R-12 (missile)

Infobox Weapon
is_missile=yes
name=R-12


caption=
origin=
type=Medium-range ballistic missile
used_by=
manufacturer=Yuzhmash
unit_cost=unknown
propellant=
production_date=
service=4 March 1959
engine=liquid rocket motor, 3 stages
engine_power=
weight=47.1 t
length=22.1 m
height=
diameter=1.65 m
wingspan=
speed=2,570 m/s
vehicle_range=2,080 km
ceiling=
altitude=
filling=Nuclear 2.3 Mt
guidance=autonomous inertial
detonation=
launch_platform=open-launch and silo-basedThe R-12 Dvina ( _ru. Р-12 «Двина»; _en. Dvina) was a theatre ballistic missile developed and deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Its GRAU designation was 8K63, and it was given the NATO reporting name SS-4 Sandal. The R-12 rocket provided a capability to attack targets at medium ranges with a megaton-class nuclear warhead and constituted the bulk of the Soviet offensive missile threat to Western Europe. Deployments of the R-12 missile in Cuba caused the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

History

OKB-586 was formed from a spin-off of portions of Korolev's OKB-1 production infrastructure under the direction of Mikhail Yangel in the early 1950s. Soon after he started the development of an improved strategic missile that would outperform the R-5 (SS-3 Shyster) that Korolev was in the process of bringing into production. Yangel's design was based on combining the basic airframe from the R-5 with an engine developed from the R-11. The R-11 was a short-range missile that used nitric acid as oxidizer and kerosene as a fuel, which could be stored for extended periods of time.

Valentin Glushko had long advocated using storable propellants, and proposed developing a new engine for the project. Earlier designs like the R-5 and R-7 used liquid oxygen as its oxidizer, and therefore had to be fueled immediately before launch, as the oxygen would "boil off" over time. He developed the RD-214 for the R-12, which consisted of four combustion chambers sharing a common turbopump assembly. The pumps were powered by decomposing the nitric acid to generate an exhaust. The new engine was too large to fit in the existing R-5 airframe, so a conical tail section was added to hold the engine.

Nikolai Pilyugin, head of the leading control system bureau, convinced Yangel to introduce fully-autonomous control system in the R-12 instead of traditional radio control that had been used on earlier missiles. The R-5, for instance, used an inertial guidance system that had to be "fine tuned" by commands from ground radio stations that it passed over during its flight. Pilugin felt that newer inertial systems would have the accuracy needed to hit targets at 2,000 km without the mid-course updates.

According to the official Yuzhnoye history, Yangel's design was approved on 13 February 1953 by the Council of Ministers of the USSR. However another source reports that the approval was granted on 13 August 1955Fact|date=July 2008. The first test was conducted at Kapustin Yar on 22 June 1957. In September 1958 Nikita Khrushchev personally visited Kapustin Yar to witness the launch of R-12, as well as its competitor, the R-5M. The latter had already been accepted into deployment at the time. The R-12 launch was a success and the next month, mass production of the vehicle started in Dnepropetrovsk. Test launches continued until December, and demonstrated a maximum error of 2.3 km.

For the work on R-12, on 1- July 1959 OKB-586 received Order of Lenin, while Hero of Socialist Labor (the highest industrial award) was awarded to Yangel, Smirnov and Budnik.

Deployment

The R-12 missile was introduced into the inventory on 4 March 1959 according to Russian sources, though Western intelligence believed that an initial operational capability was reached in late 1958.

The first public display of this system was in November 1960, and they were deployed to Cuba in the Fall of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The first five regiments with surface-based R-12 missiles were put on alert in May 1960, while the first regiment of silo-based missiles was placed on alert in January 1963. Reaction time was assessed by the West at one to three hours in the normal soft site readiness condition, and five to fifteen minutes in the normal hard site readiness condition. The allowable hold time in a highly alert condition (reaction time equals three to five minutes) is long--many hours for soft sites, and days for hard sites.

The R-12 and R-12U missiles reached their maximum operational launcher inventory of 608 in 1964-1966. Some soft-site phase-out began in 1968, with some hard-site phase-out beginning in 1972. In 1978 their phase out and replacement with mobile ground-launched SS-20 "Pioneer" missiles began.

Further development

Efforts to create a railway based version of the R-12 missile were suspended, but work then started on a silo-launched version. An underground launch complex, code-named Mayak-2 (Beacon-2), was constructed in Kapustin Yar. In September 1959 the R-12 took off from the silo complex for the first time. In May 1960 the development of a new R-12 missile designated as R-12U was begun. The R-12U was designed to be used with both surface launchers and silos. The silo-launch complex of the R-12U missile comprised four launchers and was designated as "Dvina." The testing phase of the missile and the launch complex lasted from December 1961 through December, 1963.

The R-12 was also used during the development of the V-1000 anti-ballistic missile, serving as a target. During a series of tests two R-12s detonated their warheads in the upper atmosphere in order to test radar systems. A follow-on test planned to launch a R-12 from Kapustin Yar while two R-9's from Tyuratam would fly into the area, but only the R-12 launched successfully.

Elimination

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed in December 1987 and entered into force in June 1988. The fundamental purpose of the INF Treaty was to eliminate and ban US and Soviet ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as associated support equipment, with ranges between 500 and 5500 kilometers. Elimination of SS-4 and SS-5 missiles and components took place at the Lesnaya Missile Elimination Facility. The last of the 149 Soviet SS-4 missiles was eliminated at Lesnaya in May 1990.

Description

The R-12 is a single-stage rocket with a separable single reentry vehicle. In the integrated fuel tanks the oxidizer was put forward of the fuel tank, separated by an intermediate plate. During flight this allowed the oxidizer from the lower unit to be spent first thus improving in-flight stabilization. The propulsion system consists of four liquid propellant rocket motors with a common turbo pump unit. The flight control was carried out with the help of four carbon jet vanes, located in the nozzles of the rocket motors. The autonomous guidance and control system used center of mass normal and lateral stabilization devices, a velocity control system and a computer-assisted automatic range control system. The R-12 was deployed at both soft launch pads and hard silos.

Operators

;USSR
*Strategic Rocket Forces

References

* Podvig, Pavel. (2001) Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
* [http://www.russianspaceweb.com/r12.html R-12 rocket tech dossier]

External links

* [http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/r-12.htm Globalsecurity.org R-12 ICBM]

Template group
list =