Scud Special

For a very simple and primitive system the R-11/R-17 family of missiles have an impact far in excess of what the systems designers every expected for them. The result of the various wars that the system has seen service in has been that the western media tends to regard every missile as being a "scud". It appears in the western press as a sort of "bogie man" system, if it hasn't yet I am sure it will soon appear in a James Bond movie, no doubt being used by the bad guy!

However despite it reputation it should be remembered that the Scud is a very old, unreliable and inaccurate system. It origins are in a project to replace V-2 derivates in the USSR military system with some thing that was easier to handle, smaller and more reliable.

The R-11 originated as Theme N-2 of the R-3 IRBM project. This was an alternate approach to delivering nuclear warheads on West European targets - a road-mobile missile of shorter range that could be set up at the forward area of the battlefield and reach enemy targets. The specification was for a missile of the range and payload of the German V-2, but of less than half the size, using non-cryogenic propellants.

The initial design of the `Scud' was made in Russia by the Korolyev Design Bureau (OKB-1), which started work shortly after the Second World War using German V2 designs and some of the engineers and scientists from the German weapons program.

The SS-1B `Scud A' entered service around 1955, and was known as the R-11 (8K11) missile by the Russians.

In 1962 a new version, known as R-17 (8K14) and by NATO as the SS-1C `Scud B', entered service. Though in the same family it was a complete rebuild of the system using lessons learn for the initial design work. Major changes were

Several different warheads were developed for the `Scud B' missiles including nuclear, chemical and conventional High Explosive (HE).

The first test flight was made on 18 April 1953. Massive problems were encountered in the difficult test series - with poor-quality kerosene fuel, handling and leakage of the propellants, and reliable start of the engine. But the Red Army saw much more promise in the design than competing cumbersome liquid oxygen rockets. A government decree was issued on 13 December 1953 for SKB-385 in the Urals to be responsible for series production of the R-11 and its S2.253 engine. SKB-385 had not distinguished itself in 1949-1951 when it was responsible for the first abortive attempt to put the R-1 rocket into production.

Following a protracted two-year test series, the design was finally accepted for military service on 13 July 1955.

The SS-1B `Scud A' (R-11) was 10.7 m long, had a body diameter of 0.88 m and a launch weight of 4,400 kg. The missile used kerosene and nitric acid for propellant, pressurised by air, this resulted in a missile with a range of about 180 km but with a CEP of around 3 km. The `Scud A', was carried on a tracked vehicle, derived from the JS 2 tank chassis, which served as a TEL platform for the missile. The warhead was nuclear, and is believed to have had a yield in the 50 kT range.

The `Scud B' (R-17) was a considerable improvement over the earlier A version. The missile is 11.25 m long, has a body diameter of 0.88 m and a launch weight of 5,900 kg. The propellants were changed, from `Scud A', to Unsymmetrical Dimethyl Hydrazine (UDMH) and Inhibited Red Fuming Nitric Acid (IRFNA), which were fed to the combustion chamber by fuel pumps and gave a more consistent thrust.The total propellant weight at launch was around 3,130 kg, and the structural weight (less warhead bay) was 1,785 kg. These improvements increased the missile range to 300 km and reduced the CEP to around 450 m. Guidance is by a rudimentary inertial system using three gyroscopes, which give control signals to four graphite vanes in the motor exhaust to adjust the flight path of the missile during the climb following launch (this is the same system as used on the German WW2 A-4/V2 ). The control vanes are only operative for the period of motor burn, the first 60 seconds or so of flight. Several different warheads were developed for the `Scud B' missiles, including nuclear, chemical and conventional high explosive. The warhead bay of the `Scud B' is 2.87 m long forming the nose section of the missile, and weighs 985 kg. It is believed that the first Russian design for `Scud B' was for a nuclear warhead with a yield of 50 kT, but this was later replaced with a selectable yield warhead covering from 5 to 70 kT. A diagram of a chemical warhead for the `Scud B' shows a nose-mounted fuze with a high-explosive bursting charge to open the warhead and allow the resulting air flow to disperse the 555 kg of viscous VX chemical agent into a dense aerosol cloud. Russian documents suggest that a number of different conventional high explosive warheads were developed, including blast/fragmentation, earth penetration, fuel-air explosive and submunitions. The HE blast fragmentation warhead contains 545 kg of HE. For the submunitions there were again several options, including: fragmentation; armour-piercing; runway penetrators; smoke; mines or incendiary. The submunitions warheads would all have been initiated by proximity fuzes, to create an airburst to deploy the submunitions over a wide area. It is believed that 40 runway penetrator submunitions were carried, each penetrator weighing 12 kg and with 3 kg of HE Fragmentation submunitions are believed to have numbered about 100 per warhead, each weighing 5 kg and containing 1.2 kg of HE, with a damage radius between 160 and 250 m.

The `Scud B' missile is carried on an eight wheeled MAZ 543 P TEL vehicle (9P117M), the missile is raised to the vertical position at the back of the TEL before launch. The TEL has a length of 13.36 m, a width of 3.02 m and weighs 37,400 kg when loaded with a missile. The TEL can carry three crew, but it is believed that five men are required in the launcher crew. The vehicle has built-in test equipment, can aim the missile, and can fire autonomously if required. However, the target selection and firing is usually carried out from a separate command and control vehicle. The MAZ 543 vehicle has a D-12 diesel engine rated at 525 hp, with four driven axles, and a separate 10 kW electric generator for the missile operations. Two hydraulic pumps power the cradle that raises the missile to the vertical, which takes about 4 minutes. A typical `Scud B' launch sequence takes about 1 hour. The TEL vehicle has an unrefuelled range of 650 km on hard roads and a maximum road speed of 55 km/h. After launch, the TEL moves to a new position to avoid a counterattack, and is reloaded from a towed resupply trailer.

There have been persistent reports that two other Scuds were designed, the Scud C which had a lighter warhead that separated from the body after completion of engine burn to increase accuracy and the Scud D which had a warhead with terminal guidance. It is not clear if these every existed but if they did they were never put into service.

Tests of the Naval Version of the Scud (R-11FM) had begun in February 1955 at Kapustin Yar with three experimental launches of the missile from a standard R-11 launch stand. This was followed by launches from a special stand simulating a ship's motion, developed by A P Abramov. Finally a third test series was conducted from the Project 611 submarine B-57 from 16 September to 13 October 1955 in the White Sea. This demonstrated launches from a pitching surfaced vessel and a total range of 150 km. Following further trials the system was accepted for military surface in 1959, but never deployed on an operational vessel.

Variant	R-11 / Scud A	R-17 / Scud B
Range	180 Km	300Km
Propulsion	Liquid - Kerosene & Nitric Acid	Liquid - UDMA & Nitric Acid
Guidance	Inertial - some report of radio correction being available	Inertial
Warhead Weight	950 Kg	950Kg
Launch Weight	4,500 Kg	5,900 Kg
CEP	3,000 m	450 m

Scud Special
(C) R&MAG / wonderland.org.nz .Bob Baal (2003)

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Scud Special (C) R&MAG / wonderland.org.nz .Bob Baal (2003)

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Scud Special
(C) R&MAG / wonderland.org.nz .Bob Baal (2003)