In the public domain, you can find a story about how the USSR in the 1960s worked on the OTRK project based on the V-611 naval anti-aircraft missile. Although this project was not implemented, here we are talking about the de facto predecessor of the Tochka-U complex, and the contractor of the work was the Fakel Design Bureau, which is now the main developer of anti-aircraft missiles in the Russian Federation.
Among other things, this story can show us how long ago a technical solution was born that allowed the ruscists to use S-300 and S-400 air defense systems in surface-to-surface mode for strikes on Ukraine.
If we take everything available in the public domain, then the picture will look like this. To begin with, we point out that the V-611 anti-aircraft missile was part of the M-11 Storm ship-based air defense system, which was used on large anti-submarine ships of project 1134, anti-submarine helicopter carriers of project 1123 (decommissioned in the 1990s “Moskva” and “Leningrad”) and aircraft carrier cruisers of project 1143.
The B-611 was solid-propellant, had a launch weight of 1844 kilograms, in particular the mass of the warhead was 125 kilograms, the length of the fuselage was 6,1 meters, the range and altitude of the target was up to 55 kilometers and up to 30 kilometers, respectively, the average flight speed was 800 m/s (or approximately 2880 km/h).
For use with a ground-based OTRK, the B-611 had to undergo a certain structural redesign, in particular, with an increase in the mass of the warhead and the appearance of additional stabilizers in the nose. But the specific parameters of processing remain undisclosed, we can only see in the sketches how it was supposed to look in general terms.
Work on the OTRK using the B-611 conversion started in February 1965, it was planned to create even two complexes using this missile:
- “Yastreb” – with a firing range of 8-35 kilometers and radio command guidance of the missile on the target according to the radar data on the launcher;
- “Tochka” – with a firing range of 8-70 kilometers and an inertial control system based on an onboard computer (electronic computer).
In both cases, it was planned to place one missile on a mobile launcher. Work in this area reached the test of only a mobile launcher for the “Hawk”, for the above-mentioned complex “Tochka” with the B-611 it was supposed to use a chassis from the “Luna” OTRK.
Work on the above-mentioned OTRK in the Fakel MKB was stopped already in 1966, the developments on the Tochka complex were transferred to the Mashinostroeniya Design Bureau, and already there this “blank” was laid in the basis of the 9K79 Tochka OTRK. The reasons for this decision on the “transfer of developments” have not been disclosed – whether it is a matter of “departmental competition”, or whether the Fakel MKB really did not cope with the work on the OTRK based on a naval anti-aircraft missile.
However, in general, firing convertible anti-aircraft missiles with radio command guidance at a ground target has been a Soviet “know-how” since the 1960s. In addition, we have an interesting background to the appearance of the 9K79 Tochka OTRK, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine actively used to hit the Russian occupiers, in particular during the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation.