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Alternate Name:	SA-1 Guild
Country:	Russia
Basing:	Land

Details

The S-25 (NATO: SA-1 Guild) was a fixed-based surface-to-air missile system manufactured and deployed by the Russians during the early 1950s to protect the Moscow region. Although designed to shoot down bombers, it paved the way for the S-75 (NATO: SA-2 Guideline) and System A-35, both of which had missile defense capabilities.

 

The S-25 system can be traced back to the immediate post-World War II period, when the Soviet Union realized that it needed to defend Moscow, and more importantly, the Kremlin, against a potential bomber attack.(1) Research and development of surface-to-air missile technology began, based on progress made by the Germans during the war.(2)

 

In 1949, the Politburo passed a resolution that ordered the creation of a surface-to-air missile system to defend Moscow. The resolution required that the system be capable of countering a raid by 1,000 bombers.(3) As envisioned, the new system would incorporate thousands of surface-to-air missiles around the capital city, to be used in conjunction with a phased-array radar system capable of tracking targets and interceptors simultaneously.(4)

 

Over the next few years, the Soviets designed what would become the S-25 system. Testing took place at Kapustin Yar, a large range located on the middle Volga south of Volgograd (Stalingrad), approximately 2,500 kilometers west of Lake Balkhash.(5) In the fall of 1953, the S-25 was deployed around Moscow and made operational, even though many of its technical problems had not yet been resolved.(6)

 

The S-25 launchers were deployed in two tiers at distances of 44 and 88 kilometers from the center of Moscow, providing overlapping coverage of the city. The Soviets also deployed long-range phased-array radars in two rings around Moscow. A distance of 25-30 kilometers lay between the rings, and the rings were approximately 200-250 kilometers from the center of the city.(7)

 

The system’s V-300 missiles and radars were operated by four air defense corps, each consisting of 14 regiments. All four corps were united under the Special-Purpose Army, which later became known as the First Separate Air Defense Army. The S-25 system was commissioned on May 7, 1955, and placed on permanent combat-ready alert the following June.(8)

 

The original intercept range of the S-25 was about 45 kilometers.(9) Each S-25 regiment was capable of firing 20 missiles simultaneously at 20 air targets. Altogether, 60 missiles were in full readiness for simultaneous launch. However, the system’s lack of mobility and agility made it what William T. Lee describes as a “cumbersome, very expensive” system.(10)

 

It was for this reason that, in 1954, the Soviets decided to develop a less-expensive mobile surface-to-air missile system for mass deployment, even before S-25 testing had been completed. That system became known as the S-75, the Soviet Union’s first dual anti-aircraft/anti-missile system.(11) Despite the change in emphasis, the S-25 stayed in service until 1987.(12)

 

Over the years, components of the S-25 have been upgraded and modified several times.(13) Between 1969 and 1972, while the Soviet Union and the United States were negotiating the AMB Treaty and the Interim Agreement on intercontinental delivery systems, the Soviets began large scale production of nuclear warheads for its S-25 missiles.(14)

 

In the mid-1970s, U.S. intelligence detected nuclear storage sites at S-25 sites in the Soviet Union.(15) According to the 1975 NIE on Soviet strategic defenses: “Evidence has confirmed previous indications that nuclear warheads are available for some SA-1 [S-25] and SA-5 [S-200] units.”(16) It is unclear, however, how many S-25 missiles were armed with nuclear warheads.

 

Despite its limitations, the S-25 occupies an vital role in the history of Soviet missile defense. It was the precursor to the S-75, a mobile system with dual anti-aircraft/anti-missile capability, as well as System A-35, a fixed-based defensive system designed to shoot down airplanes and ballistic missiles over Moscow. In addition, the S-25 was equipped with nuclear warheads, a feature of later missile defense systems deployed by the Soviet Union.

 

 

 

 

Footnotes

 

1. William T. Lee, “The ABM Treaty Was Dead on Arrival,” Comparative Strategy 19 (2000), 148.
2. Pavel Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2001), 402.
3. Podvig, 403.
4. Lee, “The ABM Treaty Was Dead on Arrival,” 148.
5. William T. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade: A Study in Elite Illusion and Delusion (Washington, DC: Council for Social and Economic Studies, 1997), 10.
6. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade, 30; Podvig, 404.
7. Podvig, 404. 
8. Podvig, 404.
9. Podvig, 404.
10. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade, 25. 
11. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade, 114.
12. Podvig, 404-405.
13. Podvig, 404. 
14. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade, 67.
15. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade, 41.
16. NIE, 11-3/8-75, 36, in Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade, 75.

Russia Tests Target Missile Based on S-25

October 17, 2005 :: News

Interfax reports that Russia has completed a three month period of testing for a “new” target missile called “Strizh-4,” which is said to be built on the basis of the older S-25 (SA-1 “Guild”) anti-aircraft/missile defense interceptor. The purpose for which the Strizh-4 would serve as a target was not given. Presumably, it could serve as a testing target for Russia S-300 or S-400 air and missile defense interceptors. There are apparently two versions of the missile, for both low and high altitudes.

“The tests were conducted for three months at one of the ranges. The tests fully confirmed the missile’s declared specifications, and this was noted in the act drawn up after the tests,” a source in the defence industry complex told Interfax-AVN on Monday [17 October].

Now that the state tests have been completed successfully, a series production of the target missile can be launched and it can be used to test new anti-aircraft missile systems and air-defense artillery systems, the source said.

According to the source, “four launches were made during the state tests - two launches of the target missile designed to fly at high altitudes and two launches of the low-altitude version of the target missile”.

The Strizh-4 target missile is fitted with onboard equipment which includes a radar system designed to establish the parameters of engagement with an anti-aircraft guided missile, photosensitive elements to determine ammunition activation time, and fragmentation sensors. All data is transmitted to the ground and then deciphered.

 (Article, Link) 

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