National Air Defense - Early Cold War 1945-1955
From the Soviet perspective, the development of antiaircraft defense after the Great Patriotic War may be divided into two periods: the first, from 1946-53, and the second, from 1954 to 1991. The break between the two periods was delimited by the formation of PVO (Strany) as a co-equal with other services of the Soviet armed forces in May of 1954. Coincidently, the 1953 date conforms to more general Soviet military histories, which acknowledge 1953 as the year of Stalin's death and the year in which the Soviet Union demonstrated its first thermonuclear weapon. Within these divisions, Soviet writers usually characterize the first period as one in which Soviet air forces were equipped with modern jet aircraft. The second period was generally characterized by the deployment of missiles for both ground and aviation air defense components.
The Soviet anti-aircraft system began its rearmament in the 1950s. The appearance of nuclear weapon carriers with intercontinental range (V-50 and V-36 airplanes) after the war rendered air defense strategically important.
In the post-war years the U.S. and its allies, with their planes being unreachable, violated the USSR's borders on many occasions. There were 32 occasions in 1952 alone, and only three invading planes were shot down and another three were damaged. This led to the acceleration of rearmament. In the beginning of the 1950s the Soviet air force acquired the Mig-15, Mig-17 and Yak-25 fighters. In the middle of that decade the air force received its first supersonic Mig-19 fighter, and then the supersonic SU-11, SU-15 and Yak 28P high-altitude interceptors, guided air missiles and the anti-aircraft S-75 ground missiles. By the beginning of the 1960s the combat potential of Soviet air defense had doubled.
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.
During the first decade after the Great Patriotic War, the contrasts between the two air defense systems of the world's greatest continental powers were striking. In the U.S.S.R., the defense clearly dominated Soviet development and deployment of an obsolescent but nationally integrated early warning system, supported by a diversity of improved antiaircraft artillery, high-speed (limited range) jet interceptors and surface-toair missiles (to ring Moscow), all under a single national air defense agency aiming at the military integration of all national air defense resources, including civil defense.
Deeply influenced by traditional non-military considerations, the approach to air defense by each country's leaders was inevitably driven by a distinctive military heritage. For American leaders, the war confirmed the importance of keeping and fighting enemies at a distance, preferably thousands of miles across two oceans. In contrast, the war confirmed Soviet military planners' historic concern with surprise attack, probably from Europe, directed at the heart of the homeland. Unlike the Americans, who had the tradition and the capability of mobilizing and projecting offensive air and naval power over vast distances, the Soviets needed reliable defensive military power, principally ground forces supported by airpower, immediately available since time-distance factors precluded a lengthy mobilization process.
In the context of their distinctive military heritage, 1945 found the Soviets sensitized to the urgency of defense against a probable threat from Europe, where American and British airpower would be the most likely immediate threat. Air defense was, therefore, a matter of priority for the U.S.S.R. Given the available technology (British and German, bought or captured) in the U.S.S.R., the Soviet focus on the application of that technology to improved antiaircraft artillery and the jet interceptor reflected the urgency and single-minded Stalinist decision- style of the period.
Initially constrained by their indigenous technology, the Soviets after 1950 urged advanced interceptor and SAM development while making-do with an improved version of the MiG-15 and passive nationally integrated civil defense system. By 1955, the increasing speed of high-altitude, American jet bombers and a coming generation of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles had seriously eroded the defense utility of the East European buffer and underscored the need for a shift in Soviet emphasis from area and even point defense (whether with AAA, interceptors, or SAMs) to a deterrent offensive capability.
The contrast between the Soviet and U.S. air defense and civil defense programs of the early 1950's appears sharp. American programs slighted air defense in favor of offensive forces; Soviet planners obviously emphasized and sought, as soon as possible, an integrated, national air defense program and supported civil defense. Despite the handicaps of a war-damaged economy; long-standing, unfulfilled promises to the Soviet people of "the fruits of revolution"; and acute technological gaps, the Soviets made substantial progress in the decade after the war to protect the homeland.
By 1953, initial post war early warning had been strengthened by wide-scale deployment of the Token radar, a Soviet V-beam equipment inspired by the U.S. AN/CPS-6 V-beam set. This directly complemented the growth of jet fighters as the dominant and most significant part of the Soviet air defense forces. Soviet radars provided warning and made the fighter more effective by facilitating intercept. Later in the decade, a large-scale deployment of surface-to-air missiles would make ground systems the backbone of the PVO.
In 1953, their development programs were already actively under way. Initial systems tests of the SA-1 took place in late 1952 and construction began in the Moscow area for the operational deployment of this system to begin by 1954. The SA-2 system began development in 1951. At the same time, the Soviets had developed, produced, and deployed in the post war period two new AAA gun systems and new fire control systems including associated radars. Another, heavy gun system was being developed at the time and would be deployed by 1955. Development, production, and deployment of various jet aircraft, bombers, and fighters had already impressed the West and, while the post-Stalin policy review was going on a medium jet bomber, the TU-16 Badger became operational and the MiG-19, an initial, somewhat limited all-weather interceptor, was deployed with Soviet air defense units.
By the mid-1950's, the sizeable Soviet air defense forces; deployed radar warning and surveillance systems; very large numbers of antiaircraft guns and clear-weather fighters; great effort and high priority for developing defensive missile technologies manifested deliberate effort. By the end of the first post war decade, surface-to-air missiles were part of the active defense of Moscow. Civil defense received a big boost during this period when, in October 1952, the 19th Party Congress decided to develop an all-out defense of the Soviet Union.
Soviet national air defense forces grew after Korea and, together with preparations for the incorporation of the SA-1 system, growth helped to promote improved command and control of the growing force. In addition to the reorganization of Soviet armed forces in 1950, the establishment of PVO Strany as an operating organizational structure in 1954 and the employment of fighter aircraft with airborne radar from mid-1954 brought out other requirements for modifications in command and control procedures. Use of airborne radar improved the all-weather capabilities of the system and that fact, building on the operational experience derived from the Korean War, must have influenced control procedures.
U.S. aircraft in Korea found that coordinated employment by the Communists of searchlights and fighters required significant use of electronic countermeasures, both jamming and chaff, in order to defeat those tactics. Communist AAA in Korea-weak by Great Patriotic War standards-lacked radar. U.S. employment of ECM against communist air defense systems in Korea as late as 1953 was assumed to have induced some C2 changes in PVO Strany. A basic concept appeared to have been to have fighter aircraft operate beyond the range of AAA. Soviet actions adhered to the basic operational principle of centralized control of all resources used in air defense. Recognizing such problem areas, Soviet air defense planners sought solutions, and anticipated the introduction of new, improved weapons and the growing needs for the coordination and mutual support of air defense forces deployed as part of PVO Strany.
Indicative of Soviet sensitivity and capability, incidents of reaction to U.S. flight activity in peripheral areas included shooting down a U.S. B-29 in October 1952 over the Kuriles, and another, two years later, over Hokkaido. As further evidence of the violence of Soviet reactions, a Navy P2V aircraft was shot down in September 1954 over the Sea of Japan and, earlier that year in Europe, two Navy aircraft were attacked by Soviet aircraft near the German border with Czechoslovakia. Soviet strategy and action for air defense of the U.S.S.R. in the first decade following Great Patriotic War demonstrate greater emphasis, more extensive commitment and higher national priority than the American effort for continental air defense. Rapid, continuing growth within a phased, orderly development marked the Soviet pattern following a relatively slow start. Technological limitations underlay Soviet moves to provide an effective, integrated national air defense. Qualitative deficiencies and gaps were recognized at the start and intensive effort made thereafter to offset such limitations through relatively large scale, quantitative commitment of resources and systematic wide-scale exploitation of foreign technology. While these conditions induced "crash" actions, progress to achieve an effective national air defense system was steady, consistent, and continuing.
By 1960 US satellite imagery showed the presence of two radar sites associated with the Moscow air defense system. These sites were located near Michurinsk and Temnikov, USSR. Each site consisted of a secured operations area and a nearby support area. The operations area is in the shape of a trapezoid and contains several radars of an EW/GCI type and at least two types of communications antennas; the support area contained bachelor quarters, family quarters, support structures, and utility facilities.
The radar site near Michurirsk is located 5.5 nautical miles east-northeast of the city, at 52°55'N/40°39'E. The secured operations area contained an operations bunker which appears to be designed for a heavy p.s.i. overpressure. It also included two GAGE radars on mounds, two PATTY CAKE radars on mounds, two small unidentified possible radars, one probable CROSS OUT type radar on amound, two communications antennas (probably center-fed and horizontally polarized), one diamond-shaped antenna (probably not a rhombic) with a feed line which appears to lead to the epicenter, and two gable-roped support structures.
The radar site near Temnikov is located 15 nm southwest of the city, at 54°31'N/42°49'E. The secured operations area of this site is similar to the operations area of the site near Michurinsk except that the mound for the probable CROSS OUT type radar was under construction in 1960, and the two small unidentified possible radars are located on elevated platforms. The reason for the elevated platforms may be the close proximity of mature coniferous timber.
Both the Michurinsk radar site and the Temnikov site were on an approximate 200 nm radius from Moscow, and these sites are approxi-mately 125 nm apart. GAGE/PATTY CAKE sites which may be similar had been previously reported on an approximate 200 nm radius from Moscow, near Bryansk, Smolensk, and Borovichi. Assuming that a ring of sites would be located at 125 nm intervals on a circle around Moscow with a 200 nm radius, a total of ten sites would be required. The sites near Michurinsk and Temnikov, along with the three previously reported sites, fit this deployment pattern. Suspected areas to complete the pattern of ten sites included Livny, Toropets, Cherepovets, Kostroma,and Gorkiy. Other GAGE/PATTY CAKE sites have been previously reported nearKotovo, Tushino, Vnukovo (also called the Vnukovo/ Akutovo site andOdintsovo site), and Salarevo, on an approximate 14 nm radius around Moscow. If these sites are part of aring on a radius of 14 nm from Moscow, then at least three more sites would be expected.
The goal of an integrated national system was established and adhered to. During the 1950s weapon systems for Soviet air defense were in a substantial transition: jet fighters entered the operational inventory quickly and quantity production backed the growing requirements of this component as the primary arm of PVO Strany. The systematic but accelerated development and deployment of a national radar warning and surveillance network was being advanced by a sustained effort and, while AAA guns continued as primary ground-based weapon systems, surface-to-air missile development progressed to the point of beginning an operational deployment. Command and control needed to provide an effective, flexible, coordinated yet centralized direction and employment of the various components developed concurrently with the growth of the overall system.
Soviet emphasis on quantitative solutions to air defense problems and technological limitations probably represented a combination of predisposition and experience. Traditional predilection for defense, Great Patriotic War experience, and a doctrinal, strategic preference to have a reliable, self-contained capacity for security were in keeping with the work of an effective strategy: concentration. Genuine fear and a sense of inferiority gave impetus to the program, at least under the circumstances of the U.S. nuclear monopoly.
Soviet decisions probably built on a worst-case basis yet obviously were influenced by assessments of conditions of a future war. There is, however, little evidence to reflect Soviet air defense developments during the decade being directly responsive to decisions concerning strategic weapon systems. The clear and overriding purpose of Soviet air defense during the decade was to "protect the homeland." Along with the growth of a substantial force for the purpose, Soviet air defense at the end of the period had solid acceptability and, in PVO Strany, an able, central institutional advocate for agreed programs to improve the defense of the homeland. In marked contrast to the Americans, the Soviets rarely criticized decisions; open criticism was lacking. The extensive Soviet efforts for air defense became part of the integrated national air defense program and tended to complement other commitments for "protection of the homeland."
Early Soviet commitment to national air defense represented a basic long-term strategic choice. Military requirements had to be supported because, despite the severe economic strain they entailed, the U.S.S.R. was strategically very vulnerable. The U.S. nuclear monopoly was a central fact influencing the Soviet overall strategy; national air defense complemented their forced-draft nuclear developments and concepts for defense against a threat from Europe.
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