Saddam’s Scud Missiles: The Most Inaccurate Weapons on Earth?
The original Soviet-era missiles performed poorly in accuracy tests, but Iraqi modifications made them far worse.
During the 1991 Gulf War, as the Americans led a coalition against Saddam Hussein to liberate Kuwait, the world became familiar with a handful of weapons platforms that would define the era. The M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank (MBT), the Patriot Missile system, the F-117 Nighthawk stealth plane, and the dreaded Soviet-built Iraqi Scud missile. These were just some of the weapons systems that came to define modern warfare as we know it today.
History of the Scud Missile
The Scud missile system is actually a direct descendant of the old German V-2 rocket that terrorized London in the last part of the Second World War. Rocket science and the scientists who created it were divided up by the victorious Allies and shipped over to the United States and the Soviet Union, where that science was incorporated into the war machines of both states, and used to enhance their respective offensive capabilities.
In this case, the knowledge led to the creation of the R-11 missile. Eventually, the Soviet R-11 gave way to the Scud-A in the early 1950s.
Soviet forces needed an advanced short-range ballistic missile capability. The legendary Soviet rocket engineer, Sergei Korolev and his OKB-1 Design Bureau, created the Scud for use by Soviet forces against NATO. In fact, the Scud short-range missile became one of the most popular and widely recognized Soviet-made systems beginning in the early 1960s, a decade after its original development.
Scud missiles have endured for decades in large part because, like so many successful Soviet-era weapons, they are relatively simple in their design. But, like so many Soviet-era systems, their actual effectiveness in combat was not as great as their ubiquity. Simple systems were cheap and easy to maintain.
But accurate? Not so much.
The Scud Missile’s Specs
These rockets are a single-stage, liquid-fueled system. Each rocket uses kerosene and corrosion-inhibited red fuming nitric acid (IRFNA) with unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) as igniter, which allows for quick deployment but requires careful handling due to the toxicity of the fuels.
Early models of the Scud used basic inertial guidance systems, which made them notoriously inaccurate. During early Soviet tests, there were issues with Circular Error Probabilities, CEP, in the hundreds of meters. As an aside, CEP is defined as “the radius of a circle centered at the aimpoint, which has a 50 percent probability of hit.”
And the Iraqi variant of the Scud, the Al-Hussein, was even more inaccurate than the original Soviet version! Saddam’s modified Scuds were known to break up upon re-entry in the atmosphere, dispersing all manner of debris and complicating interception attempts.
But in Saddam’s case, the greatest weakness of the Scud—its inaccuracy and unpredictability—was in certain cases a great advantage. And the warheads it could carry ranged from conventional to chemical and biological in nature.
Indeed, American intelligence during Desert Storm was constantly concerned that Saddam, who was prolific in his previous use of chemical and biological weapons against his enemies during the 1980s, would place such warheads on the Scud and fire them at unsuspected targets. Luckily, there were no known instances where this was done.
The Checkered Service History of the Scuds
It was not only the Gulf War where the Scuds were used. They have service records in the Yom Kippur War (1973), where they were deployed by Egypt against Israel. During the Iran-Iraq War, both sides used Scuds. The Iraqi Al-Hussein variant of the Scuds was first used in the Iran-Iraq War as part of Saddam Hussein’s strategy to wage the “War of the Cities,” where he (and eventually the Iranians) targeted the enemy’s major urban centers in a bid to break the will to resist of their enemy.
The apotheosis of the system’s service, though, was in Desert Storm. Saddam used his Scuds against Israel and Saudi Arabia. It was these attacks by Saddam that brought the Scud missile system into the American public’s attention.
During the Gulf War, Iraq fired around 88 Scud missiles.
Of these, 46 were directed against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, while 42 were fired at predominantly-Jewish Israel. Saddam was hoping that the attacks would provoke Tel Aviv into attacking Iraq because the introduction of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) into the Arab Muslim coalition supporting America would have likely broken that coalition and, therefore, given Iraq a reprieve.
Saddam modified the original Scuds he received from the old Soviet Union and extended their range by adding larger fuel tanks and lighter warheads. But these changes increased the inaccuracy of the weapon even further.
Where the Scuds came in handy was their psychological impact. These weapons were cheap and could be launched with reckless abandon. Even the inaccuracy of these systems, at times, enhanced the fear surrounding them because one could never quite be sure of where they were set to land.
A Wildly Inaccurate Weapon
Given enough chances, the missiles were eventually bound to hit something important. On February 25, 1991, Iraq attacked the U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where a single Scud killed 28 soldiers. That single incident accounted for more than one-third of all American combat deaths in Desert Storm.
Ultimately, the Patriot missile system was created specifically to defend against Scuds. It worked. The Scud missiles today are not as much of a factor as they had been during the Cold War era because the Patriot systems are so effective against Scuds.
Still, Saddam’s wanton use of the missiles during the Gulf War in 1991, and American and allied forces’ deep concerns about their impact, led it to be etched into the pages of history.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.