Radar "Daryal" (radar station)

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The rapid development of offensive weapons places increased demands on the tactical and technical parameters of means of warning of possible aggression. Radar "Daryal" (radar station) for almost two decades has been an important element of such systems.

On the edge

In 1960, the United States launched a program to deploy the latest Minuteman-1 intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of launching a few seconds after receiving the appropriate command. The tactics of conducting a possible Third World War have changed; the main role in delivering a decisive blow now belonged not to military strategic aviation, but to missile carriers. In the mid-1960s, the United States had a seventeen-fold superiority in superior means of delivering nuclear weapons, which made it possible to destroy the entire atomic potential of the Soviet Union in one salvo.

For early warning of an upcoming attack in the USSR, back in 1960, a special missile attack warning system (SPRN) began to be created.

A convincing argument

It is noteworthy that some militaryofficials could not fully realize the importance of the designed system, calling it a waste of state resources for equipment that does not damage the enemy and does not shoot down his missiles. At one of the decisive meetings of the Military-Industrial Commission, in response to another critical statement, Academician, Lieutenant General, engineer A. N. . The literary example had an effect on skeptics and, according to the Government Decree of 1962, a project began to create a complex for the early detection of attacking missiles. The first generation of the Dnestr radar and its modified version Dnepr, even before being put into service, have lost their relevance. They were unable to control the small size multiple-warhead missiles created by the potential enemy.

The All-Seeing Eye

In 1966, the Radio Engineering Institute began work on the creation of a fundamentally new radar with a huge radiation power - the Daryal radar, capable of detecting an object the size of a soccer ball at a distance of 6 thousand km. Viktor Ivantsov was appointed Chief Designer.

The first construction of the Daryal radar station was supposed to be erected in the most missile-prone direction. More than a third of all intercontinental missiles in the US arsenal were aimed at the capital of the Soviet Union - Moscow - and the central regions of the country, fromflight path over the North Pole. Preliminary calculations by specialists showed that the station should be located as far north as possible (approximately in the area of Franz Josef Land), but such a large-scale construction in harsh Arctic conditions is fraught with enormous difficulties. It was decided to build a station on the mainland.

Radar station "Daryal". Komi ASSR

For deployment, the area was chosen near the city of Pechora, just 200 km from the Arctic Circle. Due to the huge power consumption of the equipment, the implementation of the project began simultaneously with the construction of the Pechorskaya GRES in 1974. The Daryal radar is based on a huge complex of equipment, consisting of more than 4 thousand units of electronic radio equipment. The high-rise buildings of the receiving (100 m) and transmitting (40 m) antennas are separated by a certain distance, adjusted to the millimeter. The power and water consumption of the station were equivalent to the needs of an average city with a population of 100 thousand people. The pulse power of the Daryal radar station (Pechora - Pechora, according to NATO classification) at its peak exceeded 370 MW.

For the maintenance and replacement of radioelement blocks of a phased antenna array (PAR) during operation, a special robotic complex is provided. The basis of the computing system of the station is a microprocessor-based vector-parallel computer capable of performing more than 5 million operations per second.

First on duty

Pechora radar "Daryal" in January 1984, having successfully passed a series of tests, was put into service. The builders and engineering staff managed to meet the deadlines, despite the abundance of natural and technical difficulties.

So, when pouring the foundation slab, frosts suddenly hit. Russian ingenuity helped prevent freezing of concrete - the mixture was heated with home-made electrodes by applying electrical voltage to them.

Another emergency occurred during commissioning. There was an ignition of the radio-transparent shelter of the transmitting center. Due to the lack of regular fire extinguishing equipment, more than 80% of the surface burned out. Having mobilized all possible reserves, within two months the manufacturing plant in Syzran produced a new canvas (it would take at least a year to create it in the normal mode), and in the shortest possible time the consequences of the fire were eliminated. For reference: taking into account the incident, a shelter made of non-combustible material was developed for the subsequent radars of the project.

In Space Patrol

The first of the project, the radar station "Daryal" ("Pechora") took up combat duty. The photo of the structure gives a visual representation of the scale of the work performed. In total, six more such nodes were to be built, located along the perimeter of the country, closing the territory in an impenetrable radar ring:

• "Gabala", Azerbaijan SSR.
• "Skrunda", Latvian SSR.
• "Beregovo", Mukachevo, Ukrainian SSR.
• "Balkhash", Kazakh SSR.
• "Mishelevka",Irkutsk region.
• Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk Territory.

The node in Pechora completely controlled the entire northern direction. The second and last project of the first stage, implemented and put into operation, was the station in Azerbaijan.

On guard of the southern borders

Construction of an object near the village. Kutkashen (after the collapse of the USSR - Gabala) in the Transcaucasian republic began in 1982. The area of work covered more than 200 hectares. About 20 thousand military builders were involved. February 1985 is considered to be the date when the Daryal (Gabala) radar station entered combat duty, although the construction work was completed only three years later. The main constructive difference of the Gabala node is the absence of a computing system. The received observational data was broadcast to the information processing centers "Shvertbot" and "Kvadrat" located in the Moscow region.

The station completely controlled the southern strategic direction, covering the lands of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, North Africa, Pakistan and India, most of the Indian Ocean, including the coast of Australia. The radar station in Gabala confirmed its technical excellence during the Iran-Iraq conflict by properly recording all combat launches of Iraqi Scud missiles (139 units) and during Operation Desert Storm (302 launches).

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, agreements between the governments of the Russian Federationand Azerbaijan allowed the node in the southern part of the Caucasus Range to regularly carry out combat service until 2012, when the station was withdrawn from the Russian early warning system.

Show in Skrunda

In the mid-80s of the last century, 4 km from the town of Skrunda (Latvian SSR), next to the existing radar station "Dnepr" (object "Skrunda-1"), the construction of another "Daryal" of a standard design began. After the erection of the receiving antenna and the delivery of equipment (1990), it was assumed that at the first stage the Dnepr radar would be used as a radiator. But after gaining independence by the B altic republics, the object became the property of Latvia. The efforts of the Russian side aimed at preserving the radar did not bring positive results, and in 1994 the Russian military personnel left the station.

A year later, the receiving antenna was destroyed by employees of an American company. Foreign experts showed the Latvians a real show. Before the explosion, they staged colorful fireworks throughout the height of the building, and after the main charges were triggered, the structure collapsed like a knocked-down giant.

The secret of the Krasnoyarsk radar station

According to the assurances of the former builders and employees of the Yeniseisk-15 node, this station had such a radiation power, the energy of which could disable the electronics of the ballistic missile navigation system. Is this so, now do not know. To please the former potential enemy, and inAt the beginning of the 1990s, to the strategic partner - the United States, the practically finished radar station of the "Daryal" type was dismantled. The formal reason was that the deployment of the station is contrary to the provisions of the ABM treaty.

The destruction of the city-forming enterprise turned into a humanitarian catastrophe for the village of Yeniseisk-15. More than a thousand people were left without work and livelihood, literally abandoned by the state to their fate. Perhaps in the future, descendants will find an answer to the question of who was hindered by the Krasnoyarsk radar station "Daryal". A photo of the remains of a grandiose structure in the heart of the Siberian taiga will be a good accusatory document.

Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Ukraine

The station in the Irkutsk region was put into operation in 1992, but two years later the facility was mothballed. Since 1999, the node has been used by civilian agencies to study the upper atmosphere. Six years ago, the structure was dismantled, freeing up the site for the construction of the next generation radar.

"Daryal" near the city of Balkhash in East Kazakhstan in 2002 was handed over to the authorities of a sovereign state. Two years later, as a result of a major fire, the structure was completely burned out, and subsequently the remains of structural elements and equipment were plundered. The building finally collapsed in 2010.

Objects at Cape Khersones, near Sevastopol and near Mukachevo (Western Ukraine) were left unfinished and were dismantled in the 2000s.

Russian nuclear shield

The resulting gapsin the missile defense of Russia, it should completely eliminate the new generation early warning system based on the Voronezh-type radar station, of high factory readiness. The time and resource costs for the construction of these units are significantly reduced compared to the Daryals, which made it possible to put into operation seven such stations in the last decade.

Objects are integrated into the missile defense system (ABM), and their functions include not only target detection, but also tracking and target designation.

In addition, a mini-radar system has been created as a backup in case of failure of the main stations. This equipment is easily disguised as a simple cargo container and can be located anywhere. The operation of the complex is completely autonomous and automated.