Soviet Air Defense Forces
The Soviet Air Defense Forces ( Russian Войска противовоздушной обороны , PWO) were the armed forces of the Soviet Army responsible for defending the airspace of the Soviet Union .
history
After the Second World War , the national and home air defense units were still part of the army. In the mid-1950s, the development of high-flying supersonic aircraft advanced. The air defense systems of the time proved to be barely able to cope with this threat. In addition, there was the development of thermonuclear weapons, which were even more destructive than the previous atomic bombs. Faced with these threats, the Soviet government gave an early order to begin developing efficient anti-aircraft missiles. With the increasing importance of air defense, a separate armed force was established from 1954 . Leonid Alexandrowitsch Goworow became the first commander-in-chief of the air defense forces .
The Soviet air defense included the radar and later satellite-based early warning system against nuclear weapons strikes and the other units of air surveillance. PWO's weapon systems were the missiles to which the Soviet Union was entitled under the ABM Treaty , thousands of surface-to-air missiles that replaced the anti - aircraft tube artillery since the 1950s, and jet-propelled interceptors . In 1991, among other things, there were 475,000 soldiers, 100 ABMs, 2370 interceptors and approx. 8650 surface-to-air launchers in around 1200 positions.
The air defense existed as an independent branch until 1998. Missile defense and space defense were added to the strategic missile forces , interceptors and anti-aircraft missiles to the air forces of the Russian armed forces, which emerged in 1991 from the air forces of the Soviet Union .
| 1965 | 1970 | 1975 | 1980 | 1985 | 1990 | 1991 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 440,000 | 500,000 | 500,000 | 520,000 | 635,000 | 500,000 | 475,000 |
Aircraft types
The air defense forces were primarily equipped with interceptors, which were primarily designed to intercept long-range bombers over the vastness of the Soviet Union.
- Sukhoi Su-9 (1959)
- Tupolev Tu-128 (1963)
- Sukhoi Su-11 (1964)
- Sukhoi Su-15 (1967)
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 (1970)
- Sukhoi Su-27 (1984)
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-31 (1981)
Anti-aircraft missiles
The air force has had a dense network of anti-aircraft missile positions since its inception. In 1990 several different types of missiles were in use.
- 1400 S-25 Berkut
- 2400 S-75 Dwina
- 1000 S-125 Neva / Pechora
- 1950 S-200 Angara / Wega / Dubna
- 1700 S-300 - the most modern air defense system at the time of the dissolution of the USSR
- ABM-1 Galosh - missile defense , part of the A-35 ABM system
Special events
- Two Swedish planes shot down over the Baltic Sea , 1952
- A Lockheed C-130 shot down over Armenia , 1958
- A Lockheed U-2 was shot down during a spy flight over Sverdlovsk , 1960
- A North American Sabreliner of the USA was shot down over the GDR in January 1964
- A B-66 was shot down in March 1964 , which, according to the USA, erroneously reached GDR territory on a navigation flight, but which would also have been suitable for espionage.
- Forced emergency landing of Korean Airlines Flight 902 after an airspace violation, 1978
- Crash of an Argentine CL-44 cargo plane after colliding with a Su-15 over Azerbaijan .
- Downing of Korean Airlines flight 007 after airspace violation, 1983
- Prevention of nuclear war by Stanislaw Petrow , 1983
- Flight from Mathias Rust to Moscow, 1987.
Commander in Chief
- Soviet Union:
- Leonid A. Goworow (1954–1955)
- Sergei S. Birjusow (1955–1962)
- Vladimir A. Sudetsch (1962–1966)
- Pawel F. Batizki (1966–1978)
- Alexander I. Koldunow (1978–1987)
- Iwan M. Tretjak (1987-1991)
- Russia:
- Viktor A. Prudnikow (1991–1997)
- Wiktor P. Sinizin (1997–1998)
literature
- James T. Quinlivan: Soviet strategic air defense: a long past and an uncertain future . RAND Corporation , 1989.
- Pavel Podvig (Ed.): Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces . MIT Press, Cambridge / Massachusetts, London / England 2004, ISBN 0-262-66181-0 , pp. 399-466 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ International Institute for Strategic Studies: The Military Balance 1991–1992, London 1992, p. 38.
- ↑ Fighter Aviation (Istrebitel'naya Aviatsiya) / Samolet Istrebitel Perehvatchik Aircraft Fighter Interceptor. In: globalsecurity.org. Retrieved March 15, 2017 (English).
- ↑ The mysterious shooting down of a US jet over the GDR , Welt, February 2, 2014
- ^ Cold War in Gardelegen , Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, March 1, 2014
- ↑ Saturday July 18, 1981 , AviationSafetyNetwork
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
