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Full title is Intercept 1961 - The Birth of Soviet Missile Defense. By Mike Gruntman, a hardcover AIAA publication. Picked this up today, thanks to the awesome power of Amazon's same day delivery service.
This is basically the story leading up to the 1961 ABM tests out of Sary Shagan. There's some discussion of follow-on work like the S-225 and System A-135, but most of it deals with the personalities and programs that led to the first ABM intercept in 1961 and the deployment of System A-35 around Moscow.
An early chapter also covers the deployment of the S-25 around Moscow as well; its inclusion relates later to the overall Moscow air defense network, including the forthcoming System A-35.
There are a ton of great declassified satellite photos and CIA site diagrams.
If it has one fault, it's that there's not enough attention given to the development of the A-350 interceptor for System A-35, it basically gets a sentence. Also, while Dal is mentioned in a few places in context with air defense developments, it would've been nice to see it deconflicted with the V-1000 ABM interceptor used in the 1961 test, as the two are often confused in many other publications. Basically I think this could've been a significantly larger volume, but for what it is it's very well done.
Seriously recommended; while you can get a lot more information and backstory out of many Russian language sources, this is a must-read if you're restricted to the English language. Plus, most of the great Russian material is used as reference material by the author, so a lot of the big points are mentioned.
This is basically the story leading up to the 1961 ABM tests out of Sary Shagan. There's some discussion of follow-on work like the S-225 and System A-135, but most of it deals with the personalities and programs that led to the first ABM intercept in 1961 and the deployment of System A-35 around Moscow.
An early chapter also covers the deployment of the S-25 around Moscow as well; its inclusion relates later to the overall Moscow air defense network, including the forthcoming System A-35.
There are a ton of great declassified satellite photos and CIA site diagrams.
If it has one fault, it's that there's not enough attention given to the development of the A-350 interceptor for System A-35, it basically gets a sentence. Also, while Dal is mentioned in a few places in context with air defense developments, it would've been nice to see it deconflicted with the V-1000 ABM interceptor used in the 1961 test, as the two are often confused in many other publications. Basically I think this could've been a significantly larger volume, but for what it is it's very well done.
Seriously recommended; while you can get a lot more information and backstory out of many Russian language sources, this is a must-read if you're restricted to the English language. Plus, most of the great Russian material is used as reference material by the author, so a lot of the big points are mentioned.
