Weapons of victory and Independence
Õ-66, first air-to-surface tactical guided missile
This year, the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) celebrates 80 years since foundation.
This fact makes it relevant for us to recall old memories that most clearly
demonstrate successful and victorious cooperation between our coun-tries in the
interests of a stronger defense posture and national security. Among relevant
pages of history there is one about the Kh-66 air-launched guided missile (AGM).
This weapon was developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s by employees of
several defense enterprises now members in the Tacti-cal Missile Corporation
(Russian acronym TRV). The work was done in the shortest time possible so as to
give the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and its Air Force the ability to
use modern guided munitions. Thus, a valuable contribution was made into the
VPA’s great victory that made it pos-sible to re-unite Vietnam’s northern and
southern parts into a sovereign, in-dependent state.
The heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people for
independence intensified after the World War II, at a time when the communist
and capitalist systems fought for global leadership. The DRV government policy
was that to re-unite the North-ern and Southern parts of the country into a
socialist republic. In its turn, the U.S. administration saw the ongoing events
in the region as a reflection of the commu-nist system expansion. Washington’s
support to the South Vietnam’s puppet re-gime had been growing. This led to a
prolonged war, with the DRV’s forces sup-ported by the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (USSR) and the People’s Repub-lic of China (PRC) on one side, and the
South Vietnamese Army supported by the United States of America (U.S.A.) on the
other.
In 1965, the U.S. command made decision to destroy the Thanh Hóa auto-mobile and
railway bridge over the Ma river (situated 3 miles north of Thanh Hóa) so as to
cut influx of weapons and supplies from the DRV territory to insurgents in the
South. Between April 1965 and November 1966, more than 1500 combat sor-ties were
performed by the U.S. Air Force (USAAF) and U.S. Navy pilots against this target
and the air-defense units protecting it. As a rule, air raids were made in good
weather conditions and involved large groups of combat jets, flying in
eche-lons.
Due to high losses, the USAAF shifted focus to smaller groups operating at
night. Direct hits were difficult to achieve due to issues with precise
targeting. The bridge was put of order only when the American pilots began using
the AGM-12 Bullpup air-to-surface guided missile. This weapon featured radio
command guid-ance, masking it highly accurate.
The North Vietnamese leaders applied to the USSR with a request to add similar
air-launched precision guided munitions (PGMs) into arsenal of the MiG-21PFM
fighter in service with the VPA’s Air Force. At that time the Soviet Union did
not have such PGMs. Having acknowledged the fact, the Soviets launched a program
for development of light weight tactical AGM featuring radio command guidance.
The work went on with all expediency at the Experimental Design House no. 134
(Russian acronym OKB-134). But the effort ran into difficulties due to various
issues including those to do with targeting. General designer Artyem Mikoyan
asked Vadim Korenkov, who headed weapons department in his design bureau, to put
together a plan that would facilitate completion of AGM develop-ment in a
shortest time possible.
Hence with, employees of Mikoyan’s bureau, together with colleagues from the
State Scientific Research Institute of Aviation Systems (Russian acronym
GosNIIAS), come with technical proposals on how to shape a new air-to-surface
missile for tactical applications.
To expedite development effort, they offered using off-the-shelf parts and
components developed earlier for serially-made weapons. The R-8M air-to-air
missile would contribute its solid-fuel motor, the RS-2US its control apparatus,
pneumatic block and power battery, and the S-24 unguided rocket its fuse.
Devel-opment of a new air-launched weapon that would employ these parts became
re-sponsibility of the serial design bureau (one supervising manufacturing
activity) at the Factory no. 455 (SKB-455). Such a decision was made because the
bureau’s team had amassed some positive experience during the RS-2US’s upgrade
efforts, and during industry-led development of the R-55 air-to-air missile.
Since then, the SKB-455 has evolved into a core enterprise in the Tactical
Missile Corporation.
On March 12, 1966, the minister for aviation industry Pyotr Dementiev is-sued
the Order no. 100 to establish an experimental design bureau on the base of
SKB-455 that would lead development of air-to-ground missiles. Korenkov was
ordered to leave the Mikoyan’s design bureau for the post of deputy chief
designer at the new entity. Yuri Korolyev was appointed head of the
newly-established ex-perimental design bureau. He began supervising the work on
the new missile, dubbed the Item 66 (or Kh-66).
Development of such a weapon appeared quite a challenge for the bureau’s
engineers, and yet they took it as an opportunity to exploit their talents and
skills. Many employees were much elated, and enthusiastic about it. They were
young (aged, on average, 25-28) and relatively inexperienced, but eager to work
hard and get the job done. They aimed at becoming a full-fledged design team
able to create masterpieces of modern technology.
Following approval from the Ministry for aviation industry, technical pro-posals
on the new missile were handed over to the Factory no. 455 (which change name
for the Kaliningrad machinery building plant in 1966). Later that year, the
plant assembled experimental missiles. Soon thereafter they were subjected to
fir-ing trials. A total of 25 launches at ground targets were made from the
MiG-21PFM in 1967 alone.
Rectification of the initial design went on in full swing. Design team mem-bers
spent months on errand at the firing range in Akhtubinsk. They faced many
challenges as they arose. Some of the challenges brought to life unordinary
solu-tions to deal with newly-discovered design flaws at the site. Korenkov, who
headed an engineering team at the firing range, often took personal
responsibility for corrective actions. When the missile’s control surfaces
appeared overcompen-sated, he opted for immediate remedy in the field. He was
good at aerodynamics and working with metal parts. Besides, he trusted
professionalism of his mates in-cluding those who were responsible for
calculations. After making sure the idea was fine, they get themselves a hacksaw
for metal and, using it and their intuition, introduced ‘corrections’ to the
experimental missiles overnight. Starting next morning, these missiles with
“fine-tuned” control surfaces began hitting their as-signed targets reliably.
During testing, other components absorbed improvements, including the ex-ploding
device and the missile’s bank stabilization channel. The missile’s warhead
proved the ability to penetrate through a 250-mm steel sheet and to knock out a
ra-dar post when exploding within a ten-meter radius around it. The list of
primary targets for the Kh-66 contained missile launchers, radar posts, armored
vehicles, trains and warships of a low displacement. The advertized performance
called for 8 km firing range with circular probable error (CEP) in between 2.5
and 5 meters.
The MiG-21PFM equipped with the RP-21M onboard radar served the pri-mary carrier
for the Kh-66 missile. This fighter can carry a pair of such weapons. Upon
detection of a target, the pilot would set the airplane into a dive at an angle
of 10-30 degrees, using the collimator sight and fixed scales on it. In that
case the radar’s narrow beam would point directly at the target. The pilot could
make a salvo of two missiles or launch them one after another with a delay of
0.4-0.6 sec-onds.
The missile’s control system kept the weapon on trajectory in such a way that it
flew inside the equi-signal zone of the radar beam. This resulted in the
mis-sile hitting the aiming point. For two-missile salvo, the probability of
target de-struction was estimated at 0.36-0.7.
The lethality of the new weapon was demonstrated to the government offi-cials on
May 25, 1968 during the Crystal firing exercises at the State Scientific and
Testing Institute of the Air Force. Test-pilot Vladimir Plyushkin performed one
fir-ing pass at the assigned land target – a radar post – and knock it out of
action.
Thanks to hard work of the design bureau team at the Kaliningrad plant, the
Kh-66 successfully passed state acceptance trials. The weapon was accepted into
service a little more than two years after the work on its development commenced
under the USSR Defense ministry’s Order no. 0075 issued on June 20, 1968.
The successful completion of the Kh-66 development effort can be viewed as a
personal victory for Korolyev and the young team of engineers he was head-ing.
First off, this team fulfilled the highly-important governmental assignment in
shortest time possible. Secondly, the Vietnam People’s Army Air Force acquired
modern guided weapon system that facilitated its victory, leading to
re-unification of the country as a sovereign independent state.
The machinery-building plant in Kaliningrad produced the missile from 1968
through to 1977. The MiG-21PFM served the primary carrier, with the ability to
takeoff with two missiles. At that time, the core of Soviet frontal aviation
con-sisted of Sukhoi Su-7B aircraft, and, later, the MiG-27, Su-17, Su-24 and
Su-25. Consequently, the Luch (English: ‘Beam’) containerized targeting system
was ready in 1973, enabling the Kh-66 to be used from any aircraft type. By that
time, however, the Soviet industry had completed development of the Kh-23
missile fea-turing radio command guidance, and the Kh-25 missile with laser
targeting system. Consequently, the Kh-66 was rendered unpromising.
Our engineering team brought about its first product over half-a-century ago.
Many things have changed since then. Countries, cities and enterprises have
changed their names. What remains is the desire of the Russian engineering teams
to work for their own country and its allies on development of new, more
sophisti-cated weapon systems, and make them the world’s best.
This story uses information from the book entitled ‘Six decades of history’
