The A-350

GRAU The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the Chief of ...

5V61 (

NATO reporting name NATO uses a system of code names, called reporting names, to denote military aircraft and other equipment used by post-Soviet states, former Warsaw Pact countries, China, and other countries. The system assists military communications by providi ...

ABM-1 Galosh, formerly SH-01) 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 ...

, nuclear armed

surface-to-air A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-a ...

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 ...

.Wonderland.org: ''ABM-1''
The A-350 was a component of the

A-35 anti-ballistic missile system The A-35 anti-ballistic missile system was a USSR, Soviet military anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system deployed around Moscow to intercept enemy ballistic missiles targeting the city or its surrounding areas. The A-35 was the only Soviet ABM syste ...

. Its primary mission was to destroy U.S. Minuteman and

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

s targeting

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 ...

. The A-350 was introduced during the 1960s with mechanically steered

semi-active radar guidance Semi-active radar homing (SARH) is a common type of missile guidance system, perhaps the most common type for longer-range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems. The name refers to the fact that the missile itself is only a passive dete ...

. It contained a high-yield

nuclear warhead A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

, comparable to the U.S.

Nike Zeus Nike Zeus was an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system developed by the United States Army during the late 1950s and early 1960s that was designed to destroy incoming Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile warheads before they could hit their ...

. The A-350R (NATO reporting name ABM-1B) was introduced with the advanced A-35M missile system and became operational during 1978. This system was tested at the Sary Shagan Launch Facility with five test flights during 1971, 1976, and 1977, with two more tests during 1993 and 1999. The next generation of missiles, introduced with the A-135 ABM System, were the 53T6 (1970s) and the 51T6 (1980s).

Design

The A-350 was a three-stage solid-fueled design with a range of over 300 kilometers. It was improved with a restartable liquid-fueled third stage. This gave a much improved post-launch and re-targeting capabilities. The A-350 are launched from above-ground launchers. The missile design was done by

MKB Fakel MKB "Fakel" (, ''"Torch"''), also known as Grushin Machine-building Design Bureau, is a Russian government-owned aerospace defense corporation located in Khimki, Moscow Oblast, Russia. History MKB Fakel was founded in 1953 under the designation ...

's Chief Designer Petr Grushin. The system had multiple radars during the different phases including the '' Don-2N radar'' and ''

Dnestr radar Dnestr radar () and Dnepr radar (), both known by the NATO reporting name Hen House, are the first generation of Soviet space surveillance and early warning radars. Six radars of this type were built on the periphery of the Soviet Union starti ...

'' early warning systems, and the ''

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 ...

'' target acquisition systems. The A-35 with radar was designed by Chief Designer K. B. Kisunko.

Radar systems

The idea for this system was to protect Moscow from nuclear attack by the United States. The Soviet government began studies during 1958 with preliminary designs from General Designer K. B. Kisunko. Further designs and development were moved to TsNPO Vympel. Radar systems were tested with Duna-3 single direction search radar and the Dunay-3U omni-direction 360-degree search radar, designed by V. P. Sosulnikov and A. N. Musatov, respectively. A more advanced system of radars were included, the Don-2N System; consisting of the 6000 km long-range

early warning radar An early-warning radar is any radar system used primarily for the long-range detection of its targets, i.e., allowing defences to be alerted as ''early'' as possible before the intruder reaches its target, giving the air defences the maximum tim ...

s Don-2N and Dnestr, (NATO code names ''Pill Box'' and ''Hen House''), and the 2800 km short-range target acquisition radars Dunay-3M and Dunay-3U (NATO codenames ''Dog House'' and ''Cat House'').

Missile warhead

The A-350 developed through a period of growth and modifications. Configurations included an improved A-350Zh with tests during 1973. Eventually, the design changed again with radiation-hardened cases and became the A-350R for Phase 2 deployment in 1974.

Construction

The construction of the A-35 system began during 1962 with 16 primary sites including command post, radar installations and firing complexes for 8–16 missile launchers. Some of the existing sites of the old

S-25 Berkut The S-25, initially designated as Berkut (; "Berkut" means golden eagle in English) is a surface-to-air guided missile, the first operational SAM system in the Soviet Union. In the early 1950s it was tested at Kapustin Yar. It was deployed in se ...

were modified. Some known locations are: Naro-Fominsk, Olenegorsk, Skrunda,

Angarsk Angarsk ( rus, Ангарск, p=ɐnˈgarsk) is a city and the administrative center of Angarsky District of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Kitoy River, from Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: History Ang ...

, Nikolaeyev, and Sary Shagan. One of the

(NATO Code : ''Dog House'')

phased array radar A phaser is an electronic sound processor used to filter a signal by creating a series of peaks and troughs in the frequency spectrum. The position of the peaks and troughs of the waveform being affected is typically modulated by an interna ...

systems was located at Naro-Fominsk. This system is comparable to the US's

PAVE PAWS PAVE PAWS (PAVE Phased Array Warning System) is a complex Cold War early warning radar and computer system developed in 1980 to "detect and characterize a sea-launched ballistic missile attack against the United States". The first solid-state ...

radars of the

Sentinel Sentinel may refer to: Places Mountains * Mount Sentinel, a mountain next to the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana * Sentinel Buttress, a volcanic crag on James Ross Island, Antarctica * Sentinel Dome, a naturally occurring granit ...

and

Safeguard In international trade law, a safeguard is a restraint to protect home or national industries from foreign competition. In the World Trade Organization (WTO), a member may take a safeguard action, such as restricting imports of a product tempo ...

ABM programs. The construction plan changed a number of times, varying the locations, sectors or quadrants, and number of launchers. The system finalized at 8 sites with total of 64 launchers, with 4 major radar centers completed.

Advanced A-35M system (ABM-1B)

With on-going advancements in the ABM system, radars, missile and warheads, the evolution of the A-35 became the A-35M. The "M" for modernization, was brought on through the advanced developments at 10 different Soviet institutes. One primary upgrade was in the Dunay-3U radar systems enhanced with a dedicated sector search functionality. Along with other upgrades, actual air tests were performed with different configurations between 1976 and 1977. Phase 3 of the A-35M went on-line in 1978.

References

;Notes
Secret Projects: ABM-1 Specifications

External links

AeroSpaceWEb: ABMs

ABM-1 Galosh and A-35 site photos
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Abm-1 Galosh 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 Science and technology in the Soviet Union Missile defense A-350 Almaz-Antey products Vympel NPO products Nuclear anti-aircraft weapons Military equipment introduced in the 1960s