Published Airpower Journal -
Spring 1988
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Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
To steal a title from Von Hardesty's recent fine volume on the Soviet Air Forces in the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), the development of Soviet "tactical" aviation in the postwar period might well be titled "Red Phoenix Revisited." In this case, however, Marx's famous injunction that great historical events repeat themselves as farce seems hardly to apply. The resurgence of Soviet "tactical" aviation in all its forms represents a formidable military capability that has enhanced the Soviet military's ability to conduct theater-strategic operations relying on conventional combined arms. The path to these capabilities has not been a direct one and can best be understood within the context of the development of Soviet military art in the postwar period.
At the same time, it is critical for our purposes to make quite clear the inadequacy of our conventional terms of reference in dealing with the Soviet Air Forces and Soviet military doctrine, which is not a cognate for what we mean when we use the term military doctrine. Crucial to our understanding of the postwar military doctrine is to recognize the unique and special role that operational art plays in linking together tactics and strategy within the context of modern war. For the purpose of this study, Soviet Air Forces will be addressed within both the operational and tactical contexts, with much greater emphasis on the former because it is the level of war where aviation has its most decisive impact on ground combat and where the Soviets recognize the need to develop mutual support and interaction among combat arms and branches of the armed forces.
When we speak of Soviet Air Forces, we have in mind a number of units that are structured functionally and that exist in a form of dual subordination to their branch, which provides training, supply and logistical support, and a command authority to control the combat employment of the units. The command authority exercising such control has traditionally identified the air combat unit's operational and tactical subordination. Thus, strategic air reserves have been referred to as reserves of the Supreme High Command (Stavka), which in wartime has meant direct subordination to Stavka control. During the Great Patriotic War, Stavka kept control of Soviet long-range aviation but employed it to support deeper strikes (up to 400 kilometers from the line of contact in multifront operations) rather than using it for strategic bombardment of what the Soviets then referred to as the "state rear." In December 1944, Stavka long-range aviation was reorganized into the 18th Air Army and subordinated directly to the command of the air forces. Under this new arrangement, the 18th Air Army took part in the Vistula-Oder, East Prussian, and Berlin operations, where it carried out strikes in the enemy's operational rear.
"Frontal aviation" refers to air assets directly under the authority of a front commander that are earmarked to strike at the enemy at operational depths. Since the 1930s, Soviet theorists had postulated the need for each front commander to have his own air army dedicated to strikes at operational depths (out to roughly 200 to 300 kilometers from the line of contact). In some operations during the final phase of the war, fronts were assigned two air armies, depending upon the nature of the theater, the depth and nature of the enemy defenses, the importance of the front's strategic axis (axes), and the need to achieve simultaneous-suppression of enemy operational reserves.
At the outset of the Great Patriotic War, air assets assigned to close-support missions had been directly subordinated to an army commander, hence the designation "army aviation." Such assets were assigned to carry out missions at operational-tactical depths in cooperation with combined arms formations. These missions included air support, tactical air reconnaissance, tactical airborne landings, and logistical support of mobile groups that were the spearhead of the combined arms formation's advance. Air assets assigned directly to the tactical battle under corps and divisional command constituted "troop aviation." In the 1930s, Soviet corps and divisions had their own light planes for artillery spotting and utility missions. However, during the Great Patriotic War both army aviation and troop aviation were abolished and their assets assigned to the air armies of the fronts. During the war, the Soviet High Command centralized all air assets under the air armies assigned to front commanders. This allowed the front commander, or Stavka representative in the case of multifront operations, to dedicate his air assets to the various missions throughout the depth of the enemy's defenses according to his operational design.1
This centralization facilitated the massed employment of aviation assets on the most decisive axes in any operation throughout the depth of the defense. Developed in theory before the war and put into practice during the second period of the Great Patriotic War, this "air offensive" reached full maturity in the third and final period of the war when it was employed with great effect during the Belorussian, Jassy-Kishinev, Vistula-Oder, East Prussian, Berlin, and Manchurian operations.2 Only in the 1960s did army and troop aviation reappear, this time in conjunction with the development of rotary aviation.3
Roughly speaking, there have been four distinct periods of doctrinal development since 1945, during which the composition, organization, and structure of Soviet Air Forces underwent considerable changes. By the 1980s, aviation in all its manifestations had recast operational art. Then Chief of the General Staff N. V. Ogarkov wrote in 1982 that "the air sphere in combat actions and operations has acquired an ever-growing role, which gives to modern operations a three-dimensional, deep character."4
The path to this present situation contained its own share of twists and ironies. That same path also offers some clues relating to the further development of Soviet Air Forces and their roles in operational art and tactics.
This period found the Soviet Union in a most difficult situation regarding the development of tactical aviation. On the one hand, Soviet frontal aviation in the form of its air armies had proven to be a most effective instrument in the final period of the Great Patriotic War when it was applied as part of a combined arms force to multifront, successive deep operations in Eastern Europe and Manchuria.5 Air doctrine incorporated the basic assumptions outlined in A. N. Lapchinsky's Vozdushnaia Armiia (The Air Army) of 1939, but it stressed the centralized control of air assets to ensure the optimal application of air power during the air operation throughout the depths of the enemy's operational defenses. The air instruments of that combined arms team were fighter, ground-attack, and medium-bomber aircraft. These aircraft reflected a maturity of design and an optimization of existing technology adapted to the East European theater of operations. The emphasis was upon ruggedness, dependability, and sustainability.
On the other hand the pace of technological changes and the emergence of the cold war forced the Soviet leadership into a major reconsideration of the composition and structure of its air forces. Although Soviet aeronautical specialists had foreseen the development of jet propulsion in the prewar period, the Soviet aircraft industry was in a difficult situation when jet-propelled aircraft made their combat appearance with the Luftwaffe.
The development of Soviet jet aircraft in the postwar period followed a three-stage process. The Soviets initially relied on captured German engines to power first-generation jet aircraft that were hardly more than the airframes of propeller aircraft adapted to the new engines. Then came the production of British Nene jet engines under license. Finally, the engine design bureaus of Klimov, Mikulin, and Liul'ka began to produce Soviet engines for a generation of fighters, fighter-bombers, medium bombers, and strategic bombers.6
Hand in hand with the development of jet technology went a structural reorganization of Soviet Air Forces in the immediate post-war years. The appearance of atomic weapons and the emerging geostrategic competition with the United States brought with it renewed interest in long-range aviation. Soviet Air Forces were again divided into frontal aviation and long-range aviation. The former was by far the numerically larger force, organized into formations and units reflecting functional specialization--bomber, attack, and fighter aviation--as well as a general category of "aviation of special designation" that embraced reconnaissance, transport, medical, utility aviation.7
Although Soviet interest in long-range aviation remained a feature of aviation development over the next four decades, the Soviets never developed an enthusiasm for strategic bombing as the most effective means for the delivery of deep strikes against the enemy's state rear. In part, this was a result of the geostrategic situation confronting the USSR, which made forward basing to support such strikes impossible. The low priority for strategic bomber aviation also had its roots in several other factors. First, serious consideration of strategic bombardment only came at a time when a competing delivery system (the ballistic missile) had already appeared and was under development. Second, given the commanding authority of the Soviet General Staff in formulating military art and science, there was no independent institutional voice to promote or to champion strategic bombardment as a definitive element of national military posture. Finally, we should note that the Soviet acquisition of atomic and then nuclear weapons did not lend itself to nuclear "fetishism" in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Atomic bombs, while weapons of mass destruction, could not be mass produced. Even keen American observers believed that the military impact of these weapons would be limited to strategic bombardment for an indefinite period.8
The Soviets responded to the US atomic threat by reorganizing their air defenses. During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet air defense forces had been organized into four fronts (the Western, Southwestern, Central,, and Transcaucasian) and six armies, In 1946 these were reorganized into air defense districts. At the same time, a commander of Soviet National Air Defense Forces (PVO Strany) was appointed. He was immediately subordinated to the commander of artillery of the armed forces of the Soviet Union. This relationship reflected the fact that tubed artillery still represented the dominant weapon of air defense. In 1948, however, PVO Strany became an independent branch of the Soviet armed forces. United under its command were interceptor aviation; antiaircraft artillery (AAA); and the Ground Observation Service, which included radar units, ground observers, searchlight units, barrage balloon units, and other specialized forces. The entire country was divided into border and interior regions. In this period, the conduct of air defense actions in particular regions came under the direction of the commanders of the various military districts.9 The importance of air defense of deep targets was reflected in the decision to turn the first production MiG-15s over to air defense units and in the shift from point defense toward an integrated national system that was designed to inflict heavy losses on invading bombers through integrated and sustained attacks. General Lieutenant M. M. Kir'ian has referred to this effort as "the organization of the air defense operation."10 While this did not mean that the air defense of ground forces disappeared from Soviet military art, it did mean that top priority in the development of combat means and methods went to the defense of the state rear from the US strategic bomber threat. Development of surface-to-air missile (SAM) weaponry received a high priority owing to this particular threat.
All of these developments in the field of aviation took place at a time when the Soviet General Staff was reformulating its notions of strategic operations conducted by multiple fronts in a theater of military actions. The most crucial element to this process of working out the means of conducting strategic offensives was the digestion of the lessons learned during the Great Patriotic War itself. The emphasis was on mutual support and cooperation among all branches of the armed forces in the achievement of decisive results. The most important changes in operational art in the immediate postwar period were a determination of the need for deeper strikes into the enemy defense and an accelerated pace of advance, which was to be achieved by the total mechanization of all ground combat arms and the further development of airborne forces.
In the initial phase of a future war, frontal aviation was expected to win the battle for command of the air over the most decisive offensive axes and to set the stage for a breakthrough and exploitation on the ground, which would end with the encirclement and destruction of the opposing forces. The air offensive was divided into two parts: preparation and support. The former consisted of preliminary air strikes against the enemy's most powerful installations and air assets with the objective of paralyzing the defense and gaining command of the air. Just prior to the start of the ground operation, the focus of the air preparation would shift to direct attacks on enemy defensive positions timed to coincide with the friendly artillery preparation, the objective being to disrupt and destroy the enemy's system of fire throughout the depth of the defense. Once the breakthrough had been achieved, air units were to be redirected to provide support for the advancing forces.11
Thus, the immediate postwar period saw the Soviets try to fit a technologically advancing aviation into their basic design for successive deep operations. The Soviets did, however, acknowledge new missions for aviation in strategic bombardment employing atomic and later nuclear weapons and in the development of an integrated system of national air defense. As a result of the condition of the national economy, the need for immediate demobilization, and the appearance of other competing needs for research and development funding, frontal aviation was modernized at a much slower pace than existing doctrine and military art required. This period came to an end in 1953 with the death of Joseph Stalin and the appearance of the first generation of nuclear weapons, which made possible the production of weapons of truly mass destruction and set off a search for means and methods of employing such weapons.12
The death of Stalin and the emergence of nuclear weapons inaugurated within the Soviet military the second period of postwar doctrinal development and a profound ferment over the implications of the new technologies of strategic destruction and delivery. For roughly a decade, Soviet military theorists associated with the General Staff viewed this nuclear-rocket revolution as a negation of past military experience, making the latter irrelevant to the development of military art. From 1955 they were guided by the Communist party's decision to treat science as an independent element and to accelerate the pace of scientific-technical progress. Operating from a position of absolute strategic inferiority at the start of this period, the Soviet military sought by various means to negate the US advantage while working out means and methods of using the new weapons of destruction. In 1954 the air defense forces were upgraded to an independent service with their own commander in chief, who also served as a deputy minister of defense.13
At the height of the Khrushchev era, Soviet military theorists recast Soviet military strategy along lines that emphasized the employment of the new weapons of mass destruction. In 1959 a new service, the Strategic Rocket Forces, was created.14 And in the same year, a group of authors at the Voroshilov General Staff Academy authored the first study of military strategy by Soviet authors since A. A. Svechin's Strategy had appeared in 1926. In 1962 a new edition of this work was published under the title Military Strategy and under the editorship of Marshal V. D. Sokolovsky, who had been chief of the General Staff when the work was composed. This work summed up the General Staff's assumptions regarding the revolutionary impact of the nuclear-rocket revolution upon military affairs:
Military strategy under conditions of modern war has become the strategy of deep nuclear rocket strikes in conjunction with the operations of all services of the armed forces in order to effect the simultaneous defeat and destruction of the economic potential and armed forces throughout the entire depth of the opponent's territory in order to accomplish the aims of war in a short period of time.15
The organizational, technological, and doctrinal implications of this emphasis on deep nuclear strikes were profound for all the services. In the early 1960s, when Khrushchev's enthusiasm for rocket weapons was most influential, it appeared that all other services would assume an auxiliary role in support of the Strategic Rocket Forces. Ground combat and airborne forces were seen as instruments to be employed after nuclear strikes had disabled the enemy forces. Then tank-heavy ground forces would complete the destruction and occupy important military, economic, and political-administrative regions. The reduced role of ground combat forces in this nuclear-dominated military art was made manifest by the decision in 1964 to abolish the post of commander in chief of Ground Forces, a decision that was reversed in 1967 with the appointment of Marshal I. G. Pavlovsky to the resurrected post.16
Primary emphasis in Soviet aviation during this second period was on those arms that contributed directly to strategic attack and defense. Long-range aviation was rearmed to carry air-to-surface missiles and so became truly intercontinental for the first time.17 Frontal aviation was reconfigured for the delivery of nuclear weapons in the execution of strategic-operational tasks and found itself challenged by ballistic and air-to-surface missiles of all types. Among the most important targets for Soviet air strikes, top priority went to the destruction of enemy nuclear-delivery systems.18 In the late 1950s "Soviet military science concluded that rockets of various types and missions were the basic and most reliable means [of delivery]."19 Long-range aviation was rearmed with air-to-surface missiles; fighter aviation was equipped with a first generation of guided air-to-air missiles; and surface-to-air missiles emerged as a central element of PVO Strany, whose first noteworthy success with the new technology came in May 1960, when an SA-2 shot down a US U-2 reconnaissance aircraft near Sverdlovsk. A wrecked summit conference and political embarrassment for the Eisenhower administration brought the new era into focus for the non-Soviet world.
For the Soviet Air Forces, this incorporation of missile technology brought a radical reorganization of air assets and a reformulation of operational art. "Under these new conditions the air offensive as a form of employment of aviation, which was characteristic for the Great Patriotic War, lost its significance."20 With the integration of the nuclear weapons and missile technology, air tactics underwent a radical shift in which massing of forces gave way to massing of fire. The very concept of command of the air lost its significance under the impact of nuclear-rocket weapons. There appeared in place of the struggle for command of the air the task of eliminating the enemy's means of nuclear attack by destroying his rocket and air groupings of forces.21
One key indicator of this shift was the reorganization of Soviet naval aviation in the late 1950s, when it was stripped of all fighter and attack aircraft and given two key missions: destruction of US aircraft carriers using long-range, missile-armed aircraft, and antisubmarine warfare using fixed-wing and helicopter assets. This decision went hand in hand with decisions to arm Soviet submarines with ballistic missiles, to equip surface combatants with surface-to-surface missiles, and to rely on SAMs and antiaircraft artillery to provide air defense for surface combatants now forced to operate farther from Soviet home waters in their struggle with US nuclear-delivery platforms.22 For frontal aviation, the new nuclear-rockets seemed to provide more effective means of executing the most crucial missions in a modern war dominated by nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the development of aviation technology, especially supersonic bombers, meant that such aircraft were less effective in the role of support over or near the battlefield. At the same time, attack aviation could not meet these new requirements. Thus, attack aviation (shturmovoia aviatsiia) gave way to a new type of aircraft, the fighter-bomber, which first appeared in 1958. The first aircraft of this type, P. 0. Sukhoi's Su-7b, entered production as a fighter but was quickly adapted to the new role.23
Development of the US strategic air threat in the form of SAC's manned aircraft, unmanned air-breathing missiles, and ballistic missiles did lead to greater assets being invested in PVO Strany. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Soviet SAM weaponry appeared in ever-larger numbers and became an integrated part of a national system of air defense. In addition to the application of operations research techniques to the modeling and management of the air defense operation, Soviet PVO Strany emphasized a combined arms approach that linked together a new generation of interceptors and fixed-site SAM systems. Gradually the Soviets began exploring SAM systems optimized for long-, mid-, and short-range interception at high and low altitudes. They developed more advanced fixed, semimobile, and mobile systems and added antimissile and antispace defense to PVO Strany's missions. Radio-electronic warfare and centralized troop control figured prominently in its solutions to the existing air threat.24
The Soviet fixation on a single, nuclear warfighting posture lasted from roughly 1955 to 1964. Khrushchev, although by no means a military expert, exercised a profound influence in pressing such views in the face of powerful institutional interests within the Soviet armed forces and against the doubts and criticisms of Soviet military theorists associated with the General Staff.25 Colonel General M. A. Gareev, a deputy chief of the Soviet General Staff since late 1984, has recently argued that the critics were right. He contends that in evaluating the impact of nuclear weapons, Soviet military theorists who supported Khrushchev's one-sided emphasis upon nuclear-rocket weapons went too far in dismissing the relevance of existing military theory and praxis, especially that of the Great Patriotic War.26
The third period of postwar doctrinal development followed this singled-minded emphasis on nuclear warfighting capabilities, which did not go without challenge. Military Strategy, the major Soviet work on military practice, went through three revisions in the six years between 1962 and 1968. In response to the US formulation of "flexible response" in the first years of the Kennedy administration, Soviet authors began to address the possibility that a major war between capitalism and socialism might involve an initial conventional period of undetermined length. By 1968 the certitude about the immediate and decisive role of nuclear-rocket strikes in such a war gave way to a question:
But in essence, the argument is about the basic method of conducting a future war: will it be a land war with the use of nuclear weapons as a means of supporting the operations of ground troops, or a war that is essentially new, where the main means of solving strategic tasks will be the nuclear-rocket weapon? The theory of military art must give an answer to such important questions as: what types of strategic actions will be used in a nuclear war, and what form must military operations take?27
Even prior to this admission of doubt, some Soviet authors had reasserted the need to address these issues within the context of prior military experience, especially that of the Great Patriotic War. These authors, who included Marshal M. V. Zakharov, chief of the General Staff for much of the 1960s, reasserted the relevance of the theory of deep operations as developed in the 1930s and 1940s and applied during the Great Patriotic War. Numerous works on these subjects began to appear in the mid1960s.28
This marked the beginning of frontal aviation's recovery. While some Soviet theorists had seen rocket forces replacing frontal aviation, Major General of Aviation S. L. Sokolov addressed the role of frontal aviation in support of ground forces by calling for an "alliance" between the rocket forces and frontal aviation in which the two would provide mutual support for each other. Sokolov envisioned a division of labor in which each branch would be used under conditions favorable to it. Frontal aviation's primary advantage lay in its ability to maneuver, while the rocket forces could deliver strikes over great distances in very short periods of time. Sokolov reminded his readers of the utility of frontal aviation during the Great Patriotic War, when its aircraft won air superiority and delivered telling blows against enemy ground and air forces.29
In the new situation brought about by the presence of nuclear weapons on the battlefield, Sokolov acknowledged that the top-priority target was the destruction or suppression of enemy nuclear-delivery systems. Here he saw a role for frontal aviation because ballistic missiles were not very effective against mobile targets. Thus, frontal aviation, equipped with air-to-surface missiles, could strike such targets with greater chance of success. He did not, however, confine frontal aviation to that mission. In more general terms, he identified two groups of missions for frontal aviation:
The first are general-frontal missions. They include: aerial reconnaissance over the entire depth of the enemy's operational dispositions; the struggle with enemy aviation on the airfields and with their rockets at their launchers to operational depth; the destruction of enemy nuclear-rocket weapons; cover of troops and rear services from enemy air strikes; the struggle with the enemy's deep reserves, and other.
The second mission (group of missions) are fulfilled by Frontal Aviation in operational or tactical cooperation with the ground forces for their support in the course of battles against an enemy with which they have direct contact. This includes: the destruction of nuclear-rocket weapons at tactical or near-operational depths; the destruction or suppression of the enemy's means of electronic warfare and command and control points on the axis of the offensive of a given operational or tactical grouping of forces, the illumination of a locale or the placement of marker lights for support of the combat actions of the ground forces at night, and occasionally individual sorties with the objective of aerial reconnaissance. This mission is fulfilled, as a role, in accordance with the plan of the all-arms strategic formation (operational formation).30
Taken together, these two sets of missions represented a reformulation of the concept of the air offensive but with a crucial difference. Whereas during the Great Patriotic War the air offensive had been executed by an air army according to the plan of the front commander, the new circumstances demanded strict centralized control of all air assets to coordinate the air operation throughout an entire theaters.31 At the same time, Sokolov flatly stated that the new fighter-bombers could not provide the direct close air support for ground units in their advance. He left this role to the new rocket weapons and assigned the fighter-bombers to "free-hunting" missions in the enemy rear, where they would work closely with air reconnaissance assets. The nuclear-tipped missile had replaced the ground-attack plane, but it could not provide effective fire support during an initial conventional phase.32
This situation became all the more pressing when Soviet military theorists began to address the problem of the initial phase of war and the experience gleaned from modern air combat in local wars. While nuclear weapons still dominated the structure and organization of the various services, Soviet military theorists began to explore a dual-track option that would permit forces to fight conventionally and to shift to nuclear employment if the need arose. These doctrinal requirements radically exceeded what Soviet force planners could deliver in the 1960s, but they provided an agenda to guide the modernization of Soviet combat arms and support services into the next decade.
One of the first indications of this new agenda for the Soviet Air Forces was the Domodedovo Air Show of 9 July 1967, when the Soviets unveiled a new generation of aircraft that reflected a renewed commitment to frontal aviation and combined arms doctrine. On that Day of the Air Fleet, the Soviets displayed a new generation of fighters with variable geometry wings, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOL), and short takeoff and landing aircraft (STOL).33 The new models of even conventional aircraft, including the Su-17 (Fitter-C/D), represented a substantial improvement over the earlier generation of fighter-bombers because of increased weapons load, more powerful engines, and the addition of an electronic countermeasures (ECM) pod to increase their ability to penetrate enemy radar and strike deeper targets. Foreign observers noted the increased combat capabilities of these aircraft in nonnuclear wars. In 1968 Colonel N. Semenov reintroduced the term command of the air to the Soviet military lexicon and flatly stated exactly the same point:
It is becoming quite obvious from the above [a discussion of the increased capabilities of modern aircraft] that the necessity of gaining air supremacy in conducting military operations without the use of nuclear weapons in modern conditions is becoming even more acute than in the past. However, it is clear that it will be considerably more difficult to resolve this problem. it will require a reevaluation of many factors and a different approach to the use of forces and means.34
By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union stood in a position to explore whether such a conventional option was militarily feasible.35
The 1960s had been a decade devoted to securing an invulnerable strategic capability that would provide the Soviet Union with strategic parity, thus negating US strategic superiority at the outset of the decade. This situation undermined the symmetrical logic of "flexible response" and "forward defense" in NATO by undercutting the rationality of the conventional/theater-nuclear/strategic linkage, which was the keystone of NATO doctrine and the foundation of its force structure. For the Soviets, this was the military context of the era of detente between East and West. According to Soviet authors, NATO acknowledged this situation officially in 1978, although US pressure on its allies in 1977 to increase defense spending was a clear indication of the dilemma.36 NATO sought a solution to the problem of Soviet/Warsaw Treaty Organization conventional superiority in the context of superpower strategic parity through modernization of its own theater-nuclear forces. The Soviets, while modernizing both their strategic and theater-nuclear arsenals, looked to enhanced conventional capabilities as a viable path to keeping the military instrument as a rational extension of politics.
The fourth period of postwar doctrinal development can be seen in the Soviet approach to a conventional solution to the problem of using military power in the context of strategic nuclear parity. The approach implied a commitment to use conventional means to shift the theater-nuclear correlation of forces in favor of the USSR and its allies while seeking military decision through the operational application of a new generation of conventional weapons technology.37 As recent writings on tactics suggest, Soviet military theorists have not ignored the presence of nuclear weapons but have sought to adjust their force-structuring to reflect a search for optimal conventional impact and the ability to shift swiftly to nuclear combat if the situation demanded it.38
This posture involved a sweeping investigation of military praxis in theater-scale operations. Soviet theorists focused on three sources of experience: their own World War II experience, the experience of recent local wars, and the lessons from Soviet field exercises and wargames.
The Great Patriotic War provided the closest approximation of the scale and intensity of combat that they envisioned. This brought with it a very close examination of the problem of troop control and a consideration of automated systems to aid operational commanders in conducting modern deep operations. It culminated in the emergence of the concept of the theater-strategic operation with a TVD (theater of military operations) commander and his headquarters to direct it.39 In operational terms, the Soviet theorists began to emphasize the decisive nature of the initial period of war as a means of successfully shifting the correlation of forces. And they sought means of applying combat power to preclude enemy recourse to nuclear weapons within the theater and to force a decision upon the opponent without either side resorting to weapons of mass destruction. Soviet writings began to emphasize surprise, deception (maskirovka), the tempo of the advance, and the employment of mobile groups--operational maneuver groups (OMG)--at operational depths.40 The Soviets employed such an operational maneuver group for the first time during the Zapad-81 field exercise.41
The second source of military praxis that Soviet theorists examined in their search for a conventional option was the experience of the local wars of the last two decades. The Soviets observed the US problems with close air support and the search for solutions in Vietnam. In part, this involved the emergence of the helicopter as a combat weapon.42
Soviet interest in helicopters dates back to the pre-World War II period, when they pursued both autogiro and helicopter technology. In the postwar period, the machines designed by Igor Sikorsky in the United States served as an inspiration for the first generation of Soviet machines, and by the 1950s the Soviets were giving substantial attention to the military applications of helicopter technology, including heavy-lift vehicles such as the Yak-24 and Mi-6.43 Vietnam and the earlier French employment of armed helicopters in Algeria opened up the possibility of creating armed versions. The initial Soviet response was to add weapon pods to the Mi-8T (Hip-E) which went into production in 1966.44 This short-term solution was followed by the development of a strictly military helicopter designed for air assault and fire-support missions-the Mi-24 Hind, which first flew in the early 1970s and went into series production in 1972. The Mi-24 has since undergone numerous modifications to make it more effective as a close-fire-support system against enemy armor and infantry.
With the Hind's appearance, the Soviet aircraft industry provided the armed forces with its first true close-air-support tool since the 1950s. This air assault-attack aircraft (desantno-shturmovik) has continued in production for over a decade with more than 2,300 in military service by mid-1983 and many more being exported around the world.45 Hinds and Hips are organized into squadrons (18 machines) and provide-direct close-air-support assets to division and army commanders. Each division has a single squadron of such aircraft, while each army has an assault helicopter regiment (40 Hinds and 20 Hips).46 In exercises a flight of attack helicopters has been assigned to support a motorized rifle battalion acting as a forward detachment. Forward air controllers with the battalion provide communications with a flight of attack helicopters.47
Army and front commanders also have available to them air assault units, which range from air assault and air mobile assault brigades and an airborne division at front level to an air assault battalion with tank and combined arms armies. These air assault/air mobile forces have been widely used in Afghanistan in conjunction with Hind attack helicopter squadrons and have proven a deadly foe for the mujahidin. There is even some evidence that the Soviets have sought to adapt the Mi-24 to antihelicopter operations.48
At the present time, the Soviets have under development a successor generation of helicopters, with improved close-air-support and antihelicopter capabilities. These include the Mi-28 Havoc and Kamov's new Hokum, which some Western observers have identified as helicopters optimized for air-to-air combat. This development goes hand in hand with a radical improvement in the lift capability of Soviet transport helicopters, especially the Mi-26 Halo, which can carry 20 tons at a cruising speed of 158 miles per hour.49
In addition to pointing out the application of rotary-wing aircraft to close air support, local wars in Vietnam and the Middle East raised four other crucial questions or issues with which Soviet frontal aviation and air defense forces had to deal. First came the recognition that the decision to go with fighter-bomber aircraft as a universal type had created platforms unsuited to either role.50 This recognition led to a shift back toward aircraft optimized for fighter, interdiction, and close-air-support missions.
The second issue concerned the transformation of modern, high-performance aircraft into effective close-support and interdiction systems against enhanced air defense forces. This led to an investigation of precision-guided munitions, which reduced air losses and radically increased the probability of destroying ground targets.51 The Soviets developed their own first-generation, smart weapons and acquired a fourth generation of jet aircraft to deliver them, including a fixed-wing, ground-attack plane; the Su-25 (Frogfoot-A).52
The third issue raised by air combat in local wars related to the development and employment of modern air defense systems. The Soviets were in an obvious position to recast their air defense concepts on the basis of the experience of Vietnam, the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. All these conflicts underscored the need for a combined arms approach to air defense by forging SAMs, AAA, and interceptors into an integrated air defense system with increased maneuver capabilities so that forces can be regrouped to perform new tasks in the course of an operation or during a subsequent operation.53
In the same context, local wars provided a stimulus for a fresh look at the air defense of ground forces employing both active and supporting means.54 This problem, in conjunction with the appearance of a new generation of cruise missiles with enhanced flight and target-acquisition capabilities, led to a reorganization of Soviet air defense forces. This reorganization has involved a shift in assets away from those dedicated to the strategic mission of homeland defense toward combined arms employment with frontal aviation in support of deep operations.55 There has been a decline in the number of heavy interceptors over the past 15 years and an increase in the number of fighters suited for forward air defense and the struggle for air superiority. The appearance of the MiG-29 Fulcrum with STOL capability and advanced avionics and weapons seems to fit in with this shift as well.56
The fourth issue highlighted by the experience of local wars was the question of air combat tactics. The improvement of standoff weapons for middle-distance combat, the development of increasingly sophisticated means of electronic warfare, and the performance characteristics of third-generation jet aircraft in close combat forced the Soviets to reexamine the problem of air-to-air combat and the superiority of the two-plane "flight" as the optimal tactical formation.57
In all these areas, the local wars of the last three decades have provided the Soviets with valuable data on tactical problems relating to the new technologies that have been developed for air combat, and they have allowed Soviet theorists to address the critical problems that such changes create for mutual support and cooperation at the tactical and operational levels of war. Afghanistan since 1979 has provided valuable practical experience in the application of frontal and army aviation in tactical situations.
The third and final focus of Soviet efforts to develop the concepts and force structures for the execution of theater-strategic operations has been their own exercises and wargames.58 They have tried to use such exercises and maneuvers for the training of troops as well as for adapting arms and cooperation on the modern battlefield.59 During Zupad-81, the Soviets employed an operational maneuver group with helicopter air assault and fire support to test the concept's effectiveness as part of their theater-strategic operations.60
Soviet authors have been quite explicit about the critical role of the air operation in their conception of such theater-strategic operations. Command of the air over the main axes of advance has been directly associated with the need to blast air corridors through enemy air defense assets. Soviet authors have linked this process to the struggle for air superiority and the anti air operation. One source notes that "questions of the preparation and conduct of the air operation for gaining command of the air, conducted with the purpose of destroying the enemy aviation grouping on specific axes, have been worked out."61 The basis of the anti air portion of this operation was the assumption that the best means of air defense was the destruction of enemy air assets on the ground.62 Such an operational conception places a high premium on surprise and preemption during the initial period of war. At the same time, it requires that air units and their logistical support network be both rugged and flexible in order to survive and sustain combat operations.
At the same time, Soviet authors have stressed the fact that winning the electronic battle is indispensable to the success of such air operations. This was one of the central lessons they drew from both the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Falklands War.63 The Soviet approach to the theater-strategic operation as a conventional option remains true to the classic terms of Soviet deep-operation theory in its emphasis on a combined arms approach and the integration of new means of striking the enemy's operational rear. The partnership that developed between frontal aviation and Soviet rocket forces has not been abandoned under this new situation. Instead, the rocket forces have been equipped with a new generation of conventional warheads that will allow them to attack stationary targets with an effect similar to that of small tactical nuclear weapons of a generation ago.64
Some authors have compared this Soviet approach to the adaptation of modern combat means with blitzkrieg warfare.65 Others, most notably the late Richard Simpkin, have seen these developments as a "search for simultaneity throughout the depth of the defense" in which the Soviets are banking heavily upon air mobile, mechanized forces to support their mobile groups in high speed, offensive operations. Simpkin expressly linked this approach to new potentialities that were emerging as a result of development in helicopter aviation, which he termed as nothing less than a rotary revolution as profound in its implications as that associated with the mechanization of warfare in the 1930s. Simpkin saw this search for simultaneity as ongoing and unrealized but thoroughly in keeping with Soviet operational art as it was developed in the 1920s and 1930s by Marshal M. N. Tukhachevsky and his colleagues.66 Frontal aviation has a critical role to play in such operations in cooperation with other arms and services. For all the technological changes and developments, its role still fits within that outlined by A. N. Lapchinsky in Vozdushnaia Armiia on the eve of World War II when he said, "In order to conduct a maneuver war, one must win the air-land battles which begin in the air and culminate in victory on the ground and this requires the concentration of all air forces at a given time on a given front."67 At the present time, such operations begin with the seizure of "command of the air" over the theater of military operations or on the axis of the main blow. Command of the air is achieved by a combination of blows aimed at destroying the enemy's basic aviation groupings, defeating his air defense forces, and disrupting his system of command and control.68 For all the technological changes and organizational innovations, a core element of doctrinal continuity remains.69
1. M. N. Kozhevnikov, Komandovanie i Shtab VVS v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine, 1941-1945 gg, (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), 255-56.
2. Ibid., 168 ff.
3. Voennyi Entsiklopedichaskii Slovar' (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1983),43, 155.
4. N. V. Ogarkov, Vsegda v Golovnostik Zoshchits Otechestva (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1982), 44. Ogarkov identified four other factors that have shaped the development of military art in the postwar fashion in a fundamental way. These are the scientific-technical revolution in military affairs. which has promoted qualitatively new military technology and weaponry and mandated a search for new methods and means of employing them; the increased tempo of technological change, which has reduced the time between qualitative leaps and thus accelerated change in military affairs; the growth in the significance of strategic means of conducting war to such an extent that such means can directly influence its course and outcome; and the transformation of the very process of troop control, which has become more integrated and reliant on automated systems.
5. Kozhevnik.v, 164ff.
6. A. S. Yakovlev, 50 Let Sovetskogo Samoletstmeniia (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968), 117-19.
7. Ibid., 235-36.
8. Vannevar Bush. Modern Arms and Free Men: A Discussion of the Role of Science in Preserving Democracy (Boston: Simon & Schuster, 1949), 109-10.
9. Voiska Protivovozdushnoi Oborony Strany: I storicheskii Ocherk (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968), 349-58.
10. M. M. Kir'lan, Voenno-Tekhnicheskii Progress i Vooruzhennye Sily SSSR (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1982), 238.
11. Ibid., 242.
12. David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1983), 28-38.
13. Voennyi Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar', 154.
14. Kir'ian, Voenno-Tekhnicheskii, 256-65.
15. V. D. Sokolovsky, ad., Voennnia Strategiia, 2d ed. (Moscow: Voyenizdat. 1963), 10.
16. Voennyi Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar', 720.
17. P. S. Kutakhov, Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1977), 54.
18. Kirian, Voenno-Tekhnicheskii, 253-54.
19. Ibid., 264.
20. S. A. Krasovsky, ed., Aviatsiia i Kosmonavtika SSSR (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968), 349.
21. Ibid., 350.
22. Jacob W. Kipp, "Soviet Naval Aviation," in Soviet Naval Influence: Domestic and Foreign Dimensions, ed. Michael MccGwire and John McDonnell (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1977), 208-9.
23. Vaclav Nemecek, Sowjet-Flugzeuge (Steineback-Woerthsee: Luftfahrt-Verlag Walter Zuerl, n.d.), 112.
24. Ibid., 266.
25. Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament (New York: Bantam Books, 1976), 16-29, 44-56, 250-62; and Olog Penkovsky, The Penkovsky Papers (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1965). 252-57.
26. M. A. Gareev, M. V. Frunz--Voennyi Teoretik (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1985), 238-39.
27. V. D. Sokolovsky, Voennaia Strategiia, 3d ed. (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968), 289.
28. M. V. Zakharov ed., Voprosy Strategii i Operativnogo Iskusstva v Sovetskikh Voennykh Trudakh 1917-1941 (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1965); and M. V. Zakharov, "O Teorii Glubokoi Operatsii." Voenno-Istorichreskii Zhurnal, no. 10 (October 1970): 20.
29. S. L. Sokolov, "Aviatsionnaia Podderzhka Sukhoputnykh Voisk," Voennaia Mysl', no. 7 (July 1965): 33.
30. Ibid., 34.
31. Ibid., 36-37.
32. Ibid., 33-36.
33. A. Yakoviev, Tsel' Zhizni (Moscow: Political Literature Publishing House. 1966), 595-99.
34. N. Semenov, "Gaining Supremacy in the Air," Voennaia Mysi', no. 4 (April 1968), as trans, FPD 0052/69 in Joseph D. Douglas, Jr., and Amoretta M. Hoeber, Selected Readings from "Military Thought," 1963-73, vol. 5, Studies in Communist Affairs, pt. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1982), 203.
35. Lynn Hansen. "The Resurgence of Soviet Frontal Aviation," Strategic Review, Fall 1978, 73-74.
36. V. Meshcheriakov, "Osnovnye Etapy Razvitiia Ob' edinennykh Vooruzhennykh Sil NATO," Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, no. 1 (January 1984): 77-80.
37. N. V. Ogarkov, Istoriia Uchit Bditel'nosti (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1985), 40-54.
38. V. G. Reznichenko, ed., Taktika, 2d ed. (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1984), 14-18, 45-71, 91-92.
39. For an excellent discussion of this topic, see Michael MccGwire, Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1987), 117 ff.
40. On these developments, see S. V. Ivanov, ed., Nachal'nyi Period Voiny (Po Opytu Kampanii i Operatsii Vtoroi Mirovoi Voiny) (Moscow: Voyenizdat. 1974), 4-22; M. M. Kir'ian, Vnezapnost' v Operatsiiakh Vooruzhennykh Sit SShA (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1982); Reznichenko, 152-73; and Ogarkov. Istoriia Uchit Bditel'nosti, 76-90.
41. Jeffrey Simon, Warsaw Pact Forces: Problems of Command and Control (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), 192-94. For the best discussion of the OMG, see Christopher Donnelly, "The Soviet Operational Maneuver Group: A Challenge for NATO," Military Review 63, no. 3, (March 1983): 43-60.
42. Kir'ian, Naucho-Tekhnicheskii. 284; and I. E. Shavrov, ed., Lokal'nye Voiny: lstoriia i Sovremennost' (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1981), 252-53.
43. Krasovsky. Aviatsiia i Kosmonavtika SSSR, 324-25.
44. Bill Gunston. Aircraft of the Soviet Union (London: Osprey Publishing, Ltd., 1983), 196-97.
45. Ibid., 200-2.
46. Roger E. Bort, "Air Assault Brigades: New Element in the Soviet Desant Force Structure," Military Review 10 (October 1983): 34.
47. V. Perelygin, "Sviaz' v Peredovom Otriade (Iz Opyta Deistvii Sviazistov Noch'iu)," Voennyi Vestnik, no. 5 (May 1986): 77-80.
48. Krasnaia Zvezda(24 January 1984), 1; and "Takticheskaia Zadacha," Voennyi Vestnik, no. 5 (May 1986): 32; and "Razbor Reshenii Takticheskoi Zadachi." Voennyi Vestnik, no. 10 (October 1986): 16-17. Soviet authors have also analyzed Western writings an the helicopter in aerial combat. See M. Fesenko, "Vertolet Protiv Vertoleta," Aviatsiia i Kosmonavtika. no. 3 (March 1984): 46-47.
49. Bill Gunston and Mike Spick, Modern Fighting Helicopters (New York: Crescent. 1986), 76-77, 144-47. Like all other Kamov helicopters, Hokum appear. to have a coaxial rotor system very different from Mil OKB's Hind or Havoc. The superiority of such a rotor system for an aerial combat environment in terms of direct shaft-to-lift power. ability to climb and descend rapidly, and maneuver swiftly by using control surface. as against a tail rotor must be judged against the problem for rotor fouling during turns and banks when the blades are under dynamic loading. In looking at the helicopters built by Mil OKB and the park of helicopters around the world, A. M. Volodko and A. L. Litvinov pointed out recently that conventional rotor-tail-rotor ships seem to have considerable advantages over coaxial-type helicopters. It is still unclear whether the Kamov OKB has made such a breakthrough and that a new generation of coaxial interceptor-holicoplers has arrived. On the Mil approach, see A. M. Volodko and A. L. Litvinov, Osnovy Konstruktsii i Tekhnicheskoi Ekspluatatsii Odnovintovykh Vertoletov (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1986), 3-24.
50. Iu. Kisliakov and V. Dubrov, "Novye Cherty Vozdushnogo Bois," Aviatsiia I Kosmonavtika, no. 11 (November 1984): 14.
51. Kir'ian, Voenno-Teckhnicheskii, 287-88; and V. A. Sokolov, "Razvitie Taktiki Istrebitelei-bombardirovshchikov v Lokal'nykh Voinakh," Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, no. 4 (April 1986): 65-72.
52. Bill Sweetman, "Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot," International Defense Review, no. 11 (November 1985): 1759-62.
53. V. K. Strel'nikov, "Razvitie Sredstv PVO I Opyt Ikh Primeneniia v Lokal'nykh Voinakh," Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, no. 5 (May 1986): 62-67.
54. Iu. A. Andersen, A. I. Drozhzhin, and P. M. Lozik, Protivovozdushnaia Oborona Sukhoputnykh Voisk (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1979), 72-73.
55. On the abolishment of PVO Strany and the reemergence of Voiska PVO as a force designed to provide forward air defense and support of theater-strategic operations, see Russell G. Breighner, "Air Defense Forces," in Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual, ed. David Jones (Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International Press, 1984), vol. 7 (1982-1983), 158-76.
56. Georg Panyalev, "MiG 29 Fulcrum: Details to Date," International Defense Review, no. 2 (February 1987): 145-47.
57. Iu. Disliakov and V Dubrov, "Novye Cherty Vozdushnogo Boia," Aviatsiia i Kosmonavtika, no. 9 (September 1984): 12-14; no. 10 (October 1984): 30-31; no. 11 (November 1984): 13-15; and no. 12 (December 1984): 30-32.
58. I. E. Shavrov and M. I. Galkin, Metodologiia Voenno-Nauchnogo Poznaniia (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1977), 5-7, 261-63.
59. M. A. Gareev, Takticheskie Ucheniia I Manevry (Istoricheskii Ocherk) (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1977), 5-7, 261-63.
60. Jeffrey Simon, Warwaw Pact Forces: Problems of Command and Control (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), 192-94.
61. M. M. Kir'ian et al., Istoriia Voennogo Iskusstva (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1986), 404.
62. Andersen, Drozhzhin, and Lozik, 71.
63. S. V. Seroshtan, "Radioelektronnaia Bor'ba v Lokal'nykh Voinakh na Blizhnem Vostoke," Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, no. 3 (March 1985): 62-67; and R. Loskutov and V. Morozov, "Nekotorye Voprosy Taktiki Vooruzhennogo Konflikta v Livane v 1982 Godu," Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, no. 7 (July 1984): 75-78. On the Soviet analysis of the Falklands conflict, see Jacob W. Kipp, Naval Art and the Prism of Contemporaniety: Soviet Naval Officers and the Falklands Conflict (College Station, Tex.: Center for Strategic Technology, Texas A & M University, 1984).
64. Kerry L. Hines, "Soviet Short-Range Ballistic Missiles: Now a Conventional Deep-Strike Mission," International Defense review, no. 12 (December 1985): 1909-14.
65. P. H. Vigor, Soviet Blitzkrieg Theory (London: Macmillan Press, 1983), 1-9.
66. Richard Simpkin, Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-First-Century Warfare (London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1985), 145-61.
67. A. N. Lapchinsky, Vozdushnaia Armiia (Moscow: Gosvoyenizdat, 1939), 144.
68. Voennyi Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar', 2d ed. (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1986), 205.
69. In assessing trends in the development of ground force tactics into the twenty-first century, Col Stanislaw Koziej of the Polish People's Army identified the basic direction of such changes as "the transformation of traditional land combat into air-land combat. . . ." This he explicitly associated with the development and introduction of precision weapons and helicopters on an increasingly broader scale, as well as the rapid tempo of electronization and automation of the basic processes of armed combat. See Stanislaw Koziej, "Przewidywane Kierunki Zmian w Taktyce Wojsk Ladowych," Przeglad Wojsk Ladowych, no. 9 (September 1986): 9.
Jacob W. Kipp(PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is a senior analyst with the Soviet Army Studies Office of the US Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and is currently coeditor with Robin Higham of the Garland Series, Military History Bibliographies. Dr. Kipp was a professor of Russian and Soviet history at Kansas State University and has served as associate editor of Military Affairs and Aerospace Historian. He has published extensively in Russian and Soviet military and naval history and coedited with Higham Soviet Aviation and Airpower (1977).
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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