Paradoxical as it may sound, the Versailles Peace Treaty became the main impetus for the creation of a new type of weapon. Under its terms, Germany could not develop and have modern armored vehicles, military aircraft and the navy. Missiles, especially ballistic missiles, were not mentioned in the agreement. However, there were no rockets either.
First ballistic missile
Demonstrating obedience to the will of the winners, Germany focused on researching promising new areas in the field of armaments. By 1931, German design engineers created a liquid fuel rocket engine.
In 1934, Werner von Braun defended his doctoral thesis with a neutral and very vague title. The paper analyzes the advantages of ballistic missiles compared to traditional aviation and artillery. The work of the young scientist attracted the attention of the Reichswehr, the dissertation was classified, and Brown began working on the military-industrial complex. By 1943, a "retaliation weapon" was created in Germany - the FAU-2 long-range ballistic missile.
For most countries, the era of rocket science began after the shelling of London by German V-2s.
Allied Trophy Fight
The victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany smoothly passes into the beginning of a new Cold War. From the first days of the occupation of Berlin, the USSR and the USA began the struggle for German rocket technology. It was clear to everyone that this is a weapon of the future.
Werner von Braun and his team surrender to the Americans. German scientists along with the surviving missiles (according to some reports, about 100 pieces) and equipment are evacuated overseas and in the shortest possible time create all conditions for continued work. The United States is gaining access to rocket technology and advanced development of the Reich.
The Soviet Union has to urgently create technologies for the creation of ballistic missiles and for the means of combating these weapons of the future. Without this trump card, the country's position in the foreign policy game was unenviable.
In its occupation zone, the USSR creates the Soviet-German Missile Institute. In the fall of 1945, Sergei Korolev arrives in Germany. He was released, assigned a military rank and set the task: to create a ballistic missile in a fantastically short time.
In 1947, Korolev S.P. reported to Stalin about the assignment. Thanks to the party was a complete rehabilitation. Stalin realized the value of rocket specialists.
The first step towards creating a nuclear shield was taken.
The creation of the atomic bomb in the USSR
In August 1945, when the U.S. Air Force dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, America was a nuclear arms monopoly. There was no need to use atomic weapons, by that time Japan was on the verge of surrender. This bombardment was an outright blackmail and an act of intimidation of the Soviet Union.
By the end of 1945, plans for the atomic bombing of Soviet cities had already been developed in the United States.
Over the country, lying in ruins after a terrible Nazi invasion, a new, more terrible threat loomed.
In the postwar years, most of the scientific and financial potential was aimed at creating a nuclear missile shield. The USSR attracts all available personnel for this, including captured German and imprisoned Soviet scientists and design engineers.
The potential of foreign intelligence is actively used, both by the NKVD and the Main Intelligence Directorate. All information about US nuclear programs comes to Igor Kurchatov, the supervisor of the Soviet nuclear project. Klaus Fuchs admitted to the British authorities in 1950 that he had transferred significant information to the Soviet Union, and that in the States Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed in 1953 for espionage.
The information on the construction of the American plutonium bomb accelerated the work on the project. But the creators of the nuclear shield had to work hard to materialize the existing theoretical developments into real weapons.
Arms race
For forty years, the Soviet-American nuclear arms race dominated world politics. The Soviet nuclear establishment was strictly classified. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union did the names of the creators of the nuclear shield of the USSR become known.
After the explosions of the first Soviet atomic bomb in 1949 and the hydrogen bomb in August 1953, it was time for the United States to think about it. The revolutionary transformations of the Soviet armed forces proceeded at a rapid pace.
Intercontinental ballistic missile
On August 21, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully conducted flight tests of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile R-7. The design was based on the theoretical calculations of the mathematician D. E. Okhotsimsky about the possibility of maximizing the flight range of a rocket by dropping its fuel tanks as fuel is consumed.
Starting from Baikonur, the OKB-1 rocket S.P. Koroleva flew to the landfill in Kamchatka. The USSR received an effective carrier of nuclear charge and dramatically expanded the country's security perimeter.
A multi-stage rocket became the foundation on which a whole family of rockets was created, including the modern Soyuz launch vehicle.
Artificial Earth Satellite
In October 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched a satellite into orbit. It was a shock to the Pentagon. A satellite launched by an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) can be replaced by nuclear weapons at any time. US strategic bombers needed several hours of flight time to targets on the territory of the USSR. The use of an intercontinental ballistic missile reduced this time to 30 minutes.
The Royal Seven raised the Russian nuclear shield to a cosmic height beyond the reach of American technology at that time.
Strategic Nuclear Triad
The USSR did not stop there, it continued to move forward and improve its nuclear shield.
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union began research and development on miniaturization and improving the reliability of nuclear weapons. Air Force tactical units began to receive new, smaller nuclear bombs that could be carried by supersonic fighters and attack aircraft. Nuclear depth bombs have also been developed for use against submarines, including those operating under ice.
Development activities included strategic systems for the Navy, cruise missiles, and air bombs. In addition to strategic weapons, tactical, in other words, artillery shells of various calibers for conventional guns were also developed. A minimum nuclear charge was developed for a 152 mm artillery gun.
The Soviet system of nuclear deterrence has become complex and multilateral. She possessed not only missiles, but also other means of delivering nuclear charges to the target.
It was in those years that the structure of the Russian nuclear shield was formed, which has survived to this day. These are land and sea-based missile forces and strategic aviation.
Is nuclear war a continuation of politics?
In the sixties of the last century, before the development of the concept of limited nuclear war, in the Soviet Union there was active debate about whether nuclear war could be a rational policy tool.
Public opinion and some military theorists have argued that, given the dire consequences of using nuclear weapons, nuclear war cannot be a continuation of politics with the help of armed force.
In the 1970s, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev said that only a suicide can start a nuclear war. The Secretary General argued that the Soviet Union would never use nuclear weapons first.
In the 1980s, Soviet civilian and military leaders took a similar position, repeatedly declaring that there would be no winner in a global nuclear war, it would lead to the destruction of humanity.
Missile Defense System (ABM)
In 1962-1963, the Soviet Union began the construction of the world's first active missile defense system designed to protect Moscow. Initially, it was assumed that the system will have eight complexes, sixteen interceptors will be based on each.
By 1970, only four of them were completed. Plans for the creation of additional targets were curtailed in 1972, when the signing of the ABM Treaty limited the Soviet Union and the United States to two missile defense facilities with a total of two hundred interceptors. After the signing of the Protocol to the Treaty in 1974, the architecture of the system was once again reduced to one site with a hundred interceptors.
The Moscow missile defense system relied on a huge A-shaped radar for long-range tracking and control of the battle. Later, another radar was added to it for the same purpose. A network of radars on the periphery of the Soviet Union provided early warning and information about enemy missiles.
Like the American missile defense system, the Soviet system used a nuclear missile with a several megaton warhead as an interceptor.
The Soviet Union began a major modernization of the missile defense system in 1978. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, they did not manage to complete the modernization. In addition, many peripheral radars were in the territories of independent states - the former Soviet republics.
Currently, the upgraded system based on the Don radar station is on alert.
What troops are called a nuclear shield? These are strategic missile forces.
On the brink of nuclear war
The arms race of the two largest nuclear powers, which has been going on for almost 40 years, has repeatedly put the whole world on the brink of disaster. But if the Caribbean crisis is well-known to everyone, then the situation in the early nineties, or more precisely, the period 1982-1984, when the tension was an order of magnitude higher, for some reason is less known.
NATO’s intention to deploy medium-range ballistic missiles in Europe Pershing II worried the leadership of the Soviet Union. To achieve progress in the negotiations, Brezhnev introduces a moratorium on the deployment of missiles on the European territory of the USSR in the hope that the United States will appreciate this gesture of goodwill. That did not happen.
In July 1982, the Soviet Union and the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries carried out strategic exercises with the participation of ground and sea-based nuclear forces, as well as strategic shield Shield-2.
It was a carefully planned demonstration of nuclear power. However, exercises of such a scale by all countries are conducted not only to develop the combat skills of army units. Their main task is the psychological impact on a potential adversary.
According to the plan of the exercises, the forces of the eastern coalition repelled a simulated nuclear strike. Reflection of the enemy’s attack required the launch of cruise and ballistic missiles by the Soviet strategic missile forces using submarines, strategic bombers, warships and all military missile ranges.
In the West, these exercises were dubbed the "seven-hour nuclear war." That is how much time it took the troops of the socialist camp to repulse a conditional attack by the enemy. In the comments of the Western press, there was a distinct note of hysteria.
The nuclear force exercises began on July 18 at 6:00 am with the launch of the Pioneer medium-range missile from the Kapustin Yar firing range, which 15 minutes later hit the target at Emba firing range. An intercontinental missile launched from an underwater position in the Barents Sea hit the target at the Kamchatka training ground. Two ICBMs launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome were destroyed by a missile defense. A series of cruise missiles was launched from warships, submarines, and Tu-195 missile carriers.
Within two hours, three satellites launched from Baikonur: a navigation satellite, a target satellite, and an interceptor satellite, which began hunting for a target in outer space.
The presence of weapons in the Soviet Union to control outer space shocked the enemy. Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire and was ready to mix it with the earth. In March 1983, the President of the United States launched the Strategic Defense Initiative, colloquially known as Star Wars, which will seek to provide complete protection for the United States from Soviet ballistic missiles. The project is not implemented.
The nuclear shield of modern Russia
Today, Russia's nuclear triad guarantees the destruction of a potential aggressor under any circumstances. The country is capable of delivering a massive retaliatory nuclear strike even in the event of the death of the country's top leadership.
The automatic system of nuclear perimeter control, called by Western strategists the "Dead Hand", developed in the early 1970s by the creators of the nuclear shield, is still on combat duty in Russia.
The system evaluates seismic activity, radiation level, pressure and air temperature, monitors the use of military radio frequencies and communication intensity, as well as sensors for early detection of missiles.
Based on the results of the data analysis, the system can independently decide on a retaliatory nuclear attack if the combat mode is not activated within a certain time.
Monument to scientists and design engineers
In 2007, the creator of the Russian nuclear shield in Sergiev Posad was erected a monument to the sculptor S. Isakov. A person unfamiliar with the history of the city and Orthodox culture can be bewildering: St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker, holding the church in one hand, in the other - the sword. The monument was erected at the former Gethsemane monastery of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, where the Center for Nuclear Research of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is currently located and symbolizes the unity of spirit and military valor of the defenders of the Fatherland.