Our weapons systems, as a rule, bear abstractly neutral names, which, in the event of a partial leak of information, will say little to intelligence agents of foreign intelligence services. Take, for example, the same "Poplar" or "Ash." Trees are like trees. And even “Pinocchio” is somehow fabulous. But there is one weapon that is called ominously both in the West and in our country: “Satan” is a third-generation missile system, aka 15P018, aka R-36, aka SS-18, aka RS-20B, aka “ Governor. " Such a large number of names has a reason. It is traditionally not customary to use Soviet codes among NATO experts; they come up with their own notation for each model of our technology, which is usually also quite harmless. So why are they so frightened by 15P018 and what is this American thunderstorm - the Satan rocket?
Arms race as an instrument of aggression
The creation of a complex of ballistic missiles is an expensive, high-tech and technologically complex business. Forcing the USSR to participate in the arms race has long been the goal of American administrations of different times, from Truman to Reagan. For various reasons, America has always been richer than the Soviet Union, and exhausting it with overwhelming spending ultimately ensured victory in the Cold War. To a large extent, today this policy applies to the new Russia.
Our answer to the Americans
By about 1965, the power of American intercontinental missiles had seriously increased, as well as other technical parameters, including hit accuracy. This posed a threat to Soviet launchers, most of which at that time were stationary and located in mines concentrated in operational areas on a group basis. Thus, in case of a successful hit, one American ICBM could cover several Soviet ones that had not yet had time to start. Urgently needed to respond to the threat. There were two ways out: disperse launchers by strengthening the mines, or make them mobile, while maintaining high power, which means weight and size. But in the age of satellites, it is difficult to hide the movement of mobile launchers. Problems needed solutions. The result was the R-36 "Satan" - the most powerful nuclear missile in the world.
Great Utkin
Academician Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin was not a famous person during his life. But his friends, like-minded colleagues, colleagues and former subordinates, celebrating the birthday of his boss on October 17, without a shadow of doubt call him a genius. And there are reasons for this. Under the leadership of this scientist, the Satan missile system was created, or rather, 15P018 (the devil's nickname was given to the academician's brainchild by the Americans). It all started with a general concept, then it was divided into separate technical tasks, each of which was successfully solved.
The Satan missile system is a very complex system, each of its units must work in concert, and any failure can lead to irreparable consequences. In addition, formidable weapons were supposed to start both from stationary mines and from special railway platforms disguised as ordinary cars.
How to launch a heavy rocket from a mine
The missile body is made of aluminum and magnesium - metals are quite soft. The wall thickness is 3 mm, otherwise the shell will turn out to be too heavy. The weight of the rocket is more than 210 tons, and it needs to be launched from a deep mine. It is easy to imagine what will happen if such a heavy and fragile object begins to be washed by hot gases escaping from nozzles. Inside - 195 tons of fuel, not just fuel, but explosive. But that is not all. At the head are nuclear weapons with a capacity of four hundred Hiroshima.
Here is a technical problem. And her Soviet engineers decided. The rocket is smoothly and carefully removed to the surface by three special powder charges, called pressure accumulators, raised by tens of meters, and only after that are the pre-prepared (“puffed”) launch stage engines started.
This decision also allowed to significantly increase the combat radius of the system. A large amount of fuel was spent on the initial overcoming of the gravitational force , in this case its saving is about 9 tons.
This is just one example of the grace of solutions, an illustration of the great genius of Utkin. There are many of them, a whole book would have gone into describing others. Perhaps multivolume.
Scary atomic train
No wonder the USSR was called a great railway power. Long distances prompted the construction of railways at an unprecedented pace, even in tsarist Russia, in the Soviet years, new lines were stretched, covering the entire territory of our country with a network of tracks. Day and night, trains run along them, among which one can never distinguish those with many mega-deaths lurking under the roofs of cars. The Satan mobile complex could be based on a railway platform disguised as a regular train, which the most advanced reconnaissance satellite would not be able to distinguish from the ordinary. Of course, the weight of the launcher of 130 tons did not allow the use of simple rolling stock, so, in addition to technical problems, transport had to be solved, moreover, on an all-Union scale. Wooden sleepers were changed to reinforced concrete, the quality and strength of the canvas was brought to the highest level, because any accident could instantly turn into a disaster. The Satan rocket launcher has a length of 23 meters, just the size of a refrigerator car, but the head fairing had to be developed in a special folding design. There were other problems, but the result justified the costs. The retaliatory strike could have been inflicted from an unpredictable point, which means it was guaranteed and inevitable.
Rocket
The means of delivery of the warhead, in which the nuclear charges are located, is an intercontinental two-stage missile, the reach zone of which has an area of 300 thousand square kilometers. It is able to overcome the boundaries of highly effective and promising missile defense systems and hit ten different targets with separable components with a total capacity of eight megatons of TNT. It is almost impossible to neutralize its effect after launch, for which she received such a resounding name - “Satan”. The missile system is equipped with a thousand objects that mimic nuclear warheads. Ten of them have a mass close to the real charge, the rest are made of metallized plastic and take the form of warheads, swelling in a stratospheric vacuum. No missile defense system can cope with so many goals.
Electronic brain
The development of the control system was carried out by Deputy General Designer Vladimir Sergeev. It is built on an inertial principle, has three channels and multi-tier majorization. This means that the system tests itself by performing a self-test. If there is any discrepancy in the results, the control is taken over by the channel that successfully passed the test. The cable interface, and is considered to be ideally reliable, no communication line failures were recorded even once during the entire time during which the R-36M Satan missile system was in service.
The annoyance of the Americans
The program, launched in the United States and called the Strategic Defense Initiative, aimed at creating a global “umbrella” that could protect the countries of the “free world”, and especially the United States, from the effects of a thermonuclear strike in the event of a global conflict. The 15P018 strategic missile system (Satan) completely deprived this idea of meaning. No missile defense systems, even with expensive space-based elements, could guarantee the safe destruction of objects on the territory of the USSR by American Pershing. Needless to say, it caused vexation among the inhabitants of the White House and the Capitol. The Soviet leadership was in no hurry to disarm these complexes, rightly believing that they provide a reliable nuclear shield. But things got off the ground after Gorbi came to power and the beginning of perestroika.
How to crush the "Satan"
Every second Satan missile launcher was destroyed under the terms of the START-1 treaty, signed by General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M. S. Gorbachev. After the collapse of the USSR, the case was continued by President of the Russian Federation B.N. Yeltsin. In fairness, it should be noted that the withdrawal from service and the subsequent disposal of multiply-charged missiles were carried out not so much due to pressure from the American side or national betrayal (as overly exalted patriotic fellow citizens insist on). The reasons were much more prosaic and were of an economic nature. The country's budget could not withstand such a high level of military expenditures, which include the costs of maintaining the mentioned railways. And without them, another Chernobyl could happen, only much more terrible. The missile system "Satan" was the victim of general devastation, which was accompanied by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
For peaceful purposes
After the emergence of young states on the territory of the once indestructible USSR, it suddenly turned out that all the production, scientific and experimental forces that created the complex were exclusively Ukrainian. Further improvement and production of a powerful defense system has become impossible, at least in the short term.
The removal from service of a missile dangerous to Americans did not mean a ban on its use for other purposes, which the owners of the latest copies were not slow to take. As in the case of the illustrious Vostok, the carrier was converted; it was used to put commercial and scientific cargoes, including foreign ones, into orbit. What to do? When the country needs money, Satan will also be used. An intercontinental ballistic missile during the period from 1999 to 2010 under the Dnepr program launched four dozen artificial satellites into orbit. There were 14 starts, of which one was unsuccessful.
"Governor"
At the end of the eighties, the R-36M rocket was modernized in order to increase its resistance to the consequences of a possible nuclear strike and improve its accuracy characteristics. In addition, refinement was required taking into account the new capabilities of the latest American missile defense systems. CB "Yuzhnoye" (Dnepropetrovsk) successfully completed the task, the result of the work was a product 15A18M, called "Voivode". When drafting the text of the START-1 treaty, it was designated with the RS-20B code, and in essence it was the same Satan missile system, only modernized.
The change in the international situation, expressed in the desire of the leadership of the NATO countries, primarily the United States, to disperse their bases as close as possible to the borders of Russia, prompted to review the terms of the START-2 treaty, which has not been ratified, in that part, which concerns multiply charged ICBMs. The 15A18M missiles (armed with monoblocks) currently on combat alert are planned to be replaced with new Russian Sarmat systems capable of carrying multiple warheads. But the story about them is different ...