| The film of the Trident failure was almost identical to an early
launch in the U.S. Army's Pershing I missile program. The Pershing
failure was determined to be caused by fin/jet vane actuators having
been mis-wired. When the G&C (Guidance & Computer) section sent
course correction signals, the fins and vanes moved in the opposite
direction from that which was intended. The accelerometers continued
to sense the direction, the G&C continued to send corrections, and
the Pershing looped almost identically to yesterday's Trident.
In Pershing's case, the error was costly, but relatively easy to
fix.
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| There wasn't enough detail in the picture to make out names. In fact,
to me it looked just like the US tracking ship, the Redstone. But thats
probably because its the only one I've seen close up. Whatever, it had
a couple of large radomes... I thought all Soviet surveillance ships
were made up to look like fishing trawlers :-)
I would not trust the news services to differentiate between the
missile being destroyed by the Range Safety Officer or by internal
guidance command.
FWIW, it looked to me like it had no thrust vector control. There is
usually some tipoff as sub-launched missiles break the surface which
requires immediate correction upon engine start. I watched the footage
about 6 times and didn't observe anything that looked like the missile
was trying to correct.
gary
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| According to the 27 of March issue of Aviation Week
the Soviet Electronic Intelligence ship which are designated
as AGIs that observed the 21 March Trident 2 launch was
one of four new ones of the Balzam class.
The Ships hull number was CCB-571, and is one of four Balzam
class ships that are now operating. It is a desel-powered
ship with a displacement of 5000 tons and a top speed of
20 Knt. The ships are sometime armed with two SA-N-5
short range anitaircraft launchers, each with four missiles.
The surface to Air missile has a range of about 3nm and are
normally found on Ropucha (amphibious ship) , Polnocy
(amphibious ship) and some AGIs platforms
They are manned by naval personnel, fly the Soviet Navel Ensign,
and are easily identified by their varied and unusual electronic
antennas. Some of the AGis are of modified trawler design,
and a number are built for the purpose of intelligence "factories."
The latter of the PRIMORYE class displace about 4000 tons. The
newer large AGI, the BALZAM class, joined the Soviet fleet in 1980.
The BALZAM have a displacement of over 5000 tons not 4000 tons as
mention in the AW article. In fact the hull number were riding
low in the water so it much have had extra equipment aboard.
Soviet AGI-type ships keep watch off of the US missile submarine base
of Holy Loch Scotland , and Guam in the Marianas. AGI also
operates off the Southeastern coast of the United states in
positions that permits surveillance of submarine bases at
Charleston, South Carolina, or Kings Bay, Georgia; and aircraft carrier
off of Virginia or Florida; or the missile activity at Cape Kennedy.
AGIs regularly dog NATO and US naval force during exercise and
are usually present in most Soviet United State naval confrontations.
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