Fractional Orbital Bombardment System

hello everybody welcome back to another brand new episode of megaprojects in this one more cool stuff that came out of the cold war and by cool i mean really terrifying weaponry this is all about the fractional orbital bombardment system this is something i'd never heard about before so i said to the writer for megaprojects ollie i'd like to learn more about this fractional orbital bombardment system and i was like okay simon i wrote a huge script on it have fun and here we go during the 1950s and 1960s both the us and ussr actively searched for the best methods to annihilate each other spoiler alert this was probably one of them the specter of a nuclear war between the two superbass was not only a possibility but one that came frighteningly close on several occasions the quite obvious problem about launching a nuclear strike on a country which itself has a terrifying nuclear arsenal is that it can hit back with equally devastating power planes submarines missiles all of these were explored as potential nuclear carriers but an idea emerged in the soviet union in the 1960s which could have revolutionized warfare a plan to launch nuclear weapons into a low earth orbit then de-orbit them at just the right time reigning hell and brimstone down on u.s cities it may sound like science fiction but it was all very real and it was known as the fractional orbital bombardment system i hope we're going to start calling it fobs because it's really long now before we dive in with the history around this system let's set the scene just a little bit more by the early 1960s both the us and the ussr were rather indiscreetly racing each other in a global arms race each side now had nuclear capabilities complete with nuclear submarines aircraft that could carry heavier nuclear bombs and of course intercontinental ballistic missiles which could be launched at targets thousands of miles away you might be wondering at this point and with all of that did they really need to go into low earth orbit and the short answer is of course no they didn't however while the intercontinental missile seemed like the perfect solution to a quick nuclear strike protection systems against such an attack were also being developed the u.s had laid out its anti-ballistic missile system which in theory could intercept incoming ballistic missiles before they could reach american shores if a missile was ever launched you can bet that in theory they'd be like the idea behind the fobs was both very simple and yet very complex at the same time the concept was for a nuclear warhead to be launched on the back of a pre-existing rocket to a height of around 150 kilometers that's 93 miles where it would go into a low earth orbit as it drifted over its target it would deorbit and come plunging down the soviets estimated that the u.s would only have around a two-minute warning before the strike importantly the warheads could travel over both poles meaning they could evade detection from the north american aerospace defense command no red the early warning system it would sort of be the equivalent of sneaking in the back door except you've got a nuclear bomb on you soviet leader nikita khrushchev even made this ominous warning global rockets can fly from the oceans or other directions where warning facilities cannot be installed given global missiles the warning system in general has lost its importance global missiles cannot be spotted in time to prepare any measures against them and with this with all the complaints about global politics in 2020 and many of them are justified but that sounds worse [Music] considering sputnik only launched in 1957 it really didn't take long for attention on space travel to move from scientific research to something altogether far more destructive some say that the idea for the fobs even originated around the same time as the first satellite in space ah humans hey we could put something in space let's get a nuclear bomb up there by the 1960s there was a general belief that the u.s was probably planning something similar so those in power began pressing for some initial plans for a fob system u.s plans for a similar system pretty much stopped in 1963 because officials believed that the new intercontinental ballistic missiles could perform a similar job apparently the soviets didn't believe these reports and so they pushed on with their own system soviet engineer sergey korolev was responsible for the early stages of the fobs process he designed the gr1 also known as global missile one which was essentially a slightly adapted intercontinental ballistic missile the gl1 was composed of three stages that would be fired successively in a pre-set plan depending on the target and it weighed 117 tons now we do like to keep our comparisons fresh on megaprojects and today we're going prehistoric that 117 tons is around the same it's about 17 tyrannosaurus rex's other rocket was powered with cryogenic liquid using a mix of rg1 kerosene with liquid oxygen and measured 35.31 meters in length 2.68 meters in diameter and was designed to carry a single 2.2 megaton yield nuclear warhead but if there's anything we've learned from the soviet military production during this period it was that they very rarely put all of their eggs in one basket and the fobs was certainly no different two further options were put forward for consideration the ur-200a which was based on the ur-200 icbm and used the rd-0202 and rd-0205 engines for the first of two stages of flight while carrying an ab200 aeroballistic warhead the third option came from the soviet missile design of mikhail yangle was the r-360 again composed of three stages the last of these stages came to be known as the ogch and would need to combine the de-orbiting process as well as the warhead guidance and delivery the aiming system would need to be carried out before the firing of the third stage which would push it towards its target the deorbiting would be done by firing the missile's retro rocket a small auxiliary booster designed to slow the rocket down the r-360 was 32.6 meters long with a 3 meter diameter and a weight of 180 tons now there is some debate about what yield the r360 could have carried with soviet sources claiming 5 to 20 megatons while western analysts suggesting 1 to 3.5 megatons in 1965 a decision needed to be made that must be said that at this stage we don't believe that any full-scale tests have been done on any of the three designs so while a choice was made the exact reasons behind it are just a little bit vague the third option i mentioned the r360 was the design that was eventually chosen for further development but this choice may have had more to do with the negatives attached to the two other designs rather than the design chosen being a genuinely good design in itself the first option the gr1 had been designed to use a cryogenic propellant which was deemed a risky fuel to use within a contained silo area not to mention providing quite a slow refueling process there were also reservations about some of its design features specifically the gr1s ad726 retro rockets which had seen failures in general tests what's more doubts seemed to linger over how well the gr1 would deal with the american anti-ballistic missile system meanwhile the ur200a seems to have fallen out of favor because of personal relationships soviet leader nikita khrushchev had been a great supporter of this option but his ousting in 1964 and the subsequent power group that took control were just less enthusiastic both the ur200a and the gr1 were cancelled in 1965 leaving only one standing the r360 the baikonur cosmodrome in modern kazakhstan was the site of some truly extraordinary soviet endeavors over the years and it was here that the fractional orbital bombardment system along with the r-36os were first tested by the way i've got another channel called geographics where we specifically cover places and we've done a whole video about all the crazy stuff that went on at baikonur if you just search baikonur cosmodrome geographics you will find it i tell you that because i'm probably going to forget to include a link in the description there we go two test pads were modified during 1965 to accommodate this new weapon and its early tests but this was just the start from 1965 to 1971 18 silos were built to house and launch the r-36os around the baikonur area these were built in three stages six at a time and were placed 10-15 kilometers apart to minimize the chance of all of them being destroyed in a single attack by 1971 24 tests involving the r-360 had been carried out the first four were launched from a ground-based testing pad and flew over the kamchatka peninsula in eastern russia while the rest were launched from silos into orbit during these more advanced tests the third stage of the rocket launch was done above the pacific ocean with the payload being directed back into soviet territory it certainly wasn't something that they wanted just crashing down in a hostile country understandably over 2 000 people took part in these tests six of which were thought to be complete failures with the rest being recorded as partial or complete successes the first test took place on the 16th of december 1965 and missed its landing area by a considerable distance because of instrument malfunctions on board the next test on the 5th of february 1966 was also a failure but this time because of the retro rockets the third test on the 16th of march 1966 was certainly not the charm as nitrogen tetroxide leaked over the launch pad before the test creating a fire that unfortunately destroyed the missile the fourth test yielded some success on the 20th of may 1966 but the payload it didn't break away from the guidance system as it was supposed to the first two tests launched from silos were also failures and they resulted in intentional destruction via the self-destruct component as both rockets saw their second stages activated for too long sending the r-360 into a higher orbit than was planned nato radar systems were able to record the resulting explosions and the debris from one of these failures was said to have fallen somewhere in the american midwest 1967 saw 10 more r360 tests nine of which had some degree of success the ussr also began using the cover story of satellite launches into space in order to mask their actions by november 1968 shortly after the 20th test launch the r-360 was officially designated as operational and it was deployed in three groups of six by 1971 all 18 of the r36o silos that had been built now housed one of the rockets but it would be another year before their nuclear payloads arrived it's particularly terrifying that such a system was not only tried and tested but was eagerly awaiting the orders to fire nato intelligence from the time suggested that the primary target was not washington d.c or new york but u.s grand forks air force base in north dakota where an abm system was built in the early 1970s [Music] now of course the fobs system was never activated for real you would definitely know about that happening the world may have tiptoed to the edge of nuclear war on several occasions but it also managed to backtrack just in time like much military hardware which appeared during this dizzyingly manic arms race the fob's face becoming obsolete soon after its completion and because of this the story came to an end in 1982 when the decommissioning of the project began so why did a plan that had incurred so much time energy and money fall out of favor so quickly now those of you watching with a bit of a keen interest in history might point towards the 1967 outer space treaty in which countries from around the world basically agreed not to use weapons in outer space but that isn't what happened here because the r-360 missile was designed for low orbit it was technically exempt from the treaty and even the us government which seemed to already know a great deal about the fobs agreed that it wasn't covered by this treaty the forbes was always a doomsday scenario and was generally believed to be an accelerant of the cold war arms race while it may have appeared like soviet authorities were hell-bent on war at times that was not always the case levelheads really did often prevail and the ussr knew when to pull back during the early 1970s the soviets discovered that in fact the u.s had not developed a similar system this put them in this awkward position of both appearing like the aggressor and also holding the upper hand had it not been for other problems the soviet union may well have continued but with mounting concerns this project was really doomed from the start the two major reasons for the cancellation of fobs came from technical requirements not only was the nuclear payload capacity significantly less on the r36o than on an icbm due to the energy needed to get it into orbit but it was also far less accurate its circular error probability the radius of a circle in which a minimum of fifty percent of the warheads would be expected to hit was more than three miles another hammer blow to the fobs was the development of the submarine-launched ballistic missiles slbm which could carry a heavier payload and would strike with even less warning a submarine could just wait patiently off the us coast and fire off a missile which would be almost impossible to defend against this was coupled with the knowledge that the u.s defense system was rapidly improving and there was a growing belief in the soviet military community that in fact the r-360 may not have been able to do what it was designed for there are numerous instances when the world came perisically close to all-out war some we know about like the cuban missile crisis and most we likely don't know about either way the world emerged pretty much unscathed from all of this nuclear posturing the forbes was undoubtedly one of the most terrifying yet fascinating weapon systems developed during the cold war but it was just a step too far the hard truth is that fobs would never have been able to provide the kind of accuracy and payload capacity to make a meaningful first strike on the u.s and perhaps that was why the americans seemed fairly relaxed about the whole thing and why it just wasn't included in the outer space treaty as it is fobs will always be remembered as that time the world lurched just a little bit too far the idea of shooting nuclear weapons into low earth orbit sounds crazy enough to be considered science fiction but by 1972 18 silos in the soviet union were primed and waiting to do just that it's impossible to know just how serious the soviets were about it all maybe it was just a giant bluff and if not just how close did we come to one of those silo doors sliding open and a missile coming out of it it's a question we may never be able to answer and when you imagine the apocalyptic results maybe we shouldn't always know about these near-misses so i really hope you found that video interesting i am a huge sci-fi fan so it always blows my mind when stuff like this was happening in the 1970s uh if you like this video please do hit like subscribe to this channel by the way if you're not already subscribed i know most people watching this i know you're not subscribed i can see in the analytics like 70 of people who watch this channel are not subscribed so smash that subscribe button you obviously made it to the end you like it or maybe you just hate watch in that case there is a dislike button below that you are very free to use and thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 495,776

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Id: 3jrZ933P-Iw

Length: 15min 18sec (918 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 28 2020