| RSD-10 Pioneer SS-20 Saber |
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|---|---|
| Type | Intermediate-range ballistic missile |
| Place of origin | Soviet Union |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1976–1988 |
| Used by | Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology |
| Manufacturer | Votkinsk Machine Building Plant |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 37,100 kg (82,000 lb) |
| Length | 16.5 m (54 ft) |
| Diameter | 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) |
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| Warhead | Three 150 kt MIRVs |
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| Engine | Two-stage solid propellant |
| Operational range |
5,500 km (3,400 mi) |
| Guidance system |
Inertial |
| Accuracy | 150-450 m CEP |
| Launch platform |
Road-mobile TEL |
The RSD-10 Pioneer (Russian: ракета средней дальности (РСД) «Пионер» tr.: Raketa Sredney Dalnosti (RSD) "Pioner"; English: Medium-Range Missile "Pioneer") was an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead deployed by the Soviet Union from 1976 to 1988. It carried GRAU designation 15Zh45. Its NATO reporting name was SS-20 Saber. It was withdrawn from service under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
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The missile was 16.5 m high, 1.79 m in diameter and weighed 37.1 tons. It was based on two solid-fuel fibre-glass clad stages of the RT-21 Temp 2S (SS-16 Sinner) so it was also known as the RT-21M Pioneer. The missile's range was from 600 to 5,000 km initially; the final model had a maximum range of possibly 7,500 km. Initially the missile was fitted with a single 1 Mt, 1.6 ton warhead, later models could take one warhead or two and from 1980 three MIRV'd 150 kt devices (Pioneer UTTH). The CEP was also reduced from 550 metres to 150–450 meters. The missile was the first Soviet missile equipped with solid fuel instead of liquid fuel, which meant that it could be launched once the order had given instead of wasting hours doing the dangerous work of pumping the missile with liquid fuel.[1]
It was intended to replace, or augment, the R-12 Dvina (SS-4 Sandal) and R-14 Chusovaya (SS-5 Skean) missiles deployed from 1958 and 1961 respectively in the USSR and Warsaw Pact states. It entered the development stage in 1966 [2] and a design concept was approved in 1968 and the task given to the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology and Alexander Nadiradze. Flight testing began in 1974 and deployment commenced on March 11, 1976, with the first supplied units becoming operational in August of that year. Up to 1986 a total of 48 launch sites, including a site at Pavschino, were equipped with 405 RSD-10 missiles under control of the Strategic Rocket Forces.
There were several theories as to why the Soviet Union developed the SS-20:
During the 1960s, Soviet missile procurement was dominated by the ideas of Defence Minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko who was opposed to the idea of nuclear weapons as a weapon of last resort, and planned that if World War III began to begin that conflict with an immediate nuclear strike on the NATO nations.[8] By the early 1970s, Grechko's views had caused opposition within the military and the political leadership, who wanted the Soviet Union to have a second strike capacity in order to prevent a war with the United States from going nuclear immediately as Grechko preferred.[9] More importantly, the increasing influence of Marshal Dmitriy Ustinov heralded a shift in Soviet thinking about nuclear weapons.[10] Ustinov was a man closely connected with the various Soviet design bureaus, and who generally sided with demands of the design bureaus against the military regarding weapons procurement.[11] The decision to order and introduce the Pioneer in the mid-1970s was in large part due to Ustoinov's wishes to shift military procurement out of the hands of the military into the design bureaus, who in turn pressed for more and varied weapons as a way of increasing orders.[12] The British historian James Cant wrote that it was the triumph of the Soviet version of the military-industrial complex over the military as regarding weapons procurement that was the most important reason for the Pioneer.[13]
The Warsaw Pact enjoyed in Central Europe a massive conventional superiority over NATO. Soviet leaders assumed that NATO would use Theater Nuclear Forces to stop a massive Warsaw Pact offensive.[14] The RSD-10 provided the Soviet Union with an in-theater "selective" targeting capability that it previously had lacked. The RSD-10 had the capacity to destroy all NATO bases and installations with negligible warning. Thus, the Soviet Union acquired the capability to neutralise NATO's tactical nuclear forces with surgical nuclear strikes.
In 1979 NATO decided to deploy US Pershing II and Tomahawk missiles in Western Europe in attempt to counter the RSD-10. In 1979, when the NATO decision was taken, the Soviet Union had 14 (1 operational) SS-20 launch sites.
654 missiles were built in total. These and the 499 associated mobile launchers were destroyed by May 1991 in accordance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Fifteen SS-20 and Pershing II are preserved to commemorate this agreement. One RSD-10 can be seen in the grounds of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Kiev, Ukraine, and another is inside the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at Washington, D.C..