intercept enemy missiles. First launch of the V-1000 took place on 11 October 1957; its first successful intercept occurred on 4 March 1961, when it intercepted an R-12 missile launched from the

Kapustin Yar Kapustin Yar () is a Russian military training area and a rocket launch complex in Astrakhan Oblast, about 100 km east of Volgograd. It was established by the Soviet Union on 13 May 1946. In the beginning, Kapustin Yar used technology, material ...

site. System A used the Dunay-2 radar designed by V Sosulnikov at NII-37 (which later became NIIDAR), in addition to three homing radars and an RSV-PR ABM radar (NATO: Hen Nest). The three homing radars (called RTN; NATO name Hen Egg)) were situated in an equilateral triangle with a length of . The system could track missiles from a distance of about . The V-1000 launcher and the ABM radar were located together. The system used an M-40 computer which could perform 40,000 operations per second.

A-35

Work on the A-35 system first started in 1959 with a test model called Aldan. The system's designer was Gregory Kisunko of Soviet Experimental Design Bureau OKB-30. A new missile, called the A-350, was to be designed by P. Grushin of OKB-2. Unlike the V-1000, the missile was to have a nuclear warhead. The design of the system called for it to be able to intercept several hostile incoming missiles simultaneously with a single warhead. It was also to intercept them outside the atmosphere. The A-35 was to have a main command centre, eight early warning radars with overlapping sectors, and 32 battle stations. Installation work on the A-35 began in 1965, but by 1967 only the test version at Sary Shagan was ready. Awareness of the system's flaws, including its inability to handle

MIRV A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with i ...

s, was part of the reason a 1967 Ministry of Defence commission decided against fully implementing the A-35. Its eight radars were reduced to the two on which construction had already started: Dunay-3 at Akulovo (Kubinka), also known by the NATO reporting name Dog House, and Dunay-3U at Chekhov (NATO name Cat House). In 1971, a version of the A-35 was tested with the main command centre, one radar and three battle stations. The command centre was located at the same site as the Dunay-3 radar. In 1974, a version was tested with the main command (equipped with a 5E92 computer) and four of the eight battle stations. Each battle station had two tracking radars, two battle management radars and sixteen A-350 missiles. Only four of the eight battle stations were ever completed. Each battle station had two areas with eight missiles each. Each area had three radars, which were called TRY ADD by NATO.

A-35M

Testing of the A35-M system began in 1977. It was a slightly modified version, using A-350R instead of A-350Zh missiles. In 1971, work started on the next generation of ABM systems: the A135. Building of the Don-2N radar started in 1978, and the replacement system was placed on combat duty in 1995. A 1985 note from the archives of Vitalii Kataev states that the A-35M system was capable of intercepting "a single ballistic missile from some directions and up to 6 Pershing II-type missiles from the FRG".

References

External links

Globalsecurity.org on the A-35 anti-ballistic missile system

Photo of a launch of an A-350 missile
{{DEFAULTSORT:A-35 Anti-Ballistic Missile System Anti-ballistic missiles of the Soviet Union Cold War surface-to-air missiles of the Soviet Union Cold War military equipment of the Soviet Union Missile defense Surface-to-air missiles of the Soviet Union Science and technology in the Soviet Union Military equipment introduced in the 1970s it:ABM-1 Galosh

System A

A-35

A-35M

References

Further reading

External links