Comment by gorgoiler
5 hours ago
I believe there was a similar weapon being developed in the west, only recently, which involved a missile with contra rotating halves joined by a clutch. The fixed fins caused it to always steer one way. It flew straight by releasing the clutch to spin up the front half, negating the steering effect. Grabbing the clutch caused it to stop spinning and veer off in one direction.
Presto! Two axis continuous flight control with a 1-bit input.
Edit: my memory wasn’t far off. It’s Starstreak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak
35-ish years ago there was a pitch for cheap, high velocity, spin-stabilized rockets that were deployed in dense pods on the A-10. The rocket's seeker could divert some small amount of thrust at an angle for guidance, but otherwise that was it. I can't recall if it ever made it out of the pilot phase, but obviously nothing new under the sun.