Strela 2 - Development

Development

The end of World War II saw a major shift in Soviet defense policy. The advent of long range, high altitude, nuclear-armed American bombers, capable of penetrating Soviet airspace at heights and speeds unreachable and unmatchable by anti-aircraft guns and most interceptors, appeared to render every conventional weapon obsolete at a stroke. Numerous long-range, high-altitude SAM systems, such as the SA-1 "Guild" and SA-2 "Guideline", were rapidly developed and fielded to counter this large vulnerability. Due to the apparent 'obsolescence' of conventional arms, however, relatively little development took place to field mobile battlefield air defenses.

This direction was soon changed with the beginning of the Korean War. An entirely conventional conflict, it proved that nuclear weapons were not the be-all and end-all of warfare. In the face of a powerful and modern American air force, carrying non-nuclear payloads, the Soviet Union invested heavily in a multi-tier air defense system, consisting of several new mobile SAMs, to cover all altitude ranges and protect ground forces. The new doctrine listed five requirements:

• Front-level medium-to-high-altitude area defense system 9K8 Krug (NATO designation SA-4 “Ganef”)
• Army-level low-to-medium-range area defense system 3K9 Kub (NATO designation SA-6 “Gainful”)
• Division-level low-altitude short-range system 9K33 Osa (NATO designation SA-8 “Gecko”)
• Regiment-level all-weather radar-guided gun system ZSU-23-4 “Shilka” and very-short-range missile systems Strela-1 (NATO designation SA-9 "Gaskin")
• Battalion-level man-portable Strela-2 (NATO SA-7 “Grail”)

Both Strela-1 and Strela-2 were initially intended to be man-portable systems. As the Strela-2 proved to be a considerably smaller and lighter package, however, the role of the Strela-1 was changed, becoming a heavier, vehicle-mounted system with increased range and performance to better support the ZSU-23-4 in the regimental air defense role.

As development began in the Turopov OKB (later changed to Kolomna), detailed information on the design of the US FIM-43 Redeye became available. While it was by no means a simple reverse-engineered copy, in many ways the Strela design borrowed heavily from the Redeye, which had started development a few years earlier. Due to the comparatively primitive Soviet technical base, development was protracted, and many problems arose, especially in designing a sufficiently small seeker head and rocket. Eventually the designers settled for a simpler seeker head than that of the Redeye, allowing the initial version, the 9K32 “Strela-2” (US DoD designation SA-7A, missile round 9M32) to finally enter service in 1968, five years behind schedule.