2K12 Kub - Development

Development

The development of the 2K12 was started after 18 July 1958 at the request of the CPSU Central Committee. The system was set the requirements of being able to engage aerial targets flying at speeds of 420–600 m/s at altitudes of 100 m to 7 km (4 mi) at ranges up to 20 km (12 mi), with a single shot kill probability of at least 0.7.

The systems design was the responsibility of the now Tikhomirov Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Design (NIIP). In addition to NIIP several other design bureaus were involved in the creation of the Kub missile system including the now JSC Metrowagonmash (former MMZ)which designed and produced the chassis of the self-propelled components. Many of the design bureaus would later go on to co-operate in the development of the successor to the 2K12 "Kub", the 9K37 "Buk"

First trials of the missile system were started at the end of 1959 to discover a series of problems:

• low power for the missile radar seeker and badly designed nose cone,
• missile air inlets design failure,
• low quality of heat shield inside the afterburner chamber (titanium was replaced by steel).

Those failures resulted in some 'orgchanges': In August 1961 Toropov was replaced by Lyapin as the Chief Designer of Vympel and in January 1962 Tikhomirov was replaced by Figurovskiy as the Chief Designer of NIIP. Still, the work wasn't intensified. Before 1963 only 11 of 83 missiles fired had the seeker head installed, only 3 launches were successful.

Kub downed its first ever air target on February 18, 1963 during the state trials at Donguz (Russian: Донгуз) artillery testing range, Orenburg Oblast. It was an Ilyushin Il-28 bomber.

The system entered an extended testing period between 1959 and 1966, after overcoming the technical difficulties of producing the 2K12 "Kub" the system was accepted into service on the 23rd January, 1967 and went into production that same year.

It is sometimes claimed that the M-11 Shtorm (SA-N-3) naval system is a version of the 3M9 but this is not the case, as the M-11 Shtorm is a separate system and, unusually for Russian surface-to-air missiles, has no land-based variant.

The 2K12 "Kub" was recommended for modernisation work in 1967 with the goal of improving combat characteristics (longer range, improved ECCM, reliability and reaction time). A modernised variant underwent trial testing in 1972 eventually being adopted in 1973 as the "Kub-M1". The system underwent another modernisation between 1974 and 1976, against the general combat characteristics of the system were improved with the "Kub-M3" clearing testing and entering service in 1976.

After the Chief designer Ardalion Rastov visited Egypt in 1971 to see Kub in operation he came to the certain conclusion for the development of a new system, called Buk, where each TEL should have its own fire control radar (TELAR) and is able to engage multiple targets from multiple directions at the same time.

The final major development of the Kub missile system was achieved during the development of its successor, the 9K37 "Buk" in 1974. Although the Buk is the successor to Kub it was decided that both systems could share some interoperability, the result of this decision was the "Kub-M4" system. The Kub-M4 used Kub-M3 components which could receive fire control information from the 9А310 transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) of the 9K37 Buk. The advantage interoperability was an increase in the number of fire control channels and available missiles for each system as well as a faster service entry for Buk system components. The Kub-M4 was adopted into service in 1978 following completion of state trails.

Some early development interpretations of Buk missile system heavily utilized the Kub components including the 3M9 missile.

There are several plans to integrate a active radar homing missiles into Kub. For instance, Polish WZU of Grudziadz shows a project of Sparrow-armed Kub at the MSPO 2008 defence exhibition in Kielce. It is reported also that Vympel initiated some work to use its RVV-AE air-to-air missile to modernise the Kvadrat SAM system.

Also, the Czech company RETIA presented a SURN (fire control radar) upgrade featuring an optical channel and new multiple-function color displays as well as the radar upgrade and the IFF system.

In 2011 a Kub upgraded launcher (named "2K12 KUB CZ") with three Aspide 2000 missiles in launch contrainers was presented on International Exhibition of Defence and Security Technologies (IDET) exposition in Brno. The modifications were made by Retia.