Oka missile (OTR-23 / SS-23)

Development

In the mid-1970s the Kolomna Machine-Building Design Bureau (KBM), under Sergey Nepobedimy, began developing the Oka to replace the 9K72 Elbrus (NATO: SS-1C Scud B), which was slow to launch, used hazardous fuel and was inaccurate. The 9M714 missile used solid fuel so it could be fired quickly by a small crew with few support vehicles. Flight testing began at the Kapustin Yar range in 1978; state trials fired 26 missiles through 1979, and the system entered service in 1980. Missiles were built at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant and launcher chassis at the Bryansk Automobile Plant.

Design

The 9M714 was a single-stage solid-propellant missile with a separating warhead, combining an inertial guidance platform with active radar terminal homing to achieve a circular error probable of about 30 m. Its range was reported as 50 km minimum and over 500 km maximum; by warhead, the AA-60 (9N63) nuclear variant (9M714B) reached 500 km, the fragmentation-HE variant (9M714F) 450 km, and the cluster variant (9M714K) with 95 submunitions 300 km. A chemical warhead was also reported. The 9P71 launcher was mounted on an amphibious BAZ-6944 8×8 chassis, crewed by three, and could go from march to launch in under five minutes.

Deployment and transfers

The Soviet Union exported the missile to Warsaw Pact states. Between 1985 and 1988 Bulgaria received 8 launchers and 24 9M714K missiles, East Germany 4 and 18, and Czechoslovakia 4 and 18. In April 1990 the Soviets informed the United States of their covert transfer of missiles to these states during the INF negotiations, causing a diplomatic controversy. The transferred missiles appear to have carried only conventional warheads, though equipment for loading Soviet nuclear warheads was apparently retained.

INF Treaty and elimination

The Soviet military asserted that the Oka's maximum range was 400 km, while American experts estimated a greater range. In 1987 Mikhail Gorbachev proposed to George Shultz that he would unilaterally remove all Okas if it would prevent a US build-up of short-range nuclear forces in Europe, but Shultz lacked the authority to act on the suggestion. Gorbachev included the Oka among the systems to be eliminated under the INF Treaty as a gesture of goodwill, even though Soviet assertions of its range did not put it within the treaty's specifications.

Documents released by the National Security Archive show that the US side pressed for the inclusion of shorter-range nuclear missiles, and specifically the newly deployed Oka, in the treaty. As a result the USSR had to destroy 239 Okas, which broke the negotiating deadlock but drew heavy criticism within the military. Trials of the improved Oka-U were also terminated that year. After the Soviet collapse, the Okas remaining in former Warsaw Pact states were phased out: Bulgaria in 2002, Slovakia in 2002 (for USD 16 million in US compensation) and those left in East Germany in the early 1990s.