Strategic missile forces of the Soviet Union

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Sleeve badges of the missile troops and artillery of the land forces

The Strategic Missile Forces of the Soviet Union ( Russian Ракетные войска стратегического назначения , РВСН ) were part of the Soviet Army from 1958 to 1992 . In the official ranking of the armed forces of the Soviet Army, the missile troops took first place before the land forces. The Soviet operational principles differed in the surface-to-surface missiles for strategic, operational and tactical missiles. Missile systems of strategic importance equipped with nuclear warheads with ranges of 1,000 km or more were combined in the Strategic Missile Forces. Troops equipped with operational-tactical missile complexes with ranges of several hundred kilometers were assigned to the armies or army corps (in peacetime the military districts). Tactical missile complexes were assigned to the motorized rifle and tank divisions. They were used to combat targets in the division's area of ​​responsibility and had a range of up to 120 km.

history

US ICBM deployment map

The beginnings of the armed forces go back to the first Soviet studies of captured German missiles of the type Aggregat 4 (V-2) . In 1945 the "father" of Soviet missile technology, Sergei Pawlowitsch Koroljow , came to the central works in Bleicherode (Thuringia). In May 1946 the 92nd Guard Throwing Regiment of the GSBT in Berka was commissioned to secure the booty and take over the documentation for the A-4 and from December 1950 belonged to the 22nd Special Brigade of the Reserve of the High Command (RWGK). Another three special brigades were set up. The 92nd Guards Launcher Regiment was transferred to Kapustin Yar in the summer of 1947 . On October 18, 1947, the first shooting down of the R-1 ( NATO code name : SS-1A Scunner) took place on the test site in Kapustin Jar. In November 1950, the missile was removed from the Soviet Army. The R-1 could carry a conventional warhead of 785 kg up to 270 km, with an accuracy of about 5 km. By 1953, the engineering brigades were formed from the special brigades of the reserve of the high command (RWGK) and were stationed in Belokorowitschi ( Zhytomyr Oblast ), Kamyshin ( Volgograd Oblast ) and in Kapustin Yar . In addition to the R-1, other missiles were developed and tested until 1959. Tests on the R-2 began in 1949 and the Soviet Army introduced this type from 1953. In March 1953, tests of the R-5 (NATO code name: SS-3 Shyster) were carried out and the version from 1956 onwards could also carry nuclear warheads. In 1958, the R-5 was briefly stationed in the GDR and Czechoslovakia during the Berlin crisis . Your intended targets were air force bases and ports in the Federal Republic , the Netherlands , Belgium and US missile positions in Great Britain .

RSD-10 with mobile launch pad MAZ-547W

On September 2, 1959, the nuclear ballistic medium-range missile R-12 ( NATO code name : SS-4 Sandal) was successfully tested and was also available in a silo version from 1960 . Due to the increasing importance of military ballistic missiles during the Cold War , the "Strategic Missile Forces " ( Russian: Ракетных войск Стратегического назначения ) were created on December 17, 1959 , and later in "Rocket Forces and Artillery of the Land Forces" ), commonly referred to as Strategic Missile Forces, set up as a new branch of the Soviet Army. The previous engineering brigades of the reserve of the high command (RWGK) were disbanded in July 1960. Missile brigades were set up from the engineering brigades, artillery brigades and other troop units and missile divisions were subordinated. The missile divisions were in turn subordinated to missile armies. On September 1, 1960 the 43rd Missile Army (previously 43rd Air Army) was set up in Vinnytsia , ( Ukrainian SSR ) and the 50th Missile Army (previously 50th Air Army) in Smolensk . In 1961 the 51st Missile Army was set up in Chita ( RSFSR ). The new branch of arms included the missile brigades of the military districts and groups of the front and army levels, the missile departments for tactical purposes of the motorized rifle division and the armored division as well as the artillery.

The headquarters was established in Vlasikha . The first commander in chief became the commander of the artillery forces and deputy minister for special armaments Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin . In November 1961, the missile troops took part in the strategic command post exercise, where the use of ICBMs against the USA was also trained on a large scale for the first time. The staff of two missile armies , five missile corps , 32 missile divisions and 72 missile regiments took part in the exercise. As early as May 1961, the 23rd Missile Division and the 41st Missile Corps had carried out a maneuver that provided for the use of 460 medium-range missiles and 108 ICBMs.

Before the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, Space and Underwater came into force, the Strategic Missile Forces carried out several nuclear weapon tests by firing R-12 and R-14U missiles. So in early September 1962, about a month before the Cuban missile crisis south of Chita an R-14 carried by thermonuclear charge of 1.9 Mt over a distance of 3748 km and exploded at the test site in the Mitjuschikabucht on the island of Novaya Zemlya .

In 1962, under the leadership of Sergei Biryusov, 36 R-12s were moved to Cuba under the control of the 50th Missile Division (mostly regiments of the 43rd Missile Division of the 43rd Missile Army) as part of Operation Anadyr .

The number of missile units of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces continued to grow enormously and in 1965 reached the number of over 40 missile divisions and brigades. In 1970, further rocket armies were put together from various rocket corps set up in 1961 and some rocket corps were disbanded. From July 1970, the 27th Guards Missile Army in Vladimir ( RSFSR ), the 31st Missile Army in Orenburg ( Kazakh SSR ) and the 33rd Missile Army in Omsk (RSFSR) were set up. On December 17, 1980, the Pioner-UTTH - a modified RSD-10 Pioner ( NATO code name : SS-20 Saber) - was added to the armament of the Strategic Missile Forces.

In 1984 around 1,398 ICBMs and 28 missile bases belonged to the Strategic Missile Forces.

With the signing of the INF Treaty on December 8, 1987, the number of strategic missile troops was also reduced. In 1989 there were still 300,000 soldiers in the missile troops, which were divided into six missile armies, each with three to five missile divisions. Each missile division contained missile regiments, each with 10 missile launch systems and around 400 soldiers.

From 1988, the RS-21M Topol (SS-25 Sickle) ICBMs were stationed at nine different locations from former missile silos for the SS-13, SS-17 and SS-20, and as a mobile version on the carrier vehicles MAZ-7912 and MAZ-7917 .

With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Strategic Missile Forces of the Soviet Union also ended. On May 7, 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree that established the Russian Defense Ministry and placed all former Soviet armed forces on the territory of the former RSFSR under the control of the Russian Federation . Today's Strategic Missile Forces (Raketnyje woiska strategitscheskowo nasnatschenija Rossijskoi Federazii; RWSN) of Russia are in the tradition of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces .

Strength of the Strategic Missile Forces
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1991
49,000 110,000 350,000 350,000 385,000 300,000 260,000 165,000

structure

  • 31. Missile Army
  • 33rd Missile Army
  • 43rd Missile Army
  • 50th Missile Army
  • 53rd Missile Army

Commander in Chief

literature

  • David Miller: Soviet Rocket Forces (Soviet Military Power), September 1988, ISBN 0-86625-333-5 .
  • Matthias Uhl : Stalins V-2, the technology transfer of the German remote control weapons technology in the USSR and the development of the Soviet rocket industry 1945 to 1959. Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-7637-6214-0 .
  • Dimitrij N. Filippovych, Vladimir I. Ivkin: The Strategic Missile Forces of the USSR and their participation in Operation Anadyr (1962). In: Dimitrij N. Filippovych, Matthias Uhl (ed.): Before the Abyss: The armed forces of the USA and the USSR and their German allies in the Cuba crisis. Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-59278-5 .
  • Steven J. Zaloga : The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000 . Random House, 2002, ISBN 1-58834-007-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rocket Forces of the Group of the Soviet Armed Forces in Germany: The Formation of the Soviet Rocket Construction and the Soviet Rocket Forces.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: Fokus-net.de , Flyer, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.fokus-net.de  
  2. ^ Mathias Uhl: War for Berlin ?: The Soviet military and security policy in the second Berlin crisis 1958 to 1962. Publications on SBZ / GDR research in the Institute for Contemporary History. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58542-1 , p. 172.
  3. ^ Soviet Union: A Country Study. on: marines.mil , p. 703 ff.
  4. ↑ Christopher Davis: THE DEFENSE SECTOR IN THE ECONOMY OF A DECLINING SUPERPOWER: SOVIET UNION AND RUSSIA, 1965-2000. ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 157 kB) on: economics.ox.ac.uk , p. 12, ISSN 1471-0498 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.economics.ox.ac.uk